Campus Climate and Communication

IEAT 4 is continuously inventorying accomplishments and identifying opportunities to do better toward the goal of achieving racial and social justice across all divisions in assessing and evaluating campus climate, and in then celebrating strengths, directly addressing weaknesses, and working toward continuous improvement in understanding and achieving inclusive excellence, campus wide. The Inclusive Excellence Action Plan (IEAP) was originally created by a team of staff, faculty, and students from across the University, with IEAT 4 promoting a campus culture of communication, accountability, transparency, and clarity.

Institutionally Funded Initiatives:

Critical Learning Collectives (CLC) and Campus Climate (IEAT 4.2)

In-Progress

Responsible divisions: OTP with BFA

    • Primary contact: Kaia Tollefson 
    • Funded: $87,702
    • OVERVIEW AND PURPOSE: We have data and findings from our second Campus Climate Survey (CCS) that we have not yet made use of in any organized way. Inclusive Excellence Action Team 4 (IEAT 4), charged with making recommendations for realizing a campus culture of inclusive excellence, worked in Spring-Summer 2021 on coming up with strategies for doing so. This initiative proposes using a combination of Critical Friends Groups – which have become known at CI as Critical Learning Collectives (CLC) -- and Town Hall meetings for discussing CCS findings and strategizing ways to make good use of them.

      CLCs are comprised typically of 8-12 people who commit to regular participation (typically for two hours monthly) and the creation of a confidential, “safe-as-possible-for-risk-taking” kind of space. Survey data from CFG/CLC participants over the past several years at CI consistently support the idea that in these groups, support can be sought, risks can be taken, critical conversations can be had, trust can be grown, and thorny problems can be tackled -- all through the process of working on dilemmas of professional practice (for example, campus climate issues) with the help of structured protocols led by qualified facilitators.

  • Status Report Fall 2023 - Critical Learning Collectives and Campus Climate Survey Findings - (PDF)

    Status Report May 2023 - Critical Learning Collectives on Campus Climate Survey Findings (PDF, 323KB)

    Status Report November 2022 - Campus Climate Critical Learning Communities (CLC) (PDF, 221KB)

    Through the IEAT/IEAP process, we are working to create a culture of DEIA praxis -- that is, the ongoing cycle of reflection and action -- with IEATs serving as the reflection arm and IEAPs serving as the action arm of this work. Toward that end, status reports are submitted by IEAP Initiative Leads and read by members of Inclusive Excellence Action Teams (IEATs) and by the President's Advisory Council on Inclusive Excellence (PACIE) who will support the IEAP Initiative Leads by responding to formative assessment questions posed in their status report. 

    Status Report Spring 2022 - 49 of the 73 employees who had gone through a year-long process to become a qualified CFG/CLC coach were still employed at CI. 20 of those 49 indicated potential interest in helping to lead the “Courageous Conversations: Town Halls & CLCs” initiative. Ultimately, 12 coaches committed to helping to lead this initiative. In Fall 2022, all faculty, staff, administrators, and students were invited to join one of 7 groups: 1 for students, 2 for staff, 1 for administrators, 2 for faculty and staff, and 1 for faculty, staff, and administrators. A total of 74 people are participating in these 7 groups.

Cultural Taxation Guide and Workshops (IEAT 4.7)

In-Progress

Responsible divisions: OTP with BFA

    • Primary contact: Kaia Tollefson
    • Funded: $54,970
    • OVERVIEW AND PURPOSE: Framers of the "Understanding Cultural Taxation and Eliminating Its Impacts" initiative resist the idea that cultural taxation itself must be evaluated, which suggests the need to articulate, defend, and measure its existence. Rather, this recommendation from IEAT 4 takes as its starting point the existence of cultural taxation at CI, necessitating the work of evaluating its impact, professionally and personally, and designing strategies for identifying, avoiding, ameliorating, and eliminating it. This initiative has three stages.
      • Phase 1: Research. A research team will design and conduct a research project which will entail: (a) IRB submission, (b) the writing of a literature review on the topic of cultural taxation in higher education, and (c) finding ways for minoritized employees (staff, faculty, and administrators) to safely provide data on the professional and/or personal impact of cultural taxation at CI, and on the ways in which it shows up in the day to day in explicit and implicit ways.
      • Phase 2: Eliminating Cultural Taxation Guide for Supervisors. Outcomes of the Research Team's findings will inform the work of a consultant or consultant team that will create: (a) a guide for supervisors and curricula for workshops on identifying, avoiding, ameliorating, and eliminating cultural taxation; (b) a minimum of two workshops designed for a "coach the coaches" delivery model. (Possible workshop topics could be “How to Recognize and Avoid Cultural Taxation” and “The Power of No: How/when do people learn to create boundaries and say no?”; and (c) an assessment plan for the Addressing CT Implementation Team to utilize.
      • Phase 3: Implementation Team: Faculty Affairs and HR will establish an Implementation Team, which will create and pilot a plan for disseminating the research on campus, rolling the workshops out to supervisors, and designing and implementing an assessment plan for evaluating impact. This team will read the research findings, study the cultural taxation guide, and attend the "coach the coaches" workshops designed by the external consultant. A note on sustainability: The guide and workshops will need to be incorporated into professional development opportunities through Faculty Affairs and HR and become a living document that is reviewed and updated as the institution’s DEIA work advances. This initiative will provide a meaningful starting place in supporting this work.
  • Status Report May 2023 - Cultural Taxation Research, Guide, and Workshops (PDF, 121KB)

    Status Report November 2022 - Cultural Taxation Guide & Workshops (PDF, 235KB)

    Through the IEAT/IEAP process, we are working to create a culture of DEIA praxis -- that is, the ongoing cycle of reflection and action -- with IEATs serving as the reflection arm and IEAPs serving as the action arm of this work. Toward that end, status reports are submitted by IEAP Initiative Leads and read by members of Inclusive Excellence Action Teams (IEATs) and by the President's Advisory Council on Inclusive Excellence (PACIE) who will support the IEAP Initiative Leads by responding to formative assessment questions posed in their status report. 

    A Call for Proposals (PDF, 184KB) was disseminated to faculty and staff in Spring 2022. One proposals was submitted, an insufficient ent number to allow for a competitive selection process to occur. A call for proposals will be disseminated again in 2023-2024.

OTP 4.8 PACIE Elevating Disability

In-Progress

  • This President's Advisory Committee on Inclusive Excellence (PACIE) subcommittee aim is to identify and make recommendations to mitigate a systemic barrier on campus that makes access to disability accommodations challenging for individuals with disabilities.

    The subcommittee is working to identify barriers, or to use President Yao’s turn of phrase, “Sand in Gears”, that interfere with the engagement of individuals with disabilities into campus activities, including learning experiences, events, and extra-curricular activities.

  • Status Report Fall 2023 - PACIE – Disability Subcommittee (PDF)

    Status Report February 2024 - PACIE Disability Subcommittee Status Report ((PDF, 271 K)

IEAT 4.9 Title IX Implementation Plan

In-Progress

Divisionally Funded Initiatives

Campus Climate Survey & Affirmative Action Plan Synthesis, Gap Analysis, and Campus Plan for Workforce Diversity (IEAT 4.1)

In-Progress

Responsible division: BFA with OTP

    • IEAT 4.1
    • Primary contacts: Laurie Nichols and Kaia Tollefson
    • OVERVIEW AND PURPOSE: This initiative is designed to ensure focused oversight of campus climate survey administration. Tasks include developing campus climate survey instruments and interview protocols and administering campus climate surveys. This work will inform iterative analysis, development, and evaluation of CI’s Campus Affirmative Action Plan and the campus plan for workforce diversity.
  • Status Report May 2023 - Campus Climate Survey & Affirmative Action Plan Synthesis, Gap Analysis, and Campus Plan for Workforce Diversity (PDF, 222KB)

    • Prior to the development of this IEAP initiative, CSUCI administered the Higher Education Research Institute’s (HERI) campus climate survey (CCS) twice (Fall 2018, Fall 2020), to all employees and students. In Spring 2022, as campus leaders prepared for the next administration in Fall 2022, the CCS working group recommended a move away from utilizing the HERI for a number of reasons:
      • Length of time needed to complete the survey depressed participation rates
      • Breadth of topics didn’t allow depth of exploration on topics most relevant at CI
      • Breadth of topics required months of work on analysis, so that findings would be available more than a semester past data collection phase – making findings actionable was complicated by this timing
      • Longitudinal data lost by moving to a new instrument could be regained with careful planning
    • The CCS working group recommended to President Yao a move away from HERI to in-house creation of shorter, more focused surveys, with one administered each semester. During a May 2022 Campus Climate Town Hall Meeting, President Yao presented this plan to the campus community. All employees and students were invited via Qualtrics survey to identify priority topics for these shorter, more focused surveys, the first of which would be the most frequently named topic of concern: job satisfaction.
    • Dr. HyeSun Lee was contracted in Summer 2022 and Fall 2022 to work on instrument development and validation for the first in-house developed CCS on job satisfaction.

Experimental College (IEAT 4.4)

Not Yet Started

Responsible division: DAA

    • IEAT 4.4
    • Primary contact: Mitch Avila 
    • OVERVIEW AND PURPOSE: Proposals will be invited for Professor & Student collaborations on creating a 1-unit course proposal (OLLI model) to discuss current social issues impacting racial and social justice. Processes for reviewing and selecting courses need to be developed, as well as determining where these courses would be housed and how students could earn credit for them.
  • TBD

Students in Solidarity Council (IEAT 4.5)

Not Yet Started

Responsible division: DSA with DAA

    • IEAT 4.5
    • Primary contacts: Dottie Ayer and Dianne Wei Bobritsky 
    • OVERVIEW AND PURPOSE: Facilitate gathering student groups/representatives on a regular basis to discuss DEIA principles & actions to amplify student voices. Steps would include: (1) Gauge student/staff/faculty interest in involvement/engagement, (2) Invite interest from current students/faculty/ staff, (3) Target existing organizations for interest AND provide broad invitations, (4) Promote during IVO sessions for new students; (5) Staff planning in preparation for implementation, (6) Convene all interested people to finalize structure, and (7) Implement structure/meetings/activities
  • TBD

IEAT Inventories & ELFs Publication (IEAT 4.6)

Concluded

Responsible division: OTP

    • IEAT 4.6
    • Primary contact: Kaia Tollefson
    • OVERVIEW AND PURPOSE: Create a common vision for DEIA work that includes rubrics for all. Creating a resource for all learning and development work to use to evaluate divisions, colleges, programs, units, and offices. Develop and share across campus a rubric that communicates CSUCI’s DEIA vision, and require use of the rubric for regular assessment, goal-setting, reporting, and ongoing re-evaluation.
  • Status Report May 2023 - IEAT Inventories and ELF Publication (PDF, 207KB)

    • From March-May 2021, six Inclusive Excellence Action Teams (IEAT) conducted inventories of campus efforts to promote racial and social justice and to embed the values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and access (DEIA) campuswide.
    • Utilizing inventory data in the Summer of 2022, each IEAT evaluated their respective areas of responsibility to determine CSUCI’s developmental stage in each area: emerging, developing, or transforming
    • To conduct this qualitative analysis, they used the Equity Lens Framework, version 1 (ELF.1) created by the President’s Advisory Council on Inclusive Excellence (PACIE).
    • In 2022-23, the PACIE used feedback from the IEATs to revise the ELF.1. This work on finalizing the ELF.2 continues in Fall 2022.
  • Findings & Recommendations: 

    a. What did you learn?

    Three goals of this initiative were achieved in 2022-23: (1) creation of an IEAP Website,
    which publishes the IEAT inventories, funded initiatives and status reports, and unfunded
    initiatives and status reports on those that moved forward via divisional reallocation of
    resources; (2) PACIE’s revised Equity Lens Framework (ELF); and (3) conversion from
    paper to Digital ELF

    b. Were the values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and/or accessibility measurably advanced
    through this initiative in 2022-23? How do you know? (Please attach or link to your data
    and/or analysis of data.)

    Piloting of the Digital ELF will take place in 2023-24. Impact of this tool for measurably
    advancing DEIA values at CSUCI will require time to determine.

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