To: Deans, Directors, and Department Heads
From: Jami Painter, Senior Associate Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer
The University of Illinois System strives to be an inclusive environment, which includes giving our employees the opportunity to specify their race/ethnicity. A new option has been added to My UI Info which will allow employees to indicate Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) as their race/ethnicity if they choose to identify as such. The same option is now also available in UI New Hire for new employees. System Human Resources will soon send a communication to all employees letting them know about the MENA option.
Note: While the university has added MENA to My UI Info, this value has not yet been adopted by the Federal government for regulatory reporting. For federal reporting purposes, employees who have identified themselves as MENA are classified in the “White” category and will be reported as such.
These changes have been made to the university’s employee systems. Updates to the university’s student systems will be communicated separately at the appropriate time.
Questions may be directed to SystemHRServices@uillinois.edu.