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SIU Trustees Approve Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives

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Protests in May brought to light students’ concerns about racism and diversity on the SIU–C campus.

Thursday, the Board of Trustees unanimously approved a framework for diversity and inclusion initiatives throughout the SIU system.
The framework includes awareness-building activities, student-focused initiatives, human resources/personnel development, and organizational development.

Awareness-Building Activities

  • Establish a signature Trustees’ lecture focusing exclusively on diversity and inclusion that will rotate among the three campuses on an annual basis.
  • Establish a system-wide diversity or inclusivity excellence award for individuals or organizations to highlight a model of excellence created within an academic or academic support unit.
  • Create a prominent link to the SIU System webpage to spotlight diversity efforts across all campuses and locations.

Student-Focused Initiatives

  • Partner with social service agencies, schools, community development groups and similar organizations to support opportunities and events for students around issues of diversity and inclusion.
  • Sponsor an annual system-wide student conference/summit on race, diversity and inclusion – building on the success of various campus meetings and workshops that have been held.

Human Resources/Personnel Development

  • Following a thorough review in light of recent legal decisions, expand resource support for campus-based strategic hiring programs with the goal of increasing diversity in tenure-track faculty and professional staff hires.
  • Provide resources to support campus initiatives to host networking, meetings, professional development, mentoring and related events for faculty and staff – and consider at least one similar event held at the system level.
  • Provide for a dedicated “chief diversity officer” position at the three campuses that is consistent in overall practice and scope with respect to title, tasks, duties, initiatives and placement on each campus’s organizational chart, and without added responsibilities for other administrative management functions.
  • Develop a resource or provider pool for utilization system-wide to provide cultural competency training applicable to all organizational units or groups, incorporating customized professional development sessions, workshops, coaching and other programs.

Organizational Development

  • Establish a system-wide President’s Advisory Council comprised of the three SIU chief diversity officers as well as representatives from impacted campus constituencies that would meet quarterly and provide advice and counsel on issues of diversity and inclusion (and would also meet with the Board of Trustees on an annual basis).
  • Build out a campus-based “Diversity and Inclusion Online Learning Community” to provide a system-wide clearinghouse for diversity resources and tools.
  • Undertake a metric and benchmarking process on a system-wide basis to better evaluate ongoing progress toward diversity and inclusion indicators utilizing a scorecard, dashboard or some other measure.

The board Thursday also authorized President Randy Dunn to establish a Title IX Director for the SIU System, as opposed to having separate directors for each campus location.
The goal is to implement these initiatives during the current fiscal year.

Board members initially discussed creation of a set of diversity-related initiatives during a December 2015 work session. In March 2016, the board reviewed a draft set of system-wide initiatives with a panel of officers from SIU's underrepresented faculty and staff organizations, including their written analysis of the document, and suggested a range of specific activities and events.

 

As a news producer and news anchor on All Things Considered, Brad provides the listeners with a recap of the day's top local and state news as well as breaking news at any given time. Contact WSIU Radio at 618-453-6101 or email wsiunews@wsiu.org
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