Launched in 2018, Innovate & Integrate: Plan for Inclusive Excellence, is Oregon State's first comprehensive diversity strategic plan and a key step towards the realization of Oregon State’s vision to become a national model for inclusive excellence. The plan was developed through extensive engagement with stakeholders who contributed their expertise and experience to the development process. The plan represents a roadmap to advance inclusive excellence by leveraging existing successful initiatives and embracing new innovative ideas.

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Executive Summary

Inclusive excellence is the recognition that an organization’s success is dependent on, and tied directly to, how well it values, engages and includes the rich diversity of its community members, including its students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends and affiliates. Over the last two years, Oregon State has taken significant steps to prioritize and more rapidly advance the pursuit of inclusive excellence in all that it does.

Innovate and Integrate: Plan For Inclusive Excellence was developed through extensive engagement with university students, faculty and staff who contributed their expertise and experience to the development process. The plan is organized around five key goals to advance inclusive excellence by leveraging existing successful initiatives and embracing new innovative ideas.

These goals are ambitious, but attainable. The Office of Institutional Diversity is primarily responsible for monitoring implementation and progress of the university’s diversity strategic plan. However, advancing inclusive excellence involves all Oregon State community members and success will require continuous partnership and collaboration. Progress will require new systems to ensure accountability as our work advances. Quantitative and qualitative performance indicators will measure success. And we will transparently tell the story of our process and accomplishments to the Oregon State community and public.

Goals

Goal 1

Integrate and advance inclusive excellence within all aspects of the university.

Goal 1 focuses on the innovation and integration of policies and practices to sustainably enhance and embed inclusive excellence at all levels of the university.

Action Items

  • Develop and adopt university-wide definitions for key inclusive excellence terms.
  • Create a model diversity strategic plan for use by all administrative and academic units.
  • All units develop, adopt and begin implementing a 5-year diversity strategic plan with measurable action items.
  • Establish guidelines for reporting progress on unit-level diversity strategic plans to the Oregon State community and Office of Institutional Diversity.
  • President’s and Provost’s Leadership Council on Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice monitors implementation of diversity strategic plan and reports annually on progress to the President, Provost and Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer.
  • Create model language and assessment criteria for advancing diversity, equity and inclusion to include in all position descriptions.
  • Ensure assessment criteria and metrics for advancing diversity, equity and inclusion are adopted and applied in all hiring, promotion and tenure, compensation and advancement processes.
  • Develop a 5-year plan to raise external funds to support institutional diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at Oregon State.
  • Leveraging existing initiatives, develop and support alumni groups focused on maintaining and growing relationships with Oregon State alumni from underrepresented communities.
  • Conduct an audit of Oregon State’s diversity, equity and inclusion assets.

Goal 2

Improve recruitment of students and employees from underrepresented communities.

Goal 2 recognizes that moving toward inclusive excellence requires innovative policies and practices to successfully recruit, hire and enroll employees and students from underrepresented communities.

Action Items

Students

  • Develop and adopt innovative best practices to improve recruitment of undergraduate and graduate students from underrepresented communities.
  • By 2023, raise $250,000 in new commitments to support institutional efforts to recruit students from underrepresented communities.
  • Increase strategic K-12 recruitment efforts focusing on high-achieving students from underrepresented communities.
  • Increase the number of OSU college visits by students from underrepresented communities.
  • Increase recruitment efforts in Oregon community colleges and bolster support for initiatives integrating transfer students.
  • Increase partnerships with funding entities to support graduate students from underrepresented communities through fellowships and stipends.
  • Integrate information about OSU’s efforts to advance inclusive excellence into Student Ambassador programs.
  • Increase partnerships with Outreach and Engagement to develop student recruitment pipelines in all 36 Oregon counties.
  • Increase partnerships with Ecampus programs to develop student recruitment pipelines nationally.

Employees

  • Develop and adopt innovative best practices to improve recruitment of employees from underrepresented communities.
  • Require affirmative action and implicit/cognitive bias training for all search committee members.
  • Develop recruiting partnerships with doctoral granting institutions serving underrepresented communities to develop faculty hiring pipelines.
  • Increase recruitment efforts of faculty from underrepresented communities at conferences.
  • Develop best practices for providing information to applicants during the search process regarding Oregon State’s commitment to advancing inclusive excellence.
  • Integrate information regarding Oregon State’s commitment to inclusive excellence in new employee orientation programs and materials.

Goal 3

Create an inclusive university climate to support the retention and success of all students and employees.

Goal 3 recognizes that moving toward inclusive excellence requires the creation and cultivation of learning, working and living environments that allow diversity, equity and inclusion to thrive.

Action Items

  • Develop, conduct and iterate upon student climate survey every two years.
  • Develop, conduct and iterate upon employee climate survey every two years.
  • Analyze student and employee climate surveys to develop and adopt recommendations to improve climate.
  • Assess and address policies and practices that create barriers to retention of students and employees from underrepresented communities.
  • Survey reasons students leave Oregon State prior to graduation and adopt recommendations to improve persistence, retention and graduation rates of students from underrepresented communities.
  • Survey reasons employees leave Oregon State and adopt recommendations to improve retention, advancement and tenure rates of employees from underrepresented communities.
  • Provide institutional support to employee affinity groups engaging in community building and retention efforts (e.g., AFAPC, PCOSW).
  • Partner with local government agencies to increase resources and services for students and employees from underrepresented communities.
  • Increase partnerships with businesses and vendors owned by underrepresented community members.

Goal 4

Provide innovative and transformative learning experiences enabling all students and employees to advance inclusive excellence.

Goal 4 recognizes that innovative and transformative learning is central to inclusive excellence. All students and employees must have opportunities to develop a deep and practical understanding of the importance of diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice.

Action Items

  • Develop and implement a 5-year plan to ensure all students participate in innovative and transformative diversity, equity and inclusion learning experiences.
  • Develop and implement a 5-year plan to ensure all employees participate in innovative and transformative diversity, equity and inclusion learning experiences.
  • Continue to support existing online and experiential learning programs related to diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice for students.
  • Increase by 20 percent the number of presentations at disciplinary conferences delivered by students from underrepresented communities.
  • Increase by 20 percent representation of faculty and students at conferences focused on diversity, equity and inclusion scholarship.
  • Increase partnerships with national organizations providing transformative learning experiences to students and employees.
  • Increase by 20 percent the number of students from underrepresented communities winning national scholarships and awards.
  • Increase support for college or university-based faculty fellows to engage in diversity research, grant writing and development of inclusive pedagogy.
  • Recognize and reward integration of diversity, equity and inclusion principles into research programs.

Goal 5

Communicate Oregon State’s accomplishments, initiatives and innovations as the university advances inclusive excellence.

Goal 5 recognizes that moving toward inclusive excellence requires transparently and thoughtfully describing the university’s initiatives and innovations, celebrating accomplishments and addressing challenges.

Action Items

  • Publish all unit-level diversity strategic plans on the Office of Institutional Diversity website.
  • Annually publish progress reports on all unitlevel diversity strategic plans on the Office of Institutional Diversity website.
  • Develop print, web and social media materials highlighting efforts and initiatives to advance inclusive excellence at Oregon State.
  • Establish an Outstanding Diversity Advocate Award for employees with an appropriate stipend.
  • Increase national ranking and recognition for Oregon State’s innovative diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
  • Apply for the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award (HEED) annually starting in 2018.
  • Increase university recognition for faculty and student research that advances inclusive excellence in university communications.
  • Increase communications highlighting successes and accomplishments of students, employees and alumni from underrepresented communities.
  • Update and maintain the Office of Institutional Diversity website to provide resources that enable innovative inclusive excellence initiatives and reflect increased recognition for these initiatives.
  • Deliver an annual State of Diversity address to provide information on the university’s efforts to advance inclusive excellence.