Central Connecticut’s Office of Diversity and Equity will finally have new leadership this summer in Dr. Nancy Barceló, according to an email from President Dr. Zulma Toro sent out to the campus community Thursday morning.

“I am confident Dr. Barceló will be an excellent agent for change at Central as we implement our 15-point Action Plan to Change CCSU Campus Culture,” Dr. Toro wrote in her email.

Barceló’s interim hiring comes after Dr. Toro’s “reengineering” of the ODE outed former Chief Diversity Officer Rosa Rodriguez last year following revelations that Rodriguez and her predecessors were “not welcoming or friendly, and in some cases intimidating and/or lacking follow through” on serious misconduct complaints, including those against former Theater Professors Joshua Perlstein and Thom Delventhal.

Dr. Toro wrote in her email Thursday morning that Barceló’s experience working as a diversity consultant at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she “led an external review and worked with the University’s chancellor to, among other initiatives, overhaul its sexual harassment policies and implement a new diversity plan,” would be well-used at CCSU.

“We will work together to do what is necessary to transform our campus into a safe environment for all and to restore faith and pride in Connecticut’s oldest public institution of higher education,” Dr. Toro said.