Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 73.04
Liaison Troy Goodnough
Submission Date March 30, 2018
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

University of Minnesota, Morris
PA-4: Diversity and Equity Coordination

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.33 / 2.00 Troy Goodnough
Sustainability Director
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution have a diversity and equity committee, office, and/or officer tasked to advise on and implement policies, programs, and trainings related to diversity, equity, inclusion and human rights on campus?:
Yes

Does the committee, office and/or officer focus on students, employees, or both?:
Both students and employees

A brief description of the diversity and equity committee, office and/or officer, including purview and activities:

UMM is home to Equity, Diversity & Intercultural Programs (EDI), which comprises or supports the Multi-Ethnic Resource Program, International Students Program, and the Resource Center for Gender, Women, and Sexuality; three federally-funded programs, the Native American Student Success (NASS), Summit Scholars Programs.

Additionally, EDI supports a number of affinity student orgs: Morris Queer Student Initiative for Equality, Disability Alliance, Circle of Nations, Black Student Union, Women of Color Association, Asian Students Association, United Students for Africa, etc. Each of these student orgs sponsors a variety of events each year; the World Touch Cultural Heritage Week represents a week of themed programming around difference, and the annual EDI Connectections Retreat trains student leaders in equity and diversity.

Finally, the Morris Intercultural Education Initiative promotes community integration and cultural exchange in the Morris community, offering community-based supports to Latino families in Morris. These include free ESL and Spanish classes, a network of volunteers trained in translation and interpretation, and Spanish-language after-school tutoring for K-6.

Currently within shared governance, the Multi-Ethnic Experience Committee (MEC) is “responsible for promoting campuswide understanding of racial and ethnic minorities and for enhancing their educational opportunities. It considers and makes recommendations regarding curriculum, educational programs and extracurricular activities where these touch upon the interests of racial or ethnic minorities. It consults, advises, and cooperates with existing committees that have jurisdiction in these areas to develop and recommend policies.”

Morris is in the process of revising the committee charge to capture our efforts towards inclusivity in a thriving campus environment. Additionally, in an effort to infuse shared governance with systematic attention to issues of equity and diversity, we will in the fall of 2018 launch a pilot program, placing a trained equity and diversity “advocate” on each committee.


Estimated proportion of students that has participated in cultural competence trainings and activities (All, Most, Some, or None):
Some

Estimated proportion of staff (including administrators) that has participated in cultural competence trainings and activities (All, Most, Some, or None):
Some

Estimated proportion of faculty that has participated in cultural competence trainings and activities (All, Most, Some, or None):
Some

A brief description of the institution’s cultural competence trainings and activities for each of the groups identified above:

Many aspects of Morris’s effort in equity and diversity are in development, so new programs are not yet represented in our on-line profile.

In 2017, Morris launched a six-workshop series in equity and diversity issues and has trained 12 facilitators to deliver this workshop annually.

To date, 30 faculty and staff have completed most of the series. The workshops include:
Beyond Diversity 101: Micro-inequities, Implicit Bias, and Moving toward Equity
Creating an Inclusive Organization: Addressing Conflict and Building Authentic Dialogue
Leading on Equity: How Leaders Take Risks, Model Inclusion, and Share Vision
Gender and Sexuality Literacy
Universal Design in Mind: Inclusive Program Development and Communication
Teaching with a Social Justice Lens & Understanding and Challenging Implicit Bias in Decision-Making


The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Morris now has a corps of 12 trained facilitators, capacity that allows us to offer the workshop series at Morris (in the past, faculty & staff desiring training had to travel to the Twin Cities campus.


Morris now has a corps of 12 trained facilitators, capacity that allows us to offer the workshop series at Morris (in the past, faculty & staff desiring training had to travel to the Twin Cities campus.

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