Posted on behalf of Roger "Doc" Richardson:
Dear campus community:
A belated welcome back from spring break. I hope you enjoyed your time away, whether you ventured to warmer climates, participated in Alternative Spring Break volunteer trips, or stayed local. For students and faculty alike, spring break is a welcome hiatus from the daily academic routine, especially after the mid-term period. For staff it is a quieter time on campus without the usual hustle-and-bustle. It is also a convenient marker; a halfway point that allows one to take stock of the semester that’s been and the remainder to come.
In our mission to transform Ithaca College into the truly diverse and inclusive community we all want it to be, this particular spring break is also an opportunity for us to reflect on what has been accomplished toward that goal, and what has yet to be done.
It’s easy to point out that the college has fallen short on projected deadlines for some of the action steps we mapped out in October. But major shifts are accomplished through many smaller ones, and it would be disingenuous to connect missed deadlines with lack of progress. To that end, I would like to take this opportunity to provide both progress updates and to discuss some areas in which we’re behind our originally projected schedule.
Director of Programs and Outreach
This exciting new position was announced a few weeks ago on Intercom. The position will work in conjunction with both the Center for the Study of Race, Culture, and Ethnicity (CSCRE) and the Office of the Provost. More information about the internal search for this position can be read on Intercom, and the full job description is posted here.
The person who fills this role will be very much a facilitator with multiple facets to his or her duties: She or he will serve as a resource for students who feel they are the recipient of bias or microaggressions, logging those reports and directing the student to appropriate outlets for assistance as needed. They will also help develop and implement workshops and other learning opportunities for students, faculty, and staff that are focused on topics of diversity and inclusion.
Community Review Board for Public Safety
Significant milestones have been reached toward creating this board; however it is highly unlikely this new body will be established by the end of this semester as originally projected.
The Residential Life/Public Safety working group drafted a plan for how the how the review board would function and it is currently pending review by our Council on Diversity and Inclusion (CODI), as well by the United Government Security Officers of America (UGSOA), which is the union representing public safety officers. The timeframe it takes for the latter group to review our proposal and negotiate any concerns is out of our hands.
Once CODI and UGSOA have given the go-ahead to move forward, we will need to ensure comprehensive and clear policies for the review board, as well as processes for membership selection and training. These are aspects of a community review board that must be in place to ensure it takes off as smoothly as possible. We want to get this right, right out of the gate and we will update the community as soon as the plan is approved to move forward.
External Review of Public Safety
In my January 26 message, I wrote that benchmarks had been created to ensure the external review of the Office of Public Safety would be completed by Spring 2016. At this time three firms have expressed a verbal commitment of interest in being considered for this review. Once the request for proposal (RFP) has been issued, a formal vetting process involving campus stakeholders will begin so that we select a company that will be thorough and judicious in its assessments.
Campus Climate Survey
This campus-wide initiative is in progress and on track. In early February several presentations about the survey process were held on campus by Rankin & Associates, the outside firm helping us in this endeavor.
In the coming weeks, focus groups will be held to help shape the survey tool. The feedback from these focus groups will ensure the survey is crafted to gather the most comprehensive and accurate picture of the Ithaca College campus climate as possible. It will be refined over the summer, and administered in the coming fall semester (Fall 2016) as scheduled.
I must stress that the Campus Climate Survey is about everything one experiences while living, learning, and working at Ithaca College, whether it be as mundane as parking, as day-to-day as one’s experiences in classrooms or offices, or as profound as academic or professional opportunities or limitations. It is all encompassed in the Campus Climate Survey, and your opinions and input matter very much.
More information about this initiative can be found on the Campus Climate Survey website.
Post-Doctoral and Pre-Doctoral Programs
I’m pleased to confirm the establishment of a Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship devoted to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) programs. Applications for the position are currently being solicited. The STEM fields have seen a renewed focus in the U.S. Department of Education under President Obama, and at the state level, too. But it is one in which underrepresented students, and women, have been traditionally underserved.
The post-doctoral program will be modeled after our successful Dissertation Diversity Fellowship, a pre-doc program that has helped increase underrepresented ALANA faculty. Last fall this program was expanded from two to four individuals per academic year, with two pre-doctoral candidates in the School of Health Science and Human Performance for the 2016-17 academic year.
Hiring a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO)
Contrary to original planning, the search for a permanent CDO has not yet been opened for applications. During the All-College Meeting in January, and at other points this semester, a number of people in the IC community asked President Rochon to consider whether the current plan for the position was the best approach for IC. The main thrust of the consideration is whether IC would benefit more from hiring a single, centrally located Chief Diversity Officer for the college, or whether a more distributed approach, with staff in multiple units who have diversity and inclusion as their responsibility, would be better. The president is taking this feedback into consideration, and he has also asked the Council on Diversity and Inclusion (CODI) for their counsel on the matter.
Workplace Training and New Hiring Guidelines
Human Resources has been offering a wide array of workshops, webinars, and other opportunities for staff and faculty since last fall. From September 2015 until just before spring break, there were more than 40 such sessions. Topics have included “Interrupting Biased, Bigoted Remarks, Stereotypes, and Negative Assumptions,” “Moving Towards Cultural Competency,” “Understanding Privilege and Microaggressions,” “Respectful Allyship,” “Bullying in the Workplace,” “Cultivating Diverse Leadership,” and more.
So far more than 500 people have participated in these sessions. Michelle Rios-Dominguez in Human Resources has worked tirelessly to organize and schedule them, and has planned more than 40 additional offerings for the remainder of the semester (many of the workshops are offered more than once). She expects close to 700 more attendees during the coming months. Rios-Dominguez is also working diligently to implement a more effective way to track RSVPs and attendance for HR’s own analysis and for sharing with supervisors later this spring.
All staff are required to attend two diversity and inclusion training sessions that are sponsored by the Office of Human Resources, CSCRE, the Center for Faculty Excellence, or their own division/department D&I training session. Staff must complete this requirement by June 30 of this year to be factored into the yearly performance review process.
(Please note: An earlier version of this message stated these requirements must be met by July 15th, but the review process ends on June 30th.)
The Office of Human Resources strongly recommends “Interrupting Biased, Bigoted Remarks, Stereotypes, and Negative Assumptions” and “Moving towards Cultural Competency” as baseline training. The webinar series hosted by HR will not count towards this requirement since they are so narrowly focused on niche topics. For a listing of trainings sessions conducted by the Office of Human Resources, please visit the Diversity and Inclusion: Workshops and Events website.
Supervisors will be provided more detailed information about the requirement and how to support their employees during the All-Supervisors Meeting on April 13th.
Departments/Divisions that have provided in-area training are asked to provide information to the Manager of Diversity and Inclusion in the Office of Human Resources, Michelle Rios-Dominguez, mriosdominguez@ithaca.edu. The information that would be most helpful is a list of participants, date and times, presenter’s name and bio and finally, learning objectives/outcomes.
Finally, a note that polices to ensure inclusive and diverse hiring practices at the college have been drafted and revised with input from CODI. The Office of Legal Affairs is now reviewing them.
School, Division, and Departmental Workshops
The updates above are all related to the formal actions steps committed to by college administration. But, across campus, many groups and individuals have devoted energy and creativity to creating their own efforts as well. This is very good news, because it tells me that the community truly is taking ownership for this very important issue and seeking ways to be involved that feel authentic to them.
I would be remiss not to mention Associate Professor Belisa Gonzalez and Assistant Professor Sean Eversley-Bradwell in the CSCRE, who have stepped up to the plate when asked by various groups on campus to facilitate workshops during their respective retreats over the last few months. They have spoken to faculty and staff from the School of Business, staff in the Division of Institutional Advancement and Communication and Division of Finance and Administration, and the Board of Trustees.
Other noteworthy efforts to engage in dialogue and gain a better understanding on these important issues include:
I am sure that there are other efforts taking place that I did not acknowledge above. If you know of a group of students, staff, or faculty on campus who have taken it upon themselves to initiate and engage in some sort of dialogue or workshop, please feel free to share the news with me at rrichard@ithaca.edu. Everyone should be acknowledged for their individual efforts.
Resources for Faculty
Faculty Council created a compendium of resource materials for use by departments and faculty members to facilitate discussion about topics of inclusion, diversity, and cultural competency. They are now in the process of organizing this material, optimizing presentation, and determining the best ways to make these materials available. The expectation is that faculty members will refer to these materials to help educate themselves and each other, and to apply those lessons to create welcoming classroom environments that foster inclusivity and respect for diverse backgrounds, ways of life, and beliefs.
Bias Resource Network and Reporting of Incidents
I’m pleased to inform the campus community that we have begun a successful expansion of folks who can serve as support and a conduit for resources should you experience an incident of bias or discrimination. These additional individuals will be there to listen, advocate, and direct you to the right avenues of assistance. In that sense, they will offer a similar role as the new director of programs and outreach.
The full list of individuals can be found on the Support Network section of the Diversity at IC site.
On a related note, last fall we vowed to implement a system that would allow any member of the campus community to report a grievance stemming from discriminatory treatment. Upon review of the existing system, we discovered that we already had functional systems in place, and that we needed to do a better job making the community aware of these systems. Those improvements are now under way.
Once again I urge everyone to review the Ithaca College Nondiscrimination Statement and familiarize themselves with how to report a bias-related incident. Public Safety, The Office of Student Affairs and Campus Life (SACL), and The Office of Strategic Marketing Communications will continue to work to raise awareness of these resources among our campus community.
More updates to come
I thank you for taking the time to read this far. The action items addressed above are weighty and of great importance to our community, and they are moving forward thanks to the collaborative efforts of numerous students, faculty, and staff alike. We have met, and are on track to meeting, many of the ambitious deadlines we set for ourselves in the fall. In some of the more complex areas that have fallen behind those original time lines, progress is still happening, and the work is being conducted with the degree of care, thoroughness, and thoughtfulness we need in order to make changes for the Ithaca College community that will have a lasting impact.
As always, I encourage you to provide your feedback and insights. You can email me at rrichard@ithaca.edu.
Have a peaceful and invigorating return to the semester.
Doc
Dr. Roger (Doc) Richardson
Interim Chief Diversity Officer and Associate Provost for Inclusion and Engagement
This message was originally published on March 22, 2016. It was republished in Intercom on March 24.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20160322153603696