Committing to the Future: DEI Strategic Planning to Transform Your Institution

Concurrent Session 7

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

 As DEI becomes more central to institutional transformation, creating and implementing a strategic DEI plan is critical. This presentation will explore the process of creating a DEI strategic plan that supports learners, empowers faculty and staff, and creates an inclusive environment that focuses on accessibility, community, equity, and academic achievement.

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Heidi Schuler, Ellucian

I am a strategic academic consultant, higher educational instructor, learning experience designer, curriculum developer, and social science researcher with a passion for enhancing student access, inclusion, equity, and accessibility within higher education. Currently, I work as a strategic consultant and manager, learning experience design focused on helping institutions digitally transform their learning environments, administration, policies, and processes to provide the support necessary for students to succeed. I advise on equity-based strategic institutional plans, craft actionable objectives and policies for equity initiatives, conduct program evaluations, design and build online programs, and use data-driven processes to optimize student support. I also ensure compliance, state/federal regulations, and ADA regulations are built into the foundation of institutional process and learning. I manage a team of learning experience designers and invest in their development and training within our core team. I also have the privilege of serving as an instructor in higher education teaching face-to-face and online classes at the undergraduate level. I teach specialized upper-level classes and large general education courses to a diverse range of students and majors. I incorporate best practices into my teaching and have advised departments and programs about online learning and equitable teaching practices. I also create and administer faculty development and training on how to best design, teach, and facilitate online learning through the use of best practices and I work closely with faculty on how to foster an inclusive, accessible, and authentic learning experience. I am also social science researcher. I received my doctoral degree in sociology with a specialization in social inequities specifically in the areas of family, gender, and education.

Co-presenter: Tara Kissel, University of St. Thomas - Houston

Extended Abstract

As DEI becomes more central to institutional transformation, creating and implementing a strategic DEI plan is critical. To ensure learner equity and inclusive institutional practices, higher education must reevaluate its processes, policies, pedagogy, and academic/online learning environments. This requires an analysis of current institutional strategies to make sure they are adaptive and responsive to change and that access to education is equitable and fair. Our session will explore the process of creating a strategic plan for how to build a more equitable and diverse learning environment for students and the importance of training and development for faculty and staff to increase access to higher education. Strategic plans are critical to ensure that institutions increase retention, connect to their local communities, provide equitable learning experiences, and create financial opportunities for growth and outreach.

In our presentation, we will discuss how to create a strategic DEI plan for your institution. Creating a strategic plan entails a revision of institutional policies and processes, hiring practices, academic curriculum, faculty development, student support, academic technology, accessibility, and community alignment. We will give steps, examples, and insights for how to create an institutional DEI statement that aligns with the mission and values of your university/college. Additionally, we will discuss the importance of collecting and analyzing data to identify the needs of learners and use that information to develop adaptive, multimodality learning environments to meet student needs. Furthermore, we will provide a list of objectives and actionable goals with accompanying metrics for success. Finally, we will review how to facilitate difficult conversations and create a safe space for all participants to engage this work.

Our presentation will highlight how to create a plan that recommends actions to initiate, build on, expand, and strengthen an institution while leveraging the diversity of its community and the constituencies it serves. We will focus on how to translate the aspirations of an institution and its community to create definitions of diversity, equity, and inclusion and use these definitions to develop a series of goals and objectives. We will provide examples of goals that range from prioritizing equity as an institutional responsibility and centralizing student support services to offering flexible and diverse curricula, revising programs to increase enrollment and retention, and creating faculty and student development opportunities to help with college readiness and digital literacy gaps. We will also discuss the role of institutional policies in student access and need to connect student serving offices to student learning.

Level of Participation:

This session is structured as a presentation with the expectation that the audience will engage with us and provide examples throughout the session. Interactive questions will be used to gain insight from participants and allow for the construction of knowledge to take place as a learning community. We will incorporate a Padlet during the presentation for participants to ask questions in real time, giving them the option to participate written or verbal. We will conclude with a Q&A session.

Session Goals:

Individuals attending this panel discussion will be able to articulate the need for a DEI strategic plan at their institution. Additionally, they will be able to describe first steps in the strategic planning process and will be able to evaluate strategies for their institutional, pedagogical, and learning transformation. Lastly, they will be able to discuss best approaches for facilitating and empowering their community to create a more inclusive and equitable learning environment.