The evolving role of the chief diversity officer
Alexa Silverman, Senior Director, Student Experience and Well-Being Research Lilia Shea, Research Analyst
As higher education institutions across the United States place a renewed focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ), demand for chief diversity officers (CDOs) has accelerated. Over 120 U.S. colleges and universities advertised job postings for CDOs across December 2020 to November 2021 (compared to 70 job postings from 2019 to 2020), indicating a growing need for qualified professionals.
As the role expands from a mid-level director position to a senior-level position with an institution-wide portfolio, hiring—and retaining—the right CDO is proving a challenge. EAB research consistently highlights how even senior-level CDO roles often lack the infrastructure and authority to impact campus culture. High turnover in the CDO position also illuminates the significant pressures, heavy workload, and emotional responsibilities of the role.
As institutions prepare to hire a CDO, they must take into account the broad scope, high pressure, and sensitivity of the role. Leaders must identify the right scope and resources to best set up the CDO for success in advancing institutional DEIJ goals and priorities.
Common barriers to success in the CDO role
As the CDO role evolves from a mid-level position focused on student affairs or human resources to one with an institution-wide portfolio, the responsibilities, workload, and community expectations continue to grow. CDOs frequently cite the overwhelming pressure to be involved in every aspect of DEIJ as one of the greatest challenges of the role.
During EAB’s conversations with 25+ chief diversity officers at U.S. institutions, we identified four common challenges that prevented CDOs from leading widespread institutional change and frequently led to CDOs’ decision to step down from the role.
Four challenges preventing CDOs from leading institutional change
1. Lack of strategic DEIJ focus
Is there a strategic plan already in place at the institution that identifies a specific set of institutional priorities around DEIJ, or will the new CDO need to start from scratch?
According to research by WittKieffer, only 16% of profiled CDOs in higher education reported a pre-existing DEIJ strategic plan upon beginning their role. A lack of strategic plan may not represent a significant barrier to a new CDO, with one CDO referring to it as “low-hanging fruit” for a newcomer. However, institutions preparing to hire a CDO without any existing strategic framework should search for individuals with significant strategic planning expertise and should ensure the CDO is supported with adequate resources and staff to facilitate the development of the plan.
2. Lack of authority
Can the CDO rely on structures and processes to encourage and enforce progress towards DEIJ goals at the institution, particularly among the faculty?
While the CDO role can encompass staff, students, the community, and faculty, the latter may represent the greatest opportunity for on-campus change. As one CDO describes it, “while the students come and go, the people are the culture.”
Faculty, who define curriculum and serve as role models and mentors to diverse students, play a key role in the campus climate. However, CDOs often face pushback from faculty and may struggle to gain influence over decisions that have historically been the domain of the faculty, such as hiring or tenure decisions and curricular changes. While the CDO should not be solely responsible for these decisions, the CDO perspective is often necessary to ensure these decisions are made with a DEIJ lens.
Institutions looking to bring about change at the academic unit level should ensure that faculty are informed of and committed to DEIJ changes (such as adjusting course curricula, participating in anti-bias trainings, and supporting diverse voices). In order to have sufficient authority over all academic units, the CDO role should be a vice presidential-level position with a direct reporting line to the president. Additionally, a CDO with an academic background, such as a Ph.D. and experience in teaching and research at other institutions, will have greater authority and influence over faculty.
3. Lack of accountability
How will the CDO measure unit-level DEIJ progress?
Strategic initiatives and goals may serve as progress towards a more welcoming and diverse climate, but only if individual campus units are held accountable for these goals. The CDO should be provided with benchmark data and staff or resources to measure the success of initiatives on campus.
CDOs stress the importance of tracking key DEIJ metrics (e.g., student diversity and retention rates, number of faculty hired from historically marginalized groups and their average time to tenure, number of bias incidents reported on campus) and being able to analyze that data. If possible, compile past data to ensure the incoming CDO can adequately baseline initiatives. To assess past and future data, the new CDO should either have analytical expertise or be supported by a designated staff member with data and assessment skills.
4. Lack of funding/support for DEIJ initiatives
Will the CDO have adequate funding and staffing to concentrate on strategic measures?
When interviewing CDOs about their greatest challenges, we heard again and again that CDOs are not given a budget commensurate with the goals they are expected to achieve or the priority placed by the institution on DEIJ work. At some institutions, CDOs need to fundraise for almost every dollar. At other institutions, CDOs have funding for staff and specific initiatives, but lack an operating budget.
This prevents them from responding flexibly to new challenges or needs at the institution, can cause the CDO role to appear as a purely-symbolic investment without any real commitment, and is one of the most common reasons CDOs leave to work at another institution.
Not only does the lack of a budget place very practical constraints on the CDO, it also devalues DEIJ work at institutions. While the CDO is often (correctly) at the vice president level, they generally are not given the same resources as a chief financial officer or other VP.
Four things presidents should do before hiring a CDO
1. Consistently communicate that improving DEIJ is an institutional imperative
Before hiring a CDO, institutional leaders must ensure that the campus community understands the importance of DEIJ to their institution’s future. Before hiring a CDO, presidents and provosts need to ensure that their institutions are ready to embrace DEIJ initiatives and understand the role of the CDO in DEIJ work, and to prepare to reinforce the CDO’s messaging in the face of inevitable backlash to progressive initiatives.
Many faculty and staff may see DEIJ as purely a central institutional priority, separate or detached from the work that they do. Others may believe that DEIJ should not be a focus area for the institution at all. While there will always be dissenters on campus, in order for a CDO to have the mandate to make changes at the institution, the majority of the campus community must understand the importance of DEIJ work to the institutional mission.
For example, many presidents have issued statements of institutional commitment to antiracism, added DEIJ goals to their institutional strategic plans, and/or created diversity dashboards with publicly-available metrics that convey the institution’s accountability to the community at large.
2. Clearly define the role of the CDO as a strategic leader—not the sole owner of DEIJ
In some cases, faculty and staff believe that the CDO holds sole responsibility for all DEIJ initiatives. Alternatively, they may view the CDO as a compliance role, responsible only for intervening after a policy violation. Still others see the CDO only as an advisor who gives input on decisions but does not lead or craft strategy themself. None of these beliefs prepares departments and units to successfully partner with CDOs.
The CDO is not responsible for achieving institutional DEIJ goals alone. Instead, presidents need to introduce the position as a thought partner, a resource, and a strategic leader for the rest of campus. They should designate high-level roles in academic and administrative offices responsible for collaborating with the CDO to cascade DEIJ goals down to the individual unit level. They should also underscore that the CDO is there to help individual units improve DEIJ, rather than to police them or punish them for failing.
For example, presidents can discuss with faculty how the CDO can work with them to better support students of color and improve student success. This type of positive, supportive framing of the CDO helps ensure units and departments utilize the CDO office effectively and can preempt potential pushback from more change-averse faculty and staff.
Institutional leaders must also define the CDO role for the incoming CDO. Several CDOs who spoke with EAB mentioned that institutions hired them without a clearly-defined idea of what they wanted the CDO to accomplish. When this occurs, CDOs must spend the first several months of their tenure defining their job before they can move on to actually implementing projects or initiatives to improve institutional DEIJ. Before bringing in a CDO, institutions should have at least some DEIJ goals to give structure to the role and narrow its scope.
3. Ensure the CDO has appropriate budget and staffing for a vice president
The next key step institutions need to take before hiring a CDO is ensuring that the office will be adequately staffed and resourced. DEIJ is an imperative for higher education institutions, and it should be funded like one, both in order to support initiatives and staffing as well as allow the CDO to focus their attention outside of fundraising.
Though funding is tight for higher education, CDOs need the kind of budget for staff, office space, resources, and operations similar to other cabinet level leaders. Before hiring a CDO, it is important to allocate funding to support their office and benchmark the CDO’s budget against the resources for other cabinet-level roles at your institution.
4. Prepare to have tough conversations and make difficult changes
CDOs are hired to address structural issues of racism and social injustice, and fully addressing these issues requires making significant structural change. Therefore, presidents themselves need to be ready to support the CDO and make difficult changes to the university. They need to be prepared to potentially restructure campus units, make difficult personnel decisions, implement strategic directions that may be unpopular or polarizing among the board and alumni, and take a stand on DEIJ flashpoints.
When presidents fail to support the CDO and embrace a strategic vision of a more diverse, inclusive, equitable and just institution, there is little the CDO can do to overcome institutional inertia or resistance to DEIJ-related changes on their own. CDOs without the support of their president are much more likely to burn out, leave the institution, or fail to make any meaningful improvements on institutional DEIJ metrics.
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Paving a path for success
Six essential elements for CDO success
1. Make the CDO a vice president with a direct reporting line to the president
From our conversations with CDOs across the country, it becomes clear that not only are more CDOs reporting to the president, but that this reporting line is increasingly important to help CDOs succeed in their role of advancing DEIJ strategy. One CDO at a state flagship university told EAB that the CDO should be “the president’s right hand” and serve in a role similar to a chief operating officer, with direct oversight over institutional policy and initiatives.
CDOs should not only report to the president but should also have a vice president title. At more than one institution EAB spoke to, the CDO was currently the only person on the cabinet without a VP title, and it negatively affected how they were seen by other institutional leaders and how effective they could be.
At institutions where the CDO did not have a vice president title, most CDOs reported that they were in the process of getting approval for that title either for themselves or a future CDO hire. Only one CDO preferred the vice provost title, at an institution where the provost served as a “buffer” between the CDO and a particularly activist board of trustees.
2. Include the CDO in critical conversations on DEIJ
Presidents can also highlight the importance of DEIJ by ensuring CDOs are regularly included in institutional decision-making. When preparing to onboard a CDO, presidents should send them invites to all major meetings and discussions of university strategy.
3. Help the CDO focus on DEIJ strategy by delegating middle management and training to direct reports
The CDO office needs to be appropriately staffed to support the work the CDO is asked to accomplish. Unfortunately, institutions of all sizes fail to provide sufficient staff to their CDOs, leaving them ineffective, burned out, and unhappy.
If CDOs attempt to do everything themselves, either the CDO is severely overworked, with a poor work/life balance, or the CDO is unable to accomplish their goals. Because of this, CDOs have an extremely high attrition rate: one contact estimated that the average tenure for a CDO was only three years. Anecdotally, it is not uncommon for CDOs leave an institution after less than a year in seat.
Large, organizationally-complex institutions should hire a deputy CDO or associate vice president/provost
The deputy CDO takes on middle-management responsibilities to free the CDO to work on higher-level DEIJ strategy. Many institutions designate a deputy to specialize in working with students, faculty, and/or staff; for example, one deputy CDO could oversee multicultural student centers while another could liaise with HR and academic affairs. Large, multi-campus institutions often designate a deputy for each satellite or branch campus.
As demand for DEIJ training grows, most institutions should hire a director of diversity education
The director of diversity education develops and provides DEIJ trainings and educational materials for faculty, staff, and students. While some institutions outsource this role, Miguel Fernandez, former CDO at Middlebury University, told EAB that having a single, internal point-of-contact provided more consistency and connection across diversity trainings at Middlebury. Dr. Fernandez was able to fund half of the director’s salary just with the money saved from no longer having to hire external consults to support the demand for DEIJ trainings.
4. Identify specialists in the CDO office or distributed units to oversee DEIJ fundraising, communications and data analysis
CDOs also identified several areas where institutions need to hire specialized staff to support DEIJ work, most commonly in fundraising, communications, and data analysis. Some institutions choose to locate these roles in the CDO’s office itself, while others designate an individual in a centralized institutional office (advancement, communications, institutional research).
Grantwriter or fundraiser ensures sufficient resources to carry out DEIJ goals
To ensure sufficient funding for the CDO office itself as well as individual DEIJ initiatives and priorities, institutions need to designate an individual who will focus on raising funds for DEIJ. Typically, this role is housed in the office of advancement, with a dotted-line reporting line to the CDO to ensure alignment on priorities.
Director of communication aligns messaging with institutional DEIJ priorities
A director of DEIJ communications oversees communications for the CDO office, including developing a communications strategy and creating content for the CDO office, addressing campus climate flashpoints when they occur, informing the broader community members about campus response, engaging with alumni, and responding to feedback or criticisms of DEIJ initiatives.
Communication is a key aspect of the CDO role at most institutions, as CDOs need to effectively and clearly inform the campus community about new initiatives and policies. This is especially true at large, highly-selective institutions, or those that expect significant pushback around DEIJ initiatives from stakeholders such as alumni and board members.
As with fundraising, many institutions house this position in the office of university communications, with a dotted line to the CDO; though a direct reporting line to the CDO can guarantee that messaging is steeped in DEIJ expertise and closely aligned with the DEIJ strategic plan.
There is an increasing need for data analysts as institutions seek to demonstrate meaningful DEIJ progress
A data analyst in the CDO’s office or institutional research office collects, analyzes, and reports on DEIJ data, and assists with developing metrics to measure progress on key DEIJ priorities. While most CDOs need basic data literacy skills, the typical CDO is not well-versed in using data analysis software, creating data visualization, or more advanced data analysis techniques. A data analyst provides more specialized knowledge of these areas.
Use shared positions in centralized offices to distribute responsibility for DEIJ across the institution
Housing shared positions within different offices, sometimes with a dotted line up to the CDO, distributes responsibility for DEIJ throughout the institution, reduces administrative redundancy, and ensures that staff are evaluated by someone who understands their work (e.g., fundraising) not just DEIJ.
House staff within the CDO office to highlight the importance of DEIJ at the institution
On the other hand, including all staff directly within the CDO office ensures that staff can fully dedicate themselves to DEIJ-related work and won’t be pulled away by other institutional priorities. It also allows DEIJ staff to collaborate more closely across different areas such as communications and fundraising. Finally, aligning CDO staffing with other offices reporting to the president can help underscore the importance of DEIJ work at the institution.
5. Create structures to embed responsibility for DEIJ across the institution
While the CDO and their office set the vision for DEIJ initiatives on campus and serve as a central leader for institutional DEIJ, the whole campus needs to be involved in DEIJ efforts in order to make real progress. The CDO cannot themself improve diversity across the entire institution, given the decentralized nature of decision-making at a university: for example, they cannot directly recruit more diverse students, faculty, and staff; create inclusive curricula; or update tenure and promotion policy to reflect faculty’s contributions to institutional DEIJ.
Instead, the CDO’s role is to provide training and resources to help other departments and units build capacity to do DEIJ work themselves. To do so, institutions should create structures to embed responsibility for DEIJ across the institution.
6. Consider CDO skill set and experience when deciding whether compliance is part of their portfolio
At some institutions, compliance functions (e.g., Title IX, Title VII, ADA) fall under the CDO. Among the CDOs who spoke with EAB, no clear consensus emerged as to the ideal location of compliance. Some CDOs specifically desired to separate compliance from the CDO role, noting that compliance is the lowest level of DEIJ allowed by law, and wanting the CDO role to be focused on elevating DEIJ beyond that level.
However, some CDOs felt that including compliance within their portfolio made it clear that addressing issues of discrimination and sexual assault were an important part of DEIJ efforts. They also noted that placing compliance under Risk or HR could signal to complainants that they are seen primarily as a potential liability by the university. Sheri Schwab at NC State University told EAB that including compliance under the CDO role allows the office to offer wrap-around support to students or staff who have encountered a compliance issue.
Despite these differing opinions, CDOs did agree on one point regarding compliance: if an institution chooses to include compliance under the CDO portfolio, the CDO must have a legal background. Without a clear understanding of the law, it is easy for CDOs to potentially mishandle compliance issues, causing serious legal liabilities for the institution.
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Establishing an organizational structure that works
EAB’s analysis of CDO job postings: Key skills and emerging trends
To assess labor market demand and highly-sought skills for CDOs, EAB analyzed labor market data using Emsi. A review of online openings for the title “Chief Diversity Officer” within the educational services industry from December 2018 to November 2021 found a total of 227 job postings. EAB assessed demand for specific skills by selecting job postings within the CDO title that contained keyword references to data-related skills and conflict management.
1. Collaboration and strategic planning experience are must-haves
CDOs spearhead initiatives that encompass all areas of higher education, including student affairs, academic affairs, community engagement, and work with the Board of Trustees. As a result, positions typically require a minimum of 5-7 years of experience.
Specifically, candidates need to have administrative experience, a background in strategic planning, to have previously managed managers (such as unit directors), and to be well versed in collaborating across disparate units without direct reporting lines.
Given the nuances of working with faculty and students, job postings overwhelmingly call for candidates to have specific experience working in higher education.
2. A Ph.D. is not a pre-requisite but can help with faculty rapport
Job descriptions for CDOs typically require a master’s degree, with preference for candidates with a terminal or doctorate degree in their field.
The nature of the degree required may depend on the institution’s goals and the intended responsibilities of the CDO. For example, a CDO with a J.D. or compliance experience would highly benefit a diversity and inclusion office that oversees Title IX.
While CDOs profiled in this research came from a mixture of faculty and administrative backgrounds, none of the job postings analyzed specifically called for academics.
Additionally, while some interviewed CDOs noted that having a Ph.D. helped build rapport and credibility with faculty, the majority made clear that having administrative experience was more important given the scope of the role. For example, several CDOs had Ph.D.s in areas such as higher education leadership as well as several years of experience directing administrative units.
3. Growing demand for data skills and conflict resolution experience
Institutions hiring their first CDO should either require analytical experience from candidates, create a DEIJ role in the office of institutional research, or staff their CDO office with an experienced data professional.
Job postings for CDOs referencing data or analytical abilities increased 54% on average per year from 2018 to 2021 (from 28 job postings in 2019 to 33 job postings in 2020 and 63 job postings in 2021). In the last year, over half (52%) of CDO job postings referenced such skills.
CDOs interviewed for this research attested to the importance of data in their work, with one CDO emphasizing the need for DEIJ work to be “visible” to students and stakeholders (e.g., through data dashboards or annual reports on key DEIJ statistics such as BIPOC student retention or faculty diversity).
Appendix: Findings from EAB review of CDO org charts
Methodology: To help institutions benchmark their CDO offices, staff, and reporting structures against peers, EAB reviewed the websites of 45 institutions with chief diversity officers. Of the 45 institutions we examined, 30 had a clear organizational chart for the CDO office.
Among those institutions, EAB identified common trends in CDO office staffing and units included under the CDO portfolio. Our sample of institutions represents a relatively even spread of size, institution control, and geographic location. Below are a few of our key findings:
1. Most CDOs report directly to the president
Based on EAB’s review of organizational charts:
- 67% of CDOs report to the president
- 20% report to the provost
- CDOs reporting to the president is most common agnostic of institution type.
The remaining 13% of CDOs primarily report to other positions at the vice president level.
2. Most CDOs oversee student-facing offices, with fewer overseeing faculty/staff facing compliance functions
Every CDO EAB spoke to for this research had components of their role that focused on students, faculty, and staff. EAB’s review of org charts indicates that these roles are largely executed through dotted-line reporting lines rather than the CDO office’s staffing itself, especially in the case of employee policy and procedures:
- 62% of CDOs oversee either multicultural centers or centers/programs supporting specific groups of marginalized students (Black students, women, LGBTQ+ students, Native American students, etc.).
- 33% oversee Title IX and/or Equity and Compliance
3. CDO offices are chronically understaffed
The vast majority of CDO offices have an executive assistant, but far fewer have direct reports in director-level roles or above, or in specialized functions:
- 79% of CDO offices have an executive assistant
- 36% have a deputy CDO or associate vice president
- 30% have a Director of Diversity Education or Training
- 18% have advancement or grant writing staff
- 14% have communications staff
4. CDO staff headcount correlates with institution size, with otherwise few differences in COD office composition by institution type
Institution type appears to have relatively little impact on the staffing and structure of CDO offices, with a few exceptions:
- Larger institutions are more likely to have any of the above staff than smaller institutions.
- Large public institutions (>5,000 students) are more likely to have a deputy CDO or associate vice president than private ones. 60% percent of large public institutions had a deputy CDO, compared to only 33% of large private institutions.
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