Kansas University is creating a task force to advise upcoming diversity efforts, and the university’s top athletics official will lead it along with an African and African-American Studies professor.

Incoming interim provost Sara Rosen announced in a message to campus Tuesday the creation of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Group.

At Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little’s request, athletics director Sheahon Zenger and associate professor and African and African-American Studies department chairman Clarence Lang agreed to co-chair the group, Rosen said.

Sheahon Zenger addresses the media during a press conference Monday Jan. 3, 2011, where he was introduced as the new Kansas University athletic director. Zenger signed a 4.5 year contract that started Feb. 1.

Clarence Lang

Zenger not only has a degree in higher education, Rosen said, but under his leadership KU Athletics already has a required diversity and inclusion training program that all athletes go through.

Making recommendations for campuswide diversity training is one of the new task force’s top goals, and looking at what KU Athletics does should be part of the process, Rosen said.

“We’d love to borrow from the expertise that anyone and everyone nationally and locally have. Of course, the difficult piece will be scaling up to the size of the university,” Rosen said.

Lang’s main research and teaching areas are African-American working-class and labor history, the Black Freedom Movement and black urban communities in the 20th century Midwest, according to his KU bio.

“This is an area of research for him,” Rosen said, “so he really does take a leadership role in the academic community on the issue of diversity and race.”

Rosen said she hopes to extend invitations to complete the committee next week.

Rosen called the new group’s charges “important first steps to build a more inclusive university that values academic freedom.”

In addition to diversity training, the group will look at incorporating diversity into curriculum; a campus strategic plan on diversity, equity and inclusion; and recruitment and retention of students, faculty and staff, Rosen said.

“There’s clearly an achievement gap,” she said. “There are a fair number of achievement gaps, and we really have to look at every single one of those and figure out how to close that gap.”

On each topic, Rosen said, the group also must identify critical pieces of implementation, such as identifying what people or units are responsible for which initiatives, timelines for action and metrics to measure success.

The provost’s office has created a website, provost.ku.edu/town-hall-concerns, which lists concerns raised at KU’s recent town hall forum on race, followed by information about what’s already in place or what’s planned for various areas.