Enhancing Minority Attainment (EMA) Plan

Indiana University Bloomington

DRAFT – January 23, 2008

Indiana University Bloomington has had a long history of leadership in diversity and equity (See Appendix A for EMA's working definitions of "diversity"). IU Bloomington has always maintained an admissions and education philosophy which defines its mission as serving the broadest range of talents from the state, the nation and the world. This service takes the form of not just who is encouraged to enroll at IU Bloomington, but also the role IU Bloomington perceives for itself in providing services for the citizens of the state. This has translated into many community outreach programs, services to K-12 students whether they eventually come to IU Bloomington or not, and providing needed consultant services to local government and community organizations. During a time of system-wide change at Indiana University, newly-appointed campus leaders have made it a priority to enhance IU Bloomington's commitment to diversity and equity. Under the leadership of Dr. Ed Marshall, Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs, the university system is moving forward with campus-specific plans to build a more inclusive and representative educational community committed to academic excellence. IU Bloomington's Enhancing Minority Attainment (EMA) plan builds upon past successes and research, as described in this planning document.

Since 1998, several IU Bloomington reports and committees have built a foundation of resources from which the EMA team has crafted its recommendations (See Appendix B for a full list–with web links–of these "foundational" resources). The 20/20 Report in 1998 was an in-depth analysis conducted by an external Review Team that offered a number of recommendations for improving both "excellence" and "equity" through diversity initiatives. This report served as a benchmark for many later reports, as it articulated the need for improving campus climate, representational diversity, and diversity among leadership. In 2001, Katharine Byers (School of Social Work) wrote "Infusion of Diversity into the IU Bloomington Curriculum: A Preliminary Report" at the request of then IU Bloomington's Vice President for Student Development and Diversity, Charlie Nelms. The assessment was conducted collaboratively with academic deans, undergraduate curriculum administrators, and representatives of campus offices concerned with diversity issues, and resulted in recommendations for specific stakeholders to address in order to incorporate diversity topics into the student learning experience. In 2003, Charlie Nelms' office reported on the "Status of Minorities at Indiana University," which provided valuable feedback and guidance for the Office of Affirmative Action's 2006 report titled "Affirmative Action Plan for Women and Minorities."

Together, these reports highlight the need to plan diversity efforts around four principle components:

Leadership & Commitment
Curricular & Co-Curricular Transformation
Campus Climate
Representational Diversity

In May, 2006, the IU Board of Trustees endorsed a comprehensive strategy to double IU Bloomington enrollment of underrepresented minority students by 2013-2014. This ambitious objective cannot be achieved with "business as usual" outreach, recruitment, and persistence services. In fall 2006, the campus introduced several financial aid incentives such as the 21st Century Scholars Covenant and the Pell Initiative which have potential for effecting underrepresented recruitment. At the same time, the primary vehicle of recruiting higher achieving underrepresented population undergraduates, the Hudson Holland Scholars Program, has plans for expansion.

Despite the progress made over the past several years, the university and campus still face the challenge of limited accountability at both the staff and academic level of diversity and equity. The campus has no evaluative mechanism in place which makes diversity and equity as fundamental as teaching and research. In the same manner on the professional and support staff side, staff performance, hiring, and promotion give very mixed attention to diversity and equity. The Affirmative Action Office prepares and distributes an annual Affirmative Action Plan for Minorities & Women and a report to the Bloomington Faculty Council on the status of women and minority. It is within this context that President Herbert and now President McRobbie called for each IU campus to develop specific plans for addressing these challenges (in "Increasing Diversity at Indiana University: a Statement from President Adam W. Herbert and President-Elect Michael A. McRobbie," May, 2, 2007).

In 2006, IU Bloomington's EMA Team (See Appendix C for a list of IU Bloomington's EMA participants) created four sub-committees for each of the four diversity principles listed in the bullets above. Each sub-committee met several times during the winter period to first answer the survey questions in each focus area, and determine what additional information and reports/articles should be collected for the self-study. Based on the results of the self-study (and a site visit from IUPUI's team), several observations and recommendations are appropriate for the four main focus areas.

Under the leadership of Vice President Marshall, appointed in July, 2007, IU Bloomington's EMA planning team has put together the following document which draws heavily upon the comprehensive self-study efforts and proceeding reports. Additionally, it incorporates discussions that took place during the 2007 EMA Conference ("Designing and Implementing Diversity Plans," November 30, 2007) at IU Kokomo. Ultimately, this draft plan will help identify long-term and short-term objectives to meet these goals, in addition to timeframes, responsible parties, strategies, performance indicators, fiscal needs, and potential challenges to implementing (or enhancing) these efforts.

Leadership & Commitment

IU Bloomington is currently building and sustaining several campus-wide diversity initiatives, but there is little central coordination of these efforts. The Leadership & Commitment recommendations are designed to help facilitate "next steps" for improving upon the existing leadership resources/structures we currently have at IU Bloomington. The recommendations generally speak to our need to coordinate a campus-wide evaluation plan, increase diversity among faculty & staff, and make campus-wide efforts more available (or visible) to the broader community. A special focus was paid to human resources needs, evaluation and assessment, and improving lines of communication both internally and externally. Accomplishing these goals will take time and shared responsibility among various parties, but they will serve as critical "next steps" for improving our commitment to diversity. The workgroup has also noted that some of the objectives listed in Leadership & Commitment overlap with Representational Diversity objectives, so there may be some natural synergy to combining efforts between these two groups.

Table A

Leadership & Commitment
#	Objective	Timeframe	Responsibility	Strategy	Performance Indicators	Notes
LC-1	Double minority enrollment by 2014, as made explicit by the IU Board of Trustees	Long-term
LC-2	Coordinate and consolidate a system of program and performance evaluation for campus diversity initiatives.	Fall, 2008	Office of Affirmative Action, Diversity Committee	Identify programs, use "system-wide" diversity survey when it's available	# of current programs (& students served) across campus	EMA Report, p. 44 Julie, Emilia, & Deloise will meet to discuss.
LC-3	Increase diversity within major administrative support areas of the campus.	Long-term	HR, DEMA	Get historical data	TBD, UPIRA	EMA Report, p. 43
LC-4	Recruit and retain minority faculty members, as is done through the Office of Strategic Hiring and Support (SHS), the Office of Academic Support and Diversity (OASD), the Office of Affirmative Action.	Long-term	Academic Deans, Deans of Faculty, Office of Affirm. Action, Office of Strategic Hiring	Change current strategies – crafted specific to each school/unit	TBD, UPIRA	IU Self Study, p. 4
LC-5	Make documents related to diversity efforts readily available to students, faculty, staff, and the broader community.	Fall, 2008	Office of Affirmative Action, Dean of Faculties, Provosts Office, DEMA, UPIRA	Identify relevant material, create website to host this material, appointed by Provost	Website traffic	IU Self Study, p. 5
LC-6	Sharpen the campus' diversity vision by streamlining, coordinating, and organizing the way departments hire, support, and retain faculty members.	Long-term	Diversity Committee	Could segue with LC-2	Annual review of plan, annual report	IU Self Study, p. 7

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Curricular & Co-Curricular Transformation

Curricular and Co-Curricular Transformation is viewed as a way to assess diversity-related learning outcomes, incorporate diversity efforts into the academic environment, and encourage faculty to infuse diversity efforts into their coursework. To achieve these goals, the work group has decided to focus on improving diversity among study abroad programs, provide incentives for faculty members to improve diversity efforts in the classroom, and build upon the current service capacity of student service programs at IU Bloomington. Each of these goals will take significant levels of collaboration among administrators, faculty, and students as we must work collaboratively to achieve these short-term and long-term goals. One of the first steps to accomplishing each of these objectives will be to determine to what extent IU Bloomington is already partaking in these efforts. By collecting historical data and records, a primary source of material will help guide the next steps for most of these objectives. These objectives aim at improving "diversity" in the broadest sense of the term including international diversity, cultural competency, and underrepresented student/faculty success.

Table B

Curricular & Co-Curricular Transformation
#	Objective	Timeframe	Responsibility	Strategy	Performance Indicators	Notes
CCT-1	Increase enrollment of underrepresented students in study abroad programs.	Long-term	VP for International Programs, Academic Deans, Hutton Honors Program (Travel Awards)	TBD	# and % participating (plus historical data)	EMA Report, p. 44
CCT-2	Increase visibility of diversity in curriculum.	On-going	Academic Deans, Dean of Faculties, BFC, Registrar	Registrar "tags" classes that focus on diversity in curriculum (like existing service learning tags).	Enrollment trends	EMA Report, p. 44
CCT-3	Continue to develop training/orientation programs and rewards for faculty members to include diversity in their curriculum	On-going	Academic Deans, Dean of Faculties, Dean of Students	Diversity Committee identifies and assess what is currently being done	# or % of faculty participation, survey of faculty attitudes	EMA Report, p. 44
CCT-4	Increase the service capacity of programs (i.e. McNair Scholars, AGEP/SLAMP, and HHSP) directed toward preparing more underrepresented undergraduate students for graduate school.	Long-term	DEMA, Dean of Graduate School, Academic Deans	Identify potential collaboration with similar programs at IU and other academic institutions.	#, %, and $ of these programs	EMA Report, p. 44 IU Self Study, p. 10
CCT-5	Institute the "shared goals" requirement for diversity in the United States curriculum as approved by the BFC General Education Program.	On-going, Long-term	BFC, Academic Deans, Dean of Faculties	To be structured by faculty in each degree program through embedding in current curricula and coursework	TBD	Undergraduate Education and General Education at IU Bloomington. Circular B-5 2007, p. 2

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Campus Climate

This section includes the widest array of objectives, with the main focus on improving cultural understanding/perceptions among the university community, improving conditions for students with disabilities, strengthening collaborations among various groups, and enhance the visibility of IU Bloomington's efforts to accomplishing these goals. The potential of a system-wide survey (with some items specifically designed for IU Bloomington) provides an opportunity for the campus to gauge the overall "climate." Some of the preliminary next steps include determining a baseline for the data and resources currently available, in addition to convening workgroups/committees to identify the current state of affairs. Documents such as the 20/20 report, annual diversity reports, and the EMA papers will help set these objectives in motion. Achieving these goals will require authentic collaboration among students, faculty, and staff.

Table C

Campus Climate
#	Objective	Timeframe	Responsibility	Strategy	Performance Indicators	Notes
CC-1	Continue efforts to develop good working relations with the community through joint projects and co-sponsoring events.	On-going	Dean of Students, Provost's Office, DEMA, Diversity Committee, Academic Deans	Identify current state of practice	As assessed by the committee	EMA Report, p. 44
CC-2	Encourage wider majority population to participate in various diversity activities.	Long-term	DEMA, Provost's Office, Dean of Faculty, Dean of Students, BFC	Active recruitment, faculty involvement, professional & support staff involvement	As assessed by the committee	EMA Report, p. 44
CC-3	Ensure that reports and evaluations on the topic of campus diversity are utilized in ways that build awareness.	On-going	Provost's Office, Academic Deans, VP for Administration	See CC-8 and LC-5		EMA Report, p. 44
CC-4	Broaden students' understanding of diversity beyond race & gender to include the many ways in which members of a group differ.	On-going	Dean of students, VP for International Programs, DEMA	Training seminars, workshops, experiential events		IU Self Study, p. 16
CC-5	Increase diversity among endowed faculty appointments.	Long-term	Academic Deans, Dean of Faculty, Provost's Office	School & college specific		IU Self Study, p. 16
CC-6	Enhance visibility of IU Bloomington's diversity efforts in order to overcome perception of being a non-diverse campus.	Short-term & Long-term	UPIRA, NSSE	Ongoing survey of students, faculty, & staff. IU system-wide survey?	Survey responses, UPIRA	IU Self Study, p. 16
CC-7	Address accessibility issues for students with disabilities.	On-going	Disability Services, Space Mgt	Regular survey of inaccessibility	# accessible rooms/bldgs	IU Self Study, p. 16
CC-8	Identify & establish methods for communicating campus-wide efforts, expectations, & results to the entire campus community.	Long-term	Diversity Committee	See CC-3 and LC-5; make a strategic marketing plan; webpage	Website traffic	IU Self Study, p. 16

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Representational Diversity

Many of the objectives for Representational Diversity can be measured relatively easily through existing data and survey results. The challenge will arise when translating these objectives into action because they will require deliberate efforts from administrative and departmental leaders, in addition to students and staff. Furthermore, some of the goals may not be reached for several years, so it will take long-term efforts to achieve these objectives. In sum, the objectives focus on access and success for underrepresented students, tenure and promotion for underrepresented faculty members, representation among staff members (across all occupations), and sustaining relationships with external institutions/stakeholders. Collaboration seems to be a common theme among these objectives, as we move forward with improving the representational diversity of our campus. Collecting and reporting on the data/trends is the first "next step," as we work toward these goals.

Table D

Representational Diversity
#	Objective	Timeframe	Responsibility	Strategy	Performance Indicators	Notes
RD-1	Expand relationships with HBCU's, HSI's, and Tribal Colleges.	On-going	Provost's Office, President's Office, Academic Deans	Campus & university initiatives	# coming from HBCU's etc (change over time)	EMA Report, p. 45
RD-2	Promote the development of recruitment programs to increase the transfer rates among underrepresented students attending Ivy Tech.	On-going	Provost's Office, Enrollment Management	Identify programs, track historical data	TBD, UPIRA	EMA Report, p. 20
RD-3	Examine the representation of minorities and women across all IU Bloomington occupations (clerical, maintenance, professional, skilled crafts, technical).	Fall, 2008	Office of Affirmative Action, Provost's Office, HR	Get data and then compare to local/state/ntl demographics (especially for service occupations)	TBD, UPIRA	IU Self Study, p. 19
RD-4	Address tenure and promotion for underrepresented faculty members.	Long-term	Dean of Faculty, BFC, Academic Deans, Office of Affirmative Action	Identify current rates for these profs	TBD, UPIRA	EMA Report, p. 44
RD-5	Increase retention and graduation rates of underrepresented students.	Long-term	Academic Deans, DEMA, Dean of Students	Get historical enrollment data	TBD, UPIRA	EMA Report, p. 45
RD-6	Actively recruit and encourage retention of underrepresented professional and support staff.	On-going	HR, Provost's Office, Office of Affirmative Action	Get historical data	TBD, UPIRA	EMA Report, p. 45 IU Self Study, p. 23

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Summary

IU Bloomington has set forth an ambitious agenda for improving the quality of campus life for all students, faculty, and staff by embracing and encouraging a more diverse community. In no instance can any of the objectives be addressed independently of one another; they are all inter-related and require commitments from multiple stakeholders. Moving forward, the most important "first step" is to create a Diversity Committee charged with facilitating and coordinating the tasks set forth in this document. It will then be necessary to clarify our objectives in ways that increase the likelihood of short-term and long-term success. In that vein, the most pressing "next steps" for each of the four categories are to:

Create an IU Bloomington Diversity Committee by February, 2008, as selected by Provost Hanson
Identify stakeholders charged with addressing each objective
Collect "baseline" information on each objective in order to avoid recreating any wheels
Identify gaps where "new" data must be collected
Identify potential synergy that exists among objectives in order to better articulate action plans that can accomplish multiple goals (i.e. CC-8, LC-5, and CC-3 may be a natural fit with each other)
Identify the "top" objectives with the greatest level of need
Identify the "top" objectives that can be achieved most quickly (the low hanging fruit)
Create taskforces and sub-committees charged with seeing these objectives through to success

As we work toward a campus-wide plan, there will certainly be road blocks and limitations due to staff turnover, funding, scheduling logistics, and other competing interests. Therefore, it will be crucial that our team stays dedicated to setting benchmarks for success in efficient and effective ways. This draft serves as an overview of previous discussions combined with preliminary plans for moving forward. This draft is also a living document that is expected to change as the persons responsible for each task develop clearer understandings of how, when, and to what extent their strategies can be implemented. In the end, the best action plan is one that incorporates multiple perspectives, is actionable, and uses data to guide decision-making processes; this plan is built in a way that can help facilitate such an approach while working towards improving the quality of diversity on campus.

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Appendix A: Working Definitions of Diversity

As the EMA Team moves forward with articulating goals, objectives, and implementation, there will be a consistent need to ensure participants are working with a common understanding of the term "diversity." Two definitions have been particularly useful for IU Bloomington's EMA planning process; looking ahead, the planning process will require a common understanding of a word that has multiple meanings:

"[Diversity] includes not just classification by race and ethnicity but also income, gender, physical and mental condition, and sexual orientation. In the same manner, equity is defined to include equality in rank, position, pay, research and learning opportunities, awards and opportunities for recognition."
– IU Bloomington Self Study (2006)

"A situation that includes representation of multiple (ideally all) groups within a prescribed environment, such as a university or a workplace. This word most commonly refers to differences between cultural groups, although it is also used to describe differences within cultural groups, e.g. diversity within the Asian American culture includes Korean Americans and Japanese Americans. An emphasis on accepting and respecting cultural differences by recognizing that no one culture is intrinsically superior to another underlies the current usage of the term."
– EMA "Useful Terms and Definitions" (2006)

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Appendix B: Related Reports

Leadership & Commitment

Curricular and Co-Curricular Transformation

Campus Climate

Representational Diversity

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Appendix C: Bloomington Campus Team (2006)

Institutional Leadership & Commitment

Claude Clegg
Kevin Brown
Dean of Faculty Representative
Alberto Torchinsky

Curricular & Co-Curricular Tranformation:

Rachel Hill
James Wimbush
Carolyn Calloway-Thomas
Luis Fuentes Rohwer

Campus Climate

Luis Davila
Edwin Marshall
Martin McCrory
Gwen McCay
Yolanda Trevino

Representational Diversity

Sue Gastony
Kathy Byers
Mary Ellen Anderson or Larry Gonzales
David Hummons

Here are the various committee members from last year's study. Note that level of work by members is quite variable:

Gonzalez, Lawrence
Rasmussen, Linda
Hummons, David F
Knost, Julie V
Byers, Katharine V.
Hill, Raquel Loran*
Wimbush, James C.
Calloway-Thomas, Carolyn
Fuentes-Rohwer, Luis E.
Trevino, Yolanda
Davila, Luis
Marshall, Edwin C.
McCrory, Martin Arthur
McCay, Gwendolyn E
Aspy, Rob
Clegg, Claude Andrew
Brown, Kevin D.
Torchinsky, Alberto
Sept, Jeanne M.
Daleke, David L
McKaig, Richard
Radford, Nicole E
Johnson III, Eugene
Connelley-Eskine, Cynthia L
Dwigans, Yvonne Brooke
Ross, Jane

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