On Aug. 29, Oakland University held its 2023 Exemplary Employee Award Recognition ceremony wherein Dr. Deirdre Pitts, an associate dean for Faculty and Staff Affairs at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine (OUWB) was an honorary recipient of the Monica E. Emerson Diversity Award.
The award nomination comes with feelings of great pride and honor, according to Pitts.
Pitts has been with OU since starting as a temporary employee in 2010. Just a year later, she was hired on permanently, joining the OUWB School of Medicine.
“I have truly enjoyed working at Oakland University. It has been a source of both personal and professional growth for me,” Pitts said.
While Pitts has found great joy in her career through building a safe community space where students and faculty could come together and share their experiences, there have also been some hardships.
“The biggest challenge of my career was navigating the social unrest that was initially triggered by the murder of George Floyd during his arrest by Minneapolis police officers on May 25, 2020,” Pitts said.
The tragic event occurred only a few months after she began her role as interim associate dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs and Diversity and Inclusion. The deeply painful and unjust occurrence proved to be a challenge for Pitts since providing moral support to others was a struggle in itself.
Pitts believed this challenging time in her career helped her grow personally and professionally.
“Ironically, this time was also the most rewarding as I was able to build community,” Pitts said.
Her ability to create a warm and welcoming environment did not go unnoticed. On a drive home from work one day, Pitts received a call that brought her to tears.
This call was from a lifelong friend Glenn McIntosh, the senior vice president for Student Affairs and Chief Diversity Officer at OU.
“He [Glenn] told me that he had great news and shared that I had won the award,” Pitts said.
Upon hearing the news, Pitts and her mother were moved to tears.
The form of systemic change sought out by Pitts and many of the individuals working beside her is not something that happens overnight.
Progress towards diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) takes courage and strength to fight for, something Pitts has an abundance of. Many lives have been positively impacted by the work of Pitts and her colleagues.
At the award ceremony, President Ora Hirsch Pescovitz encouraged recipients to put their awards someplace special. Pitts decided to place her award in her office in Oakland as a reminder of the collaborative work it took to get to this moment.
Since the beautiful moment she accepted the award, Pitts has received an overwhelming amount of messages from family and friends alike.
“I can’t even count how many ‘congratulations, so proud of you, you’re awesome’ messages I received. It has truly been a humbling experience,” Pitts said.
Pitts continues to make OU a welcoming place for everyone.
Without her hard work and dedication, many diversity programs would not have been possible. Pitts is working tirelessly to maintain a positive change with more inclusivity and compassion.
yousef • Oct 11, 2023 at 3:44 PM
DEI is a moral abomination. It purports to help those who cannot help themselves and by doing so infantilizes entire groups of people. It casts doubt on the achievements and merits of members of those groups because it will forever be ambiguous if the achievement of that person within that group legitimately merited that achievement or was given that achievement by some DEI initiative.
lets look at SFA V Harvard. Asians were ruthlessly discriminated against to the point where the gap between asians and other minorities admitted to programs was insane. other minorities were 3-4 times more likely to be admitted than their equivalently qualified Asian counterparts.
Would you want a doctor that was only a doctor because of a college and medical school diversity program? Do you want the best neurosurgeon poking at your brain or a diversity hire? Do you want the best heart surgeon or a diversity hire heart surgeon? DEI would have these positions filled with an “equity” lense. If there aren’t enough surgeons of color then that must mean the medical industrial complex is racist and oppressive right?
What about engineering? do you want the best engineers designing roads and bridges or should we let the DEI fiends into the hiring process? dont you increase the risk of hiring non qualified candidates by giving credence to a non-meritorious immutable characteristic?
DEI is a racist grift .it justifies worthless positions like Chief Diversity Officers (Bishops of the DEI Cult imo), wastes money on consultants, and poisons the minds of young people into identifying with a racial group.
DEI creates hostile work environments where members of the “out” groups have to walk on eggshells and increases the risk of an internal incident by associating with members of the “in group”. think about this for a moment. if your workplace is poisoned with constant DEI cult religious worship and all you want to do is make and design widgets to sell and make money. If you have some coworkers that are committed cultists are you going to want to work with them knowing they can be offended over almost anything any day of the week? Isnt it safer for your career to avoid mentoring and associating with them due to the increased risk to your career? How does this help anyone?