A Roadmap To Inclusive Excellence

Goal 1: Create An Inclusive & Equitable Campus Community

Objective 1.1: Provide greater leadership, support, coordination, and oversight for university diversity and inclusion initiatives on the Logan campus, USU Eastern, statewide campuses, and centers.

• Create a new vice president position and office to integrate and maximize existing university systemwide resources and initiatives around diversity and inclusion. Create a phased approach for a new reporting structure (both formal and informal) for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work.
• Create an advisory board to support the efforts of the vice president for DEI and ensure implementation across the university system.
• Create an accountability structure in each administrative office and academic unit for meeting DEI goals.
• Evaluate resources, initiatives, trainings, and programs that promote and support diversity and inclusion efforts for unmet needs, particularly in light of the campus climate survey results.
• Provide educational opportunities to leadership teams on topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Review the Equity Lens Framework from the Utah System of Higher Education and consider a tailored framework for USU decision making.

Objective 1.2: Provide learning opportunities for students to develop multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills.

• Implement a diversity-related general education requirement, with attention to advancing knowledge, supporting skills building, and enhancing self-awareness.
• Develop a strategy for diversity education for graduate students in collaboration with the School of Graduate Studies.
  • Find a place in the first-year graduate training workshop for more specific education on the topics of diversity and inclusion (alongside the sexual harassment and other required trainings).
• Find ways to recognize student involvement in diversity-related coursework and activities (e.g., minor and transcript notation).
• Map diversity-related courses in all colleges to identify areas of need and consider cross-department collaborations and the creation of a university fund for diversity course development within departments.

Objective 1.3: Increase multicultural consciousness and competency of faculty and staff.

• Provide education on diversity issues and inclusiveness to all employees. Ensure employees can participate during work time and find ways to incentivize participation.
  • Identify and communicate opportunities and resources that address unique challenges faced by BIPOC faculty.
• Offer resources and training to address basic diversity issues in the classroom, including inclusiveness in teaching materials and practices (e.g., a workshop at the annual Empowering Teaching Excellence (ETE) conference).
  • Develop programming to support evidence-based inclusive teaching. 

Objective 1.4: Enhance communications on the institution’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

• Provide a statement of inclusion and promote its use in job advertisements, syllabi, and Canvas.
• Offer the land acknowledgement statement for use on syllabi and in Canvas.
• Review the university mission statement and statement of mission fulfillment for greater emphasis on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in learning, discovery, and engagement.
• Critically evaluate university marketing to ensure it meets best practices for inclusive marketing. Improve communications about existing diversity, equity, and inclusion resources and programs on campus.
• Improve communications on USU’s policies and resources related to bias and discrimination to the USU community, in cooperation with university communications and the Office of Equity. In addition, develop more specific sanctioning guidelines for faculty, staff, and students for discrimination and discrimination-related retaliation.
• Assess needs for multilingual recruiting and marketing resources, including major information handouts, web presence, and social media.

Objective 1.5: Improve inclusiveness in external communities where USU campuses and centers reside.

• Continue to support and allocate resources for USU-community partnership events and programming that address diversity, equity, and inclusion in Cache Valley, Price, Blanding, and other Statewide Campuses.
• Improve involvement of USU students, faculty, and staff in university-driven diversity, equity, and inclusion events, as speakers and participants.
• Create a shared calendar of DEI-related events (lectures, trainings, activities, programs, etc.).
• Review how the milestones and achievements of marginalized groups are recognized and celebrated at USU.
• Endeavor to attract a diverse vendor pool when engaging in the competitive purchasing process.

Objective 1.6: Improve accessibility and inclusiveness in policies, procedures, forms, and general information.

• Develop and implement best practices for university policies, inclusive surveys, application forms, and templates, etc.
• Review USU policies through the equity lens framework (to be created under Objective 1.1).
• Promote best practices for online accessibility of USU materials and information.
• Develop best practices for translation of USU information and materials into languages other than English and effective communication of this information.

Goal 3: Recruit, Retain, & Develop Diverse Faculty and Staff

Objective 3.1: Increase a sense of inclusion and belonging for faculty and staff from underrepresented populations.

• Create and maintain a transparent data tool that tracks composition of faculty, staff, and administrators from historically underrepresented, minoritized and marginalized groups in order to track changes
  over time.
  • Create public-facing and internal interactive DEI data dashboards.
• Ensure opportunities for diverse voices and experiences to be represented (including those from Statewide Campuses) in USU events and presentations.
• Continue to support and allocate resources for the Inclusive Excellence Symposium, socials, and other diversity-related networking across the USU system to support faculty and staff from historically underrepresented, minoritized, and marginalized populations.
• Build and sustain supportive systems that reflect best practices to facilitate faculty transition and foster a sense of belonging
  • Establish/support affinity groups for faculty (women; Black, Indigenous, and people of color; caregivers, faculty with disabilities, LGBTQA+).
  • Ensure connections to affinity groups during recruitment/hiring process. 

Objective 3.2: Review evaluation and promotion policies and practices to minimize bias affecting faculty and staff.

• Establish centrally organized measures to ensure access to sample tenure and promotion materials.
• Reduce reliance on anonymous student evaluations of faculty. Develop alternative evaluation methods.
• Develop ways of recognizing faculty and staff work related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the regular review, tenure, and promotion processes.
  • Incorporate DEI impact into faculty evaluations similar to the language added to faculty code and role statements regarding “community engagement.”
  • Revise role statements to reflect DEI activities in research, teaching, extension, service, and administration.
• Develop mentoring program for each area of the role statements.
• Provide professional development for department heads and supervisors on inclusive evaluation practices. 
  
  

Objective 3.3: Improve recruitment procedures, resources, and information.

• Attract a more diverse applicant pool by allocating resources for departments to pay to advertise positions more widely and provide for travel to on-campus interviews, when needed.
• Develop a toolkit on best practice for inclusive hiring and provide education to supervisors and search committees.
  • Require bias training for search committees.
  • Require deans and vice presidents to work with human resources to ensure applicant pool is diverse (e.g., representative of national availability in the field) before approving campus interviews.
• Evaluate how USU Policy 385.1.1 (Dual Career Assistance) can be communicated and applied to better support recruitment of a more diverse faculty and staff pool. Seek necessary resources to support these efforts.
• Develop programs to recruit and support underrepresented faculty and staff, including cluster hiring.
• Improve USU’s recruitment standard job application template, website, and resources. Consider creating a faculty-specific recruitment website and marketing targeted to faculty audiences.
  • Create website or guide regarding housing and other information that addresses common concerns for new faculty.