Diversity and Inclusion plan matrix 2016-2021

Staff Center: There was an ARC supervisor training in the past that was an acronym for accepted, respected, and connected. This was a pilot program that was slowed down due to low attendance. The session transitioned into a one-hour video that highlights respect in the workplace and that diversity is more than just the color of your skin. Diversity promotes differences in race, gender, economic background, nationality, amongst others .

FCTL: Offers a 15 hour institute on an inclusive classroom. This is usually held one during the regular academic school year and once during the summer. It is a face to face institute and has two facilitators. Aside from that institute, FCTL also sponsors the Equity By Design forum. This is a forum open to faculty and staff, and focuses on inclusive excellence in the classroom and beyond. This workshop usually has a guest speaker in attendance as well. A third program that FCTL oversees is Flipping the Script, which is a cohort of four meetings that occur in one year on how to create a inclusive classroom.

 

Michael Wade, Office of Multicultural Student Services, facilitates an annual summer workshop with the residence advisors. During the workshop, the group talks about culture awareness, stereotypes, macro aggression, and advocating for the underrepresented.

 

 

FCTL hosts a inclusion institute that hones in on just that, inclusion. It touches on disability issues in higher education in the classroom. They enforce that professors serve as an advocate, and place the disability statement in their syllabus. Aside from focusing on disabilities, it also touches on religion. FCTL urges that professors recognize religious holidays and make necessary accommodations for students. They can do this by creating a learning centered syllabus that will observe those holidays that may get overlooked because it is not a U.S. Federal Holiday. This institute takes place during New Orientation Week before the fall semester begins. 

 

 

 

There are currently 74 single-stall restrooms scattered across campus. With two capital projects taking place now with the Swann Annex and the PGA Learning Center, there will be a designated single-stall restroom in the buildings. In new developments, single-stall restrooms will be intentional.

Many spaces on campus were converted into a single-stall restroom, as opportunities came about to add a restroom. With these conversions, the space needed to make sense to place a restroom there. Building around open spaces allowed many of the 74 single-stall restrooms to be placed where they are. I am told that this is something that the academic Deans can also champion for to have these single-stall restrooms in their building. 

 

1.) The LGBTQ+ Resources Center will be featuring student pieces in their Center that displays what pride means to them.
2.) The Diversity and Inclusion Office has paid for some artwork in the lower level of the David L. Eisler Center. The artwork is of young men on skateboards.
3.) The Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences installed Hampton/Ferris portraits on the wall of the Deans office.

A lactation space was provided on the second floor of Prakken, however, the space was converted to an office. There is a need to establish a room once again.

 

Dr. David Pilgrim established an Diversity and Inclusion Work Group. The University Wide Diversity and Inclusion Work Group is a group that comes together to share information, give opinions, and connect on diversity and inclusion topics at Ferris. This group is also open to other faculty and staff members other than the ones stationed at Big Rapids (KCAD, satellite campuses). The meetings for this group started to scale back due to not enough content or topics being present. Dr. Pilgrim only sends out meeting invites when he feels it to be necessary. In the past, the group would meet for two hours every three weeks, but it began to be struggle to have issues to speak about every three weeks. 

 

1.) This group met with Dr. Pilgrim two times (April 19, 2016 and February 16, 2016). The meetings did not produce many issues for Dr. Pilgrim to listen to. Students were able to connect with Dr. Pilgrim to sound off on the issues they were experiencing on campus or issues that their peers were facing.

 

2.) OMSS has a Student Programming Council to connect with multicultural students, student groups with each another and for those student groups and our department. This is separate from the Diversity & Inclusion Office's aims.

 

There is at least one division representative that participates in the Diversity and Inclusion University-Wide Work Group.

Just this past October, the FLITE opened its Meditation, Prayer, & Reflection room. This room is a quiet space for individual reflection, prayer, & mediation. It can hold up to 10 people and has been a good place for students to go to wind down. The College of Pharmacy also has a meditation/ prayer room. There is also a meditation/ prayer room in the Grand Rapids location on Michigan Avenue, where the third year of Pharmacy courses are held. 

The LGBTQ+ Resource Center held its open house Thursday, March 1. The Center will be working closely with two registered student organizations to help promote programming. 

 

Many go to conferences and institutes that they are able to reset and become refreshed on best industry practices. Some things promoted at theses conferences and institutes are equity in and out the classroom. One example that Ferris professionals in Student Services participates in are the NASPA - Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education conferences. 

A department or client has to approach Marketing with a request and a plan. Without a request or a plan, Marketing does not have any direction to generate content. Marketing does have a vendor they coordinate with for translation and Marketing also has content that can be shared, but they do need to be approached with a request. It is imperative for departments to initiate the request, which many have not done so.

The Center of Academic Literacies was created and is housed in FLITE.

Currently does not monitor, but FCTL is in the process of developing a plan. This should be in place during the summer 2018 semester or the fall 2018 semester. Instead of this being something the College itself tracks, FCTL will have options on ways faculty can partner with the Center to address student success in achievement gap courses. Ways a professor can address the gaps are forming a design work group, avoid stereotypes, or, use inclusive language, amongst others.

Gateway courses are those classes that have a high DWF percentage ("D", withdraw, or "F"). Upwards of 20% is considered high. No demographics are reported in the gateway courses, just the percentage of DWF rate. 

Achievement gap courses are those classes that show disproportionate with DWF rates, and demographics do paly a part in the reporting. 

OMSS conducts presentations in Race Matters, a level 300 course. In the presentation, the Office rolls out engaging activities on first thoughts, stereotypes, role reversals, and other hot topics that gets the conversation started in the classroom. 

In speaking with the Kristine Workman, Financial Aid Advisor, I was able to get clarification on her role with this key initiative. I have her response below: 
"I am the single point of contact for unaccompanied homeless youth here at Ferris for financial aid.  There are times I meet with students in this situation if they do not have documentation from a high school liaison or homeless shelter and I determine if they still meet the criteria of an unaccompanied homeless youth per the McKinney Vento Act.  When I meet with students, I discuss resources available to them including the food pantry and meal sources in our local community. I don’t have a way to track/assess the academic or social needs of homeless students however."

Four staff members are involved in Safe Zone, in evaluating the applications for students, faculty, and staff. There was a joint mini grant that FCTL  partnered on with the Diversity and Inclusion Office, as well as the College of Arts & Sciences. 

 

There is decentralized hiring. As a result, the Equal Opportunity Office centrally monitors candidate selection through the EO review process to ensure that interview and hiring selection decisions are made consistently and fairly. The EO office provides Search Committee trainings to search committees by request or recommendation, which discusses some strategies and best practices using good faith efforts to promote diverse and inclusive hiring, and recruitment. 

 

 

 

 

This did not occur. It was a joint decision with FCTL, the President's Office, and the Diversity and Inclusion Office. 

OMSS has a dialogue series called Conversations on Race. It is not a training or institute however (Role Reversal, First Thoughts). OMSS partners with Staff Training Center and FCTL to facilitate these sessions.

FCTL uses a product called Deliberate Dialogue. This teacher people how to be more open-minded, listen to competing viewpoints, and consider differences. FCTL did send two Ferris employees to get trained on this. There is also another program in the Center called Economic Inequality Initiative. It has been active for three years and it focuses on social justice and economic justice. 

 

Stakeholders included representatives from EEO, OMSS, Staff Center, Dean of Student Life, Disability Services, Faculty Center, Human Resources, International Education, Residential Life, and Administration and Finance met a number of times in 2014-2015. One of the major concerns was how to compensate faculty and staff for facilitating workshop sessions. The program required commitment from afore mentioned stakeholders to hold sessions at least 2 times per year. Another concern is how does a “graduate” of the program receive additional training? No further movement on the status of Certificate Program has been completed, however, some identified sessions have been implemented, (and/or continued) into other programs.  Courses such as the Micro Aggression 101, Managing the ARC of Diversity, Title IX Responsible Employee, Creating a Supportive Campus for Veterans presented by the Staff Center; Accessible Course Content Workshop by the FCTL and ECDS; Anti-Harassment/ Non-Discrimination training by EEO has continued; “Respect By Me” and “True Colors” training by Residential Life; Inclusive Classroom Design by FCTL; Bystander Intervention training by Title IX are just some of the workshops already in place to help the possibility of the Diversity Certificate Program be re-evaluated.

FCTL is partnering with the Hispanic/Latino Cultural Center to support 30 students in the Promesa Scholars Program Undergraduate Research Mentoring Collaborative. FCTL will be responsible for recruiting faculty to serve as mentors and help with funding.

 

 

In the past, Ferris had over 1,000 agreements with high schools, career centers, and community colleges. Ferris leans heavily on the Michigan state wide articulation agreements now, to lessen the bulk of repetitive language. There are a couple dozen specialty agreements active for certain programs.