Strategic Action Plan
The 2021-2022 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategic Action Plan promotes inclusive excellence with a focus on four areas:
- Increasing enrollment, retention and graduation of underrepresented students
- The classroom and education in democracy
- Faculty and staff recruitment, development and retention
- Communication, symbols and safe places
NWCCU definitions
- Diversity refers to the traits and characteristics that make people unique, including the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs or other ideologies.
- Equity is concerned with justice and fairness of policies.
- Equity-mindedness refers to the perspective or mode of thinking exhibited by practitioners who call attention to patterns of inequity in student outcomes. These practitioners are willing to take personal and institutional responsibility for the success of their students, and critically reassess their own practices. It also requires that practitioners are race-conscious and aware of the social and historical context of exclusionary practices in American Higher Education.
- Inclusion refers to the behaviors and social norms that ensure people feel welcome, appreciated and valued as members of their communities.