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.

On Monday, June 6, 2022, Veronica F. Cook, Executive Program Director (far right) proudly represented the UConn Supplier Diversity Program (USDP) in Grapevine, Texas, at the first in-person Annual Meeting of the National Association of Educational Procurement (NAEP) since Covid began. The University of Connecticut was part of a panel discussion along with Pennsylvania State University, Metropolitan Community College, and Grand Valley State University (from far left to right). Cook has recently served as co-chair on both the NAEP DEI Committee and the Supplier Diversity Sub-Committee.