Diversity, Equity, and Inclusive Excellence: Creating a thriving community.

Rationale: Gallaudet’s unique niche in the world requires us to actively work toward creating a sense of belonging for all members to support transformation and a robust future.

Goal: Address the most critical issues and needs to ensure Gallaudet continues to build a campus climate in which every member of the university community supports each other in feeling welcomed, included, and valued for their unique qualities and individual contributions.

Objective One: Strengthen the sense of belonging for all students, faculty, teachers, and staff with a focus on people from traditionally underrepresented, disempowered, and marginalized groups.

Objective Two: Define the strategies and actions that will strengthen diversity, equity, and inclusive excellence in all aspects of the University.

Objective Three: Build shared governance principles and practices that strengthen diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Strategies:

  1. Develop and implement a plan to prepare and engage the community in ways that move Gallaudet forward toward the healing, growth, and community-sense of well-being essential for true transformation. This includes the following:
    • Create a university-wide diversity strategy and action plan that is built on available data as well as past and current programming that demonstrated positive results and that achieves equity and racial healing.
    • Systematically implement strategies to improve access and inclusion in a way that recognizes intersectionality and the multiple strategies of support and access required to assure a sense of belonging and capability to thrive.
    • Develop a plan that strengthens the practices, procedures, communications, professional development, and training programs to attract, hire, retain, and promote diverse faculty, teachers, and staff, particularly deaf people of color.
    • Continue President Cordano’s meetings with all major staff units and faculty members.
  2. Invest in teaching and learning to strengthen the bilingual, multicultural, and digital literacy of our student body.
  3. Clarify roles and responsibilities of all governance groups to advance the principles and practices of shared governance and to ensure diversity, inclusion and equity in their representation and decision-making processes.
  4. Establish and pilot staff and faculty-led mentoring programs for staff and faculty accordingly.

Key Performance Indicators:

  1. By the start of FY 2019, we will have an institutional diversity strategic plan and a road map towards inclusive excellence.
  2. By the end of FY 2020, we will demonstrate a reported increase of having a sense of belonging among students as measured by the NSSE (co-listed with Priority Three).
    • Metric 1: Increase the mean score for the discussions with diverse others item by 1% from the 2014 baseline score of 35.0 for first year students and 38.6 for seniors.

      Discussions with Diverse Others Mean Scores
       20142017 Target2017 Actual2020 Target
      First-Year Students 35.0 35.4 32.5 35.4
      Seniors 38.6 39.0 35.3 39.0
    • Metric 2: Increase the percentage of students responding to having done or plan to do at least one, two or more, and a total of one or more high impact practices by 5% from the 2014 baseline scores of 65%, 12%, and 77% respectively for first year students and 17%, 74%, and 91% respectively for seniors.

      High Impact Practices Mean Scores

      First-Year Students
       20142017 Target2017 Actual2020 Target
      Participated in at least one 65% 68% 58% 68%
      Participated in two or more 12% 13% 17% 13%
      Total HIP (at least one + two or more) 77% 81% 75% 81%
      Seniors
       20142017 Target2017 Actual2020 Target
      Participated in at least one 17% 18% 16% 18%
      Participated in two or more 74% 78% 78% 78%
      Total HIP (at least one + two or more) 91% 96% 94% 96%
  3. By the end of FY 2020, we will demonstrate improved campus climate of faculty and staff as measured by the ESS.
    • Metric 1: Increase the mean satisfaction score for the teamwork and cooperation item – “There is a spirit of teamwork and cooperation at the institution.” by 2% per year from the 2017 baseline score of 2.84.

      Teamwork and Cooperation Mean Scores
      201520162017 Target2017 Actual2019 Target
      2.37 2.57 2.63 2.84 2.95
    • Metric 2: Increase the mean satisfaction score for the transparent and informed communication item – “Transparent and informed communication is practiced consistently throughout the university community.” by 2% per year from the 2017 baseline score of 2.79.

      Transparent and Informed Communication Mean Scores
      201520162017 Target2017 Actual2018 Target
      2.46 2.65 2.70 2.79 2.90
  4. By the end of FY 2020, we will have completed the General Studies program curriculum revision to include a focus on multicultural, bilingual identify development in the context of intersectionality (co-listed for Priority One).
  5. By the end of FY 2020, we will have completed the expansion of CBTL to include bilingual pedagogy, multicultural curriculum transformation, digital learning, and faculty development (co-listed Priority One).