Marquette University will recruit up to nine faculty members during the 2018-’19 school year for its Race and Ethnic Studies program, the university announced in a news release Thursday.

The program was announced in 2017, when five faculty members were hired. Each scholar brings expertise in fields that contribute to the curriculum, the release said. 

The program is housed by Marquette’s College of Arts & Sciences. However, the release said the cluster hiring of faculty is a collaboration between the Office of the Provost, the College of Communication, the College of Education, and the College of Business Administration.

The RAES program supports interdisciplinary majors and minors in a number of fields. These include an Africana Studies major and minor, LatinX Studies minor, Arab and Muslim American Studies minor, Literatures of Diverse Cultures minor and Culture, Health and Illness minor.

Cluster hiring for the program involves recruiting scholars into one or more departments based on shared interdisciplinary research interests. This is not only helping to establish the RAES program, but also to advance faculty diversity, according to the release. This is a key priority of Beyond Boundaries, a strategic plan for Marquette’s future.

“To achieve diversity, equity and inclusive excellence at Marquette University, we must offer diverse areas of study, along with faculty whose backgrounds support it,” Acting Provost Kimo Ah Yun said. “We owe it to Marquette students to develop the best possible community of teachers and scholars on this important and complex topic, and these faculty represent this worthy initiative.”

According to the release, building a critical mass of scholars across disciplines at Marquette who study and teach about race, ethnicity and intersectionality — the ways in which systems of power and institutions impact marginalized populations — helps students within the community to understand and learn about societal change.