An opportunity to share and learn about the university’s work to make equity and inclusion commonplace at the university and offer ideas on next steps will happen June 5 at Showcase Oregon: Activating the IDEAL Framework.
The event runs from 1 to 5 p.m. in the Erb Memorial Union.
The University of Oregon IDEAL framework contains five pillars: inclusion, diversity, evaluation, achievement and leadership. It was delivered to the campus in 2016 and was then used as a guide for each school and unit to develop its own diversity action plan and to foster collaborations.
Showcase Oregon will feature a variety of “DAP-talks.” The talks are brief presentations with experts followed by facilitated conversations in small groups. Each talk will last 30 minutes and they will rotate throughout the afternoon in various EMU locations.
Themes for the talks were developed around issues raised by the UO Diversity Action Plan. Themes include active allies working on resources addressing discriminatory behavior on campus, strategies for search committees beyond implicit bias trainings; engaging staff in the IDEAL framework, strengthening the graduate student pipeline to build faculty diversity, climate surveys, strategies to reset classroom discourse, planning for inclusion at the UO Knight campus and more.
In addition to talks by faculty, staff and community members, there will be talks presented by students and tours of the Multicultural Center meant to help strengthen ties between students, faculty members and staff members around equity issues. Attendees may sign up in advance for particular Diversity Action Plan talks when they RSVP.
Throughout the afternoon, a poster session gallery will be in Crater Lake North and South. The Division of Equity and Inclusion will design individual posters to display based on information provided from schools and units across campus. Each poster will highlight a project from a diversity action plan and include descriptions of opportunities, challenges and possibilities for collaboration.
Units and schools have already begun sending in material for posters in their continuing efforts to engage and share information with others on campus. Throughout the afternoon, individuals involved in projects will be available at each poster for further questions or discussion and to spur partnerships.
Posters from diversity action plan working groups also will be on display. Working groups were created around common themes from campus diversity plans and are aimed at fostering collaborative efforts. Current working groups include Implicit Bias Professional Development, Climate Survey Development and Analytics, Recruiting Processes, Outlets and Retention Tools, Leadership Succession Planning, and Onboarding and Training for New Employees and New Supervisors.
Attendees will have the opportunity to vote for project awards based on posters in the gallery. Awards will be presented at the end of the afternoon’s events and will include everything from most innovative to best thought leaders to awards about challenges in the “It’s Not All a Bed of Roses” award. The school, unit or department with the highest attendance will receive a monetary award to help fund the Diversity Action Plan initiative of their choosing.
Yvette Alex-Assensoh, vice president of Equity and Inclusion, looks forward to the connections and relationship building that will happen during the event.
“Our intention is to empower and support members of campus on the road ahead by reflecting upon and sharing knowledge about the work taking place across the university,” she said. “We want to help facilitate collaborations among administrative and academic units, and with faculty, staff, students and our community partners. By doing so, we will help make equity and inclusion an everyday process integrated throughout our campus.”
All faculty, staff, students and community members are invited to come to all or parts of Showcase Oregon: Activating the IDEAL Framework and help celebrate the diversity work being done across campus; share knowledge about opportunities and challenges; facilitate collaboration; and consider future work.
RSVP’s are appreciated for general attendance and to indicate interest in specific talks. More information can be found on the Division of Equity and Inclusion Showcase Oregon website.
—By tova stabin, University Communications