- Unpack. Nurture. Improve: UNI’s Climate Study. A campus-wide climate study work group is facilitating an action-focused climate assessment that launched in February. The work group is partnering with Rankin & Associates Consulting, LLC (R&A), an external consulting firm that specializes in organizational climate studies to help colleges and universities produce transformative change. Information about this initiative can be found on the UNI Climate Study webpage. In April, R&A hosted 19 focus groups with the campus community to help the work group develop a comprehensive survey; in addition, the focus groups will produce insights that the UNI community can act upon before the comprehensive survey launches in the fall.
- EDI Landscape Analysis. The Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning is coordinating with the President’s Council for Inclusion, Transformative Social Justice, and Advocacy to capture a broad picture of the work by our faculty, staff, and campus organizations to advance equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging. Through this work, we will have a richer knowledge base of our organizational strengths across campus while identifying where we might be able to invest our time to build organizational capacity. The landscape analysis will launch in the fall.
- Embed EDI throughout UNI’s next Strategic Plan. Last week, UNI announced the culmination of more than a year’s work to engage our community to build the next five-year strategic plan. Entitled Create. Empower. Innovate., UNI’s 2023-28 Strategic Plan outlines key strategies we will take in the next five years to assure every one of our students and employees has the resources and support they need to achieve their academic, professional and personal life goals. Upon approval from the Iowa Board of Regents, UNI’s Strategic Plan Coordinating Council will be responsible for working with the campus community to implement and monitor progress on the plan.
- UNI Action Item Follow-Up. The original call for nominations to create what is now called the President’s Council for Inclusion, Transformative Social Justice, and Advocacy (CITSJA) occurred in 2019. While our sights were set on the future, we recognized the need to address needs in our present. Along with the formation of the Council, a series of 12 action items were announced. Each of those action steps was achieved, and we continue to routinely evaluate each item as the needs of our campus community evolve. You can view the action items and updates on the CITSJA webpage; you can access the action item update by entering your CatID login credentials.
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