GOAL: To promote excellence in education by increasing the diversity of the faculty, staff, and students.

Diversity, broadly defined, is essential to the educational experience and central to all parts of the University’s mission. A diverse learning environment—particularly one that has achieved a “critical mass” of underrepresented individuals—helps members of the University community to challenge stereotypes and develop complex critical thinking skills; better prepares them to become active citizens and leaders; and equips them to live as members of an international community, in which success and personal happiness increasingly depend on the ability to appreciate and negotiate difference on a global scale. We therefore embrace our responsibility to create a welcoming environment for all members of the community, including underrepresented faculty, staff, and students; persons with disabilities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered persons; persons of disadvantaged socioeconomic status; and nontraditional and international students.

Strategy: Promote a welcoming climate that enhances the educational and work experience for all members of the community and prepares our graduates to live in an increasingly global environment by:

• Developing new methods to create a more respectful and inclusive climate;
• Developing new opportunities that enhance the cultural competency of faculty, staff, and students;
• Improving retention and graduation rates for students of color;
• Creating a more welcoming and accessible environment for faculty, staff, students, and visitors with disabilities;
• Improving interaction among domestic and international faculty, staff, and students.

Strategy: Build a critical mass of underrepresented faculty, staff, and students by:

• Increasing the diversity of the faculty, especially in tenured and tenure track positions;
• Increasing the diversity of those in executive, administrative, and managerial positions;
• Educating faculty and staff in the best practices for recruiting underrepresented faculty, staff, and students;
• Developing a more effective marketing strategy and recruiting more effectively from high schools, community colleges, and colleges and universities with substantial populations of underrepresented students;
• Engaging with schools and school districts to understand and address the needs of at-risk students and the disparities in K-12 education;
• Improving access and opportunity for underrepresented students and students of disadvantaged socioeconomic status by increasing scholarships while decreasing reliance on loans.

Strategy: Hold all parts of the University community accountable for improving the climate for diversity and building a critical mass of underrepresented faculty, staff, and students by:

• Designing comprehensive plans that will guide campus and unit diversity efforts and developing performance measures by which to evaluate the success of those plans;
• Integrating diversity performance measures into evaluations and reviews.

Indicators of Progress

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