Tweet

In March, University of the Pacific announced that Mary Wardell-Ghirarduzzi, the president of the San Francisco Public Library Commission and the vice provost of diversity and community engagement at the University of San Francisco, would become Pacific’s first vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion. 

President Christopher Callahan created the position in July 2020, soon after he joined the university, as part of a suite of initiatives to address social justice issues on the university’s campuses in Stockton, Sacramento and San Francisco. Wardell-Ghirarduzzi, who will assume her position July 1, is a Pacific alumna and brings more than two decades of experience in higher education and DEI leadership to the role. 

Comstock’s spoke to Wardell-Ghirarduzzi about what she plans to achieve at her alma mater and how the university can have a broader impact in the Northern California region. 

Can you tell me about your responsibilities and goals as the first vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion at University of the Pacific?

My work is going to take all the assets that Pacific has in its people, its programs, its status as a Northern California powerhouse — because I think it’s the only university that has a deep footprint in San Francisco, Sacramento and Stockton — it’s to take all of those things and really leverage the university’s multicultural aspects, as well as its research and curriculum.

And my goal is to help the institution really take it to the next level in what’s happening in the classroom, in coursework, in the curriculum itself, to ensure that we are educating students — undergraduate, graduate and professional students — who are prepared to go into the workforce with the mindset as well as the knowledge to engage a 21st-century understanding of what does inclusion mean.

They fundamentally will be the individuals who sit at the table, that can see the ways in which equity is not only fundamental for an organization, whether it’s for profit or it’s not for profit. They will understand that this is part of the way that they’re making the world a better place as well as contributing to society in new and different ways. …

For a profile on the director of legal clinics and professor of lawyering skills at McGeorge School of Law, click here.

If you really want to understand what are the health disparities as it relates to pharmacy and other health sciences, you’re going to want to go to (Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy or the School of Health Sciences in Stockton), because those schools are going to be thinking deeply about the health disparities that we all learned about, particularly in 2020, when the pandemic hit.

If you really want to go to a school that really is preparing you for thinking big about the possibilities in technology, the possibilities in policy, the possibilities in anything that they’re thinking about doing — even in the arts, we have the Conservatory of Music (in Stockton) — then this is going to be a place where the students are going to tackle some of that training that a lot of schools haven’t done. … And a lot of people that actually are working in their fields, they actually don’t know this really well. That’s a reason why so many people are trying to go back to school to get diversity, equity and inclusion certificates. …

For a Q&A with the co-director of the Water & Environmental Law program at McGeorge School of Law, click here.

I also want to help the institution think about our work in the community, particularly in the business community. … I think that Pacific could be a place to help a lot of the business leaders think about their equity and inclusion work. … I have a pretty good feeling that we can probably put together some type of discussions, dialogues, where Pacific is coupled up with industry leaders that are really doing really well in their equity and inclusion, couple them up with our faculty and have some conversations, or Pacific could be a place that can provide that professional development for the business community. 

This role was announced in 2020 along with a list of other initiatives to promote diversity, equity and inclusion on campus. Why was 2020 the year when all of this happened, and why is it so critical now?

The first thing was in March (2020), when we realized that we had a serious global pandemic on our hands. We wanted to shelter in place, those of us that could. We know that a lot of people were not able to do that, (such as) essential workers. … COVID exposed disparities that we’ve been seeing on the surface, via certain particular groups, particularly racialized groups, having different outcomes than others. …

For a guide to the ways businesses can help improve racial justice, click here.

So I think the same thing happened in institutions. … People show up at work, and they also feel the same things that they see are happening in society. And so I think what happened is that it provided an opportunity for anyone that’s leading an institution — and it doesn’t matter whether you’re university president, you lead a hospital, a not-for-profit, you lead a construction company, it doesn’t really matter: You need to say to yourself, “What do we, as an organization, need to look at?” …

The incidents of 2020 were not in isolation. They’re an accumulation of what I call marginalized experiences that people have, and 2020 just set up the right conditions for those things to not be tolerated anymore. 

What items on that list of initiatives are you especially looking forward to getting involved in?

One of the things that I think (Callahan) has done that is really great is that before my arrival, he asked the deans and the vice presidents to identify one person in every area to be the lead DEI person. This work is about duplication and replication. … My job is to replicate myself everywhere I go. You help people to learn, and then you give them the language, you give them the frameworks and change theories so then they can do the work where they’re located.

For a Q&A with University of the Pacific President Christopher Callahan, click here.

What does it feel like to be returning to your alma mater to take on this role?

I can’t tell you that it is not emotional, because it is. My trajectory was cemented because of the University of the Pacific. I’m a first-generation college grad. The people, the education, the things I got exposed to at Pacific totally changed everything for me, and it put me on the path that I have had.

I’m a nationally recognized leader in my area. I’ve worked with both corporate, as well as higher education leads, a lot of different CEOs and presidents. … And so it’s a big deal to kind of come home to the place where your undergrad experience was, in those beautiful ivy-covered brick buildings, and just come full circle. …

Christopher Callahan really has vision, and I want to work with people that are visionary. I believe I have vision too. … He knows that this is going to set Pacific apart. …

When people hear about the University of the Pacific, they’re going to think, “That campus has excellent diversity, that campus really excels.” And they will have proof, not just the representation — which is the people, in all the ways that we are diverse people — but that we all understand how to create a culture of deeper learning, and that we embed it in our curriculum, so that students are equipped with what they need when they go out in the world.

Edited for length and clarity.

–

Stay up to date on business in the Capital Region: Subscribe to the Comstock’s newsletter today.