Strategic Goals: Diversity and Inclusion - West Chester University
Diversity and inclusion is the ability to welcome a variety of voices, personal experiences, and world views that foster thought, continual dialogue, and change through the intentional, active and recurring engagement of others to address equity, social justice, and diversity challenges. Cultural Competence refers to one’s journey along a continuum and goes beyond awareness to include skill-building.
Goals, Outcomes & Initiatives
Goal D1: [LEARN IT] INCREASE SELF-AWARENESS- Create and enhance opportunities to build self-awareness, knowledge and skills to interact effectively with aspects of diversity, inclusion, culture and global differences. Through this goal individuals should create an environment where they will be challenged to examine themselves and participate in new opportunities to build areas of personal cultural competence.
- Outcome D1-1: By the end of year 1, the University will have a compiled listing of
co-curricular opportunities to serve as a resource to students for the development
of their co-curricular transcript. The University will identify gaps and opportunities
to add new programs/events. (New programs/events might include, but are not limited
to, service learning opportunities and campus traditions such as a Day of Service,
Diversity Education Week, International Week, Week of Action (Social Justice focus),
etc.).
- Initiative D1-1-1: Work with the Curriculum and Academic Policies Council (CAPC) to encourage further discussion of diversity and inclusion in the FYE course or service learning course options.
- Initiative D1-1-2: Through the Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, create a series of modules available to enhance student learning with guided activities and a facilitator’s guide on how to lead diversity discussions or make available a team of people to facilitate discussions.
- Initiative D1-1-3: Create a diversity inventory of student-targeted programs/events that includes information regarding the sponsor/host, target audience, learning outcomes, when it is offered annually, and level of learning. (Year 1 goal)
- Outcome D1-2: By the end of year 1, the University will have a compiled listing of
currently available professional development opportunities to serve as a resource
to faculty, staff and/or students. This will provide baseline data to identify gaps,
duplications and opportunities and add new trainings, workshops and initiatives where
needed.
- Initiative D1-2-1: Create a diversity inventory to include currently available online and in-person professional development opportunities as it relates to faculty, staff and students. Include in the listing the sponsor/host, target audience, learning outcomes, how often it is offered, and level of learning. (Year 1 goal)
- Outcome D1-3: Students, faculty and staff will have individual tools by which to measure
their awareness around issues of diversity and inclusion. The results of these online
tools will be compiled to measure the university/organization’s strengths and opportunities.
Individual results will be generated automatically for printing or saving, with a
list of categorized ways individuals can become engaged in increasing/improving what
they know and understand about various aspects of diversity and inclusion. (Individual
results will remain anonymous to encourage use).
- Initiative D1-3-1: Identify and provide individual assessment resources that engage individuals in self-reflection on issues of diversity, inclusion and/or cultural competence. (e.g., Diversity Awareness Profile, Cultural Intelligence- CQ , What Leaders Need to Understand About Diversity). (Year 1 and 2 goal)
- Outcome D1-4: By the end of year 3, 30% of undergraduate students will identify three
opportunities to build on their cultural competence through the planning of their
educational co-curricular transcript.
- Initiative D1-4-1: Established and increasing annual campus traditions will promote the co-curricular transcript as a tool to demonstrate engagement with diversity, inclusion and cultural competence skill development. (Year 2 and 3 goal)
- Outcome D1-5: The University will establish a signature and shared approach to promoting
dialogue and engagement around multiple issues of diversity, inclusion, intersectionality,
issues of social justice and conflict resolution.
- Initiative D1-5-1: Create or partner with a national program to create a signature campus-based train-the-trainer program (comprised of faculty, staff, undergraduate and graduate student trainers) focused on self-reflection, awareness, prejudice reduction, unconscious bias, conflict resolution, knowledge and/or skill building on issues on diversity, inclusion and/or cultural competence. (e.g., Visions Inc., National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI- Campus Affiliate), etc.). (Year 2 goal)
Goal D2: [LIVE IT] PROMOTE INCLUSIVE ENVIRONMENT- Promote a welcoming and inclusive university environment by demonstrating a commitment to the principles of diversity and inclusion in all interactions.
- Outcome D2-1: 100% of enrollment and hiring forms will be edited to remove gender
specific-language and other barriers (e.g., length of space where applicant can share
their name) to demonstrate our commitment to promoting a welcoming and inclusive university
environment.
- Initiative D2-1-1: Change University forms to include gender-inclusive language and room to write names of greater lengths.
- Outcome D2-2: Over 50% of faculty, staff, and management will voluntarily complete
a diversity module training to develop common language and understanding of how we
define and embrace diversity and inclusion at WCU.
- Initiative D-2-1: Create a training that will provide an opportunity for the campus to develop common language and understanding around diversity and inclusion.
- Outcome D2-3: Over 50% of faculty, staff and students will voluntarily demonstrate
their engagement to contribute to cultivating a welcoming and inclusive campus through
use of one or more of the identified diversity, inclusion and cultural competence
assessment resources and opportunities.
- Initiative D2-3-1: A directed marketing campaign will be employed to energize all campus constituents around the goals of becoming a more inclusive and increasing cultural competence on campus. The marketing campaign will employ department engagement and the use of social media to share their individual or shared efforts to contribute positively to the campus climate (e.g., The Purple, the RAM, etc.). (Year 1 and 2 goal)
- Outcome D2-4: By the end of year 3, 55% or more of the faculty and staff will voluntarily
demonstrate engagement in diversity and inclusion efforts as established in their
professional goals as part of their annual performance evaluation. By the end of year
3, 30% or more of students will have included diversity, inclusion or cultural competence
development-related activities.
- Initiative D2-4-1: Address training, education and professional development gaps as it relates to diversity, inclusion and/or cultural competence for students, faculty and staff. This might include, but is not limited to, online modules and quizzes, face-to-face trainings, workshops, and in-class demonstrations and discussions. (Year 2 & 3 goal)
- Outcome D2-5:The University will demonstrate its commitment to creating a culture
that values diversity and inclusion. Awareness and engagement of students, faculty
and staff in these efforts will increase by at least 50%.
- Initiative D2-5-1: Create or significantly enhance two or more campus traditions around diversity, inclusion and global/international communities that engage the entire campus (e.g., Diversity Education Week, Resource Pantry, International Education Week, Week of Action, M.L. King Brunch, Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), etc.).
- Initiative D2-5-2: Create a process for our international student population to become involved with employment and volunteer opportunities, as well as clubs and organizations to increase their impact on the campus.
- Initiative D2-5-3: Assess university, student, faculty and staff engagement and how it supports diverse and underrepresented minority student success using existing and new sources of data.