Jane Irungu starts work as first VP of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
When Jane Irungu moved from Kenya to Kansas and first started working in higher education, she realized how many inequities and challenges there are for women in college, especially immigrants and women of color.
“I could see that people are treating me sometimes almost like I don’t belong,” Irungu said. “I thought, why? Why am I being treated as if I don’t belong? I’m a hardworking person. I am putting all the energy through school. I’m raising a family. Why do people feel that I cannot succeed here or I’m not worthy of success? And that is when my mind flipped.”
Irungu said she decided to work so hard that others would realize no matter where people come from, what their gender is or what language they speak, anyone can succeed.
“And because I would have loved for somebody to tell me that, I decided I will be that person who is going to say that,” she said.
On July 1, Irungu started work as the first vice president of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, or DEI, at Utah State University.
Irungu was born in Kenya, where she was the first person in her family and the first woman in her village to attend high school. After high school, she received her bachelor’s degree in education and worked as a high school teacher and principal.
Irungu moved to Kansas to attend graduate school in 1997. Since getting both her master’s degree and PhD in higher education administration at the University of Kansas, she has held various positions relating to diversity, equity and inclusion, most recently working as the associate provost of inclusive excellence at the University of Oklahoma before moving to Logan.
USU started the search to fill the new vice president position in October 2021. Irungu was hired in May and began work in July.
Irungu said starting the position from scratch is both challenging and exciting — challenging because she has to think about every detail and exciting because she gets to set the vision for the position.
“I’m looking at the inaugural position as an opportunity to create and implement a vision that has spoken to me now, and in the past, that this is good work, that culture change is good,” Irungu said. “It’s hard work, but it can impact generations, so for me it is really about valuing cultural change and valuing the impact that education that is well presented and has all these pieces — the DEI pieces — is very good education because we are preparing students for global interconnectedness.”
Irungu said one of her primary responsibilities in this position is to advance the three goals outlined in the DEI strategic plan and provide guidance on how to implement them both inside and outside the classroom.
The first of these goals is to make sure USU has an inclusive and equitable campus climate, which includes working with students, staff and faculty to create a sense of belonging on campus through education on cultural competency, intercultural awareness and antiracism.
The second goal is the recruitment and retention of a diverse student body.
“The United States is diverse or is going to be increasingly diverse, even in the 10-20 years to come,” Irungu said. “Utah in itself is changing in demographics. The multicultural population is growing in Utah, so how do we recruit those diverse people but also recruit students who want to come here and bring different perspectives?”
After these students are recruited to USU, Irungu said it’s also important to create support systems to help students “persist from the first year to the final year.”
The third goal is the recruitment and retention of a diverse faculty and staff.
“Representation is everything, so we want to hire diverse faculty, diverse staff,” Irungu said. “We want to encourage our colleges to have the recruitment plans to pursue excellence, good talent, so that we can bring people to USU. We want to make sure that our students can see themselves in the faculty.”
Irungu also has her own goals outside of the strategic plan. One of her immediate goals is to create a DEI council with a faculty and staff member from each college, including representatives from statewide campuses.
There will also be a student representative on the council, and Irungu said she encourages the student leadership at USU to create a diversity council of their own to articulate their own priorities.
“Students are your eyes and ears on the ground right there,” Irungu said. “You may say, ‘Oh, USU is like that.’ But the students will tell you, ‘This is how I’m experiencing it.’ So I intend to have regular meetings with student groups, with student government because I want them to know that their voice is important, that their voice is valued.”
Irungu’s other immediate goal is to scan the environment at USU to see what efforts are already in place and how they can be improved, as well as making sure different groups on campus are working together.
Several groups will move under the umbrella of the DEI division, including the Inclusion Center, the Disability Resource Center, the Latinx Cultural Center, and the Center for Diversity and Inclusion at USU Eastern.
Cameron West, the diversity and inclusion coordinator at USU Eastern, said he’s excited to collaborate with Irungu.
“We always talk about being an Aggie family, and that, to me, is what Dr. Irungu and this whole collaboration is all about,” West said. “It’s becoming a family and becoming truly an Aggie family that expands throughout the statewide system more than it ever has before.”
West said because statewide campuses like USU Eastern and USU Blanding have a lot of diversity, it’s important that students across the statewide campuses have access to the resources of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
“We’re not just a singular location somewhere,” West said. “We’re not just three residential campuses. We’re 30 different campuses, sites and centers across the state, and what she is all about is the statewide system.”
Irungu said she wants people to understand that change doesn’t come immediately. She knows the work won’t be easy, but she is happy to support the vision of inclusion and equity.
“Whether it’s in the teaching, the research, the service, whether it’s student groups or students inside the classroom or outside, we really just have to be patient and consistently make sure that these best practices in inclusion are being practiced in everything we do,” Irungu said. “That is how change comes.”
— darcy.ritchie@usu.edu