New OID course for academic, unit leaders builds connection, empathy, equity.
The prospect seems daunting: four six-hour in-person modules, plus 12 hours of online lectures, readings and discussion boards. An ambitious curriculum that requires unlearning old habits, learning new skills and relearning concepts at a higher level. And the end result isn’t mastery of the subject, but a commitment to address it with rigor and reflection for the rest of your career.
And yet? Participants in Leading Change for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion have responded with enthusiasm. The course, intended for academic and unit leaders across the university, is helping them make foundational changes in their organizations, addressing DEI issues and communities in conflict and crisis with care and empathy.
Leading Change is a collaboration between the Office of Institutional Diversity and Oregon State’s Academic Leadership Academy, the result of a two-year effort by Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Charlene Alexander. The course aligns with both the university’s Strategic Plan 4.0 and its diversity strategic plan. Two OID leaders, Jeff Kenney, director of institutional education for diversity, equity and inclusion, and Scott Vignos, assistant vice president for strategic diversity initiatives, facilitate course sessions.
Following last year’s pilot programs, OID will offer Leading Change twice a year, with 15 participants in each cohort. Kenney says another goal is to train facilitators who can lead the course within their own units. For example, Teresita Alvarez-Cortez, director of diversity initiatives and programs in University Housing and Dining Services, has run the course for UHDS leadership.
Transforming learning into action
Leading Change builds on other diversity education programs at Oregon State, including the ADVANCE Seminar.
The program is intended as an action-based complement to ADVANCE, with sessions focused on real-world case studies, including active challenges participants are facing in their leadership roles, which they can then workshop with colleagues, Kenney says.
“The underpinning of every session is, ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘What does this mean for your job today?’” Kenney says. “There's some DEI work that doesn't require any more preparation, any more training. You’ve just got to pull some levers. The audience that we have in Leading Change are people with a level of power and autonomy in the institution that those levers can be pulled relatively quickly.”
Kenney says an expected learning outcome from Leading Change is that administrators “can imagine, and take steps to propel, an organization toward its values of diversity, equity and inclusion.” Such steps include building coalitions, bringing in people beyond executive leadership and promoting learning within their teams to advance strategic DEI priorities.
Also critical is “showing up as a compassionate leader,” Kenney says, to believe people’s experiences with racism, sexism and classism, recognize they’re hurt, and respond with care and urgency. DEI leadership, he says, requires the ability to both zoom in to the people you’re directly working with and then zoom out to see the larger impact on the institution and society.
Connecting and learning from one another
A common thread among participants is how much they learn from each other. Rebecca Mathern, associate provost and university registrar, and Toni Doolen, dean of the Honors College, found Leading Change exposed them to ideas they wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
“It was really helpful to hear about the work being done by others and the challenges others face in this work,” Doolen says. “The creation of the community through the learning process was for me a highlight.”
Mathern says people in privileged positions often don’t understand the work that’s needed to support those who are marginalized. Leading Change helped her to reframe her thinking about the dominant structures within the university. She cites an example in Oregon State’s priority registration system, which determines when students can register for classes based on their credits earned.
“Our job is to make sure everybody has access to the tools, and we want it to be as fair as possible,” Mathern says. “I walked out of this class feeling like we have more opportunities to improve how we serve all students, particularly marginalized populations. Where we can really have an effect is in how we communicate, being accessible and meeting students where they are.”
Leading Change to make change
For Ana Lu Fonseca, diversity, equity and inclusion development specialist for the OSU Extension Service, completing the Leading Change course helped her determine a clear alignment between DEI goals across Extension’s statewide operations and with the university’s overall commitment and goals. She says having tangible steps helps create a sense of success when they’re accomplished and keeps the momentum going.
And action is vital to Leading Change, Fonseca says. Taking the course “is a good thing, but it’s not the change. You actually have to change things in your program, your recruitment practices and your education curriculum. Each of us as leaders have the responsibility to move the needle.”
Kenney recognizes the Leading Change subject matter and curriculum is challenging, but he also wants to emphasize that it’s fun, and Fonseca agrees. “You will enjoy it so much. I enjoyed it so much,” she says.
“I think the sell to people is, this is a lot of hard work, and it's always going to be a lot of hard work,” Kenney says. “And it's worth it.”