'She really understands students': Meet UNC's interim chief diversity officer

Sibby Anderson-Thompkins will serve as the University's interim chief diversity officer, a position that has been vacant for almost a year. 

Anderson-Thompkins will also serve as special adviser to the chancellor and provost for equity and inclusion in a unique joint position within the chancellor and provost's cabinet.

The chief diversity officer and adviser is to be an outward-facing individual within the University, with lots of opportunity to engage with people on campus, Provost Bob Blouin said. 

Anderson-Thompkins' role will give her access to many of UNC’s leaders, Blouin said, which will help her develop connections and strategies between UNC’s departments. 

“I don’t think that she’ll be spending too much time in her office,” Blouin said. “I think she’ll be spending a lot of time in other people’s offices and other environments in front of all of our community constituents, and that includes students.”

The University needs a different approach to building diversity and inclusion on campus, Blouin said, and Anderson-Thompkins can help UNC move forward. 

In the interim position, Anderson-Thompkins said she will be putting together systems to build an infrastructure that will support the work of a vice provost and chief diversity officer as the University searches for a permanent candidate.

“So as you know, we’ve always had a chief diversity officer in the past,” she said. “And having been without a chief diversity officer for a year, during a critical time for the University, I think the senior leadership recognized how important this role is.”

Anderson-Thompkins will develop strategic partnerships and relationships for her office and then share them with faculty, staff, and students on campus, Blouin said. 

She also said that she will be working closely with the Campus Safety Commission and the Commission on History, Race and a Way Forward to help senior leadership take the groups' recommendations and turn them into action. 

Blouin has worked with Anderson-Thompkins through the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and her involvement in the post-doctoral program, where she helped create a pipeline of research and tenure-track students from underrepresented groups.

“She has a good relationship already with our community, and I don’t say that lightly,” Blouin said. “She really understands students.”

Anderson-Thompkins said she has a long history of advocacy and supporting student, post-docs and early career faculty. She was a Black student activist, Black alumni member and president of The Black Student Movement. 

“I think what I’m most excited about is helping the institution that I really love and care about, as a former student and alum, move through a very difficult period in our history,” Anderson-Thompkins said. “I’m hoping that I can be a bridge builder — bring people together and really ensure that people feel that they've been heard, listened to and that we are going to be moving to taking some steps to really transform and change our community."

Anderson-Thompkins has an open-door policy with her post-doc students, she said, and is continuing that policy in her new position by inviting students to drop by with any input.

Chris Suggs, a junior and the president of The Black Student Movement, said he is optimistic about Anderson-Thompkins as interim chief diversity officer.

“I think it’s long overdue for us to finally have a new chief (diversity) officer to the University,” Suggs said. “I believe that a lot of the issues that we faced on campus came from an overall lack of direction in diversity and inclusion in our Diversity and Inclusion Office.”

He said he is looking forward to working directly with Anderson-Thompkins and believes in the importance of partnership between University administrators and BSM, Black Congress and other minority student groups. 

Thompkins began her new role on Feb. 24. A national search for a permanent vice chancellor for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer will begin in the coming weeks, according to The Well, a UNC-affiliated news outlet.

Blouin said he and Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz learned the importance of engaging UNC’s community more over the past nine months through public forums.

"I believe this University needs somebody like Sibby to help us navigate and work through some of these challenging issues that our campus is facing,” Blouin said.

university@dailytarheel.com