Inclusive Excellence Strategic Plan

Published: Sept. 22, 2022

We are really excited to launch the college’s Inclusive Excellence Strategic Plan. As part of university-wide discussions about equity, last spring the administration asked CLAS units to develop strategic plans for DEI, due Fall 2022. Instead of requiring CLAS units to create their own individual plans from the ground up, the CLAS Dean and chairs charged a summer working group to develop a college-wide plan to provide a framework with which departments/units could work. The summer working group included Mike Green (Integrative Biology), Michelle Comstock (English), Edelina Burciaga (Sociology), Ivan Ramírez (Health and Behavioral Sciences), and Faye Caronan (Associate Dean for Faculty and Staff Affairs), and Marjorie Levine-Clark (Associate Dean for Diversity, Outreach, and Initiatives).

The IESP offers a guide for CLAS units to develop their own equity, diversity, and inclusion plans based on four overall strategic goals:

Strategic Goal 1. Create a climate to ensure that faculty, staff, and students of every background and identity find purpose, belonging, safety, and opportunities to advance in your unit.

Strategic Goal 2. Remove inequities in courses, curricula, and teaching environments so that students of every background and identity have the opportunity to succeed.

Strategic Goal 3. Increase the rates of hiring, promotion, and retention of minoritized faculty and staff.

Strategic Goal 4. Create RTP, merit, and performance reviews to reward equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Chairs and Directors have been briefed on the IESP. As part of the strategic planning process, the Inclusive Excellence Council would like each unit to assess its own data from the Campus and Workplace Climate Survey, student success dashboards, employee demographic trends, and faculty hiring processes. The IESP and its Appendix A provide questions for units to consider as they assess their data and consider the goals and objectives, and examples and resources from which to draw. We recognize that individual units will have different ways of implementing the goals and objectives articulated in this IESP, based on their disciplines, fields, and professional associations, but this plan will provide an equivalent starting point.

The Regents and CU System President have created our first deadline, which is early spring semester, and they want us to focus on our climate data. For CLAS, this is Priority 1, Objective 2: Develop a plan to address the climate issues raised in your CWC assessment concerning respect and belonging, communication and transparency, diversity and identities, and job and educational satisfaction and support. This is a big ask in a short period of time, so please start this work as soon as possible. The first step is forming a unit team and choosing an EDI liaison who will keep the project moving forward.

Thank you so much for your commitment to creating a workplace where all persons feel valued and respected and where everyone contributes to a culture of equity, justice, and belonging.

Please contact Marjorie Levine-Clark with any questions or concerns. marjorie.levine-clark@ucdenver.edu