UConn’s Supplier Diversity Program (USDP) was recently mentioned in the initial draft of the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill’s “Proposed Strategic Plan for the UNC System to Increase Utilization of Historically Underutilized Businesses”.  This proposal highlighted UNC’S research results taken from interviews of different institutions, with the following key elements being attributed to UConn and others as examples of best practices:

• Provide explicit, enthusiastic, and evergreen top-down support
• Dedicate staffing and resources to supplier diversity
• Empower university purchasers as economic changemakers
• Celebrate successes

In a recent review of 114 New England higher education institutions (HEI) websites, Northeastern Lab for Inclusive Entrepreneurship discovered that only 12 had dedicated supplier diversity websites.  Of the 12 they noted three (3) examples of websites that “do an excellent job of incorporating and organizing information for diverse suppliers. These sites make a point of welcoming DSBs into their procurement system”:  University of Connecticut, Drexel University, and University of South Florida.  The full  report can be accessed here.

UConn’s Supplier Diversity Program has once again been featured in the NAEP Educational Procurement Journal (Spring 2023), for co-authoring an article entitled “Campus Procurement Helps to Advance Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”, in collaboration with 3 other institutions:  Penn Sate University, Grand Valley State University, and University of San Diego. Click here to read the article and learn about the thoughtful supplier diversity work being done on our respective campuses.