CSUN Strategic Plan for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence 2020 Seven Standards of Excellence
Equity and inclusion are central to CSUN's mission to enable students to realize their educational goals and to promote the welfare and intellectual progress of students. CSUN’s Plan for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence identifies seven standards of excellence that promote our value of respect for all people by endorsing that all we behave as an inclusive, cooperative community with policies, and programs that affirm the worth and personal dignity of every member of the University community and contribute to a campus climate of civility, collegiality, equitability, and reasoned debate.
Values
Over the last 3 years, CSUN has taken significant steps to prioritize and advance the pursuit of inclusive excellence in all that it does. These steps have included the creation and appointment of the Commission of Diversity & Inclusion by President Harrison, and hiring the first Chief Diversity Officer to guide the university's efforts in this area.
The development and implementation of a strategic plan for diversity and inclusive excellence is the next key step toward the realization of CSUN's vision to become a national model for exceptional equitable policies, procedures, and programs at every level of the university. The plan was developed through extensive stakeholder engagement and represents a roadmap to advance inclusive excellence by leveraging existing successful initiatives and embracing new innovative ideas.
The Seven Standards of Excellence
The Seven Standards of Excellence establish a sustaining infrastructure that reflects CSUN’s vision and goals for inclusion, equity and pluralism for the university. These standards promote the engagement, development and equitable treatment of all people, demonstrates awareness of and respect for individual differences, and support, through action and example, fair treatment and opportunity for all.
- Standard 1. Create a welcoming and inclusive campus environment by integrating and advancing inclusive excellence within all aspects of the CSUN experience. Actively speak out against words or actions that are insensitive or inconsistent with CSUN's mission and values.
- Standard 2. Create a community of shared values in which faculty, students, staff, administrators and alumni will experience personal satisfaction and pride in our collective achievements.
- Standard 3. Recruit and retain a diverse workforce by building structures that promote inclusiveness and equity for all members of the CSUN community, especially our colleagues from traditionally underserved groups, and provide an environment that appreciates and celebrates inclusive excellence.
- Standard 4. Actively engage the rich background and diverse talents of university faculty, staff and students to propel CSUN forward and achieve inclusive excellence.
- Standard 5. Recruit and retain a diverse student body by providing transformative learning experiences and developing and supporting programs and policies that ensure access to all, including those from historically underserved communities.
- Standard 6. Honor commitments to others, value all voices, give everyone a seat at the table, and model and maintain high ethical standards and integrity.
- Standard 7. Communicate CSUN's accomplishments, initiatives and innovations as the university advances inclusive excellence.
These Standards of Excellence involve ambitious, but attainable goals. Our success will require significant collaboration and partnership. Progress and accomplishments will be shared with the CSUN community annually. Each standard has several action items embedded within it to allow for easy monitoring of progress toward goal attainment.
The plan is activated through
- Conducting an in-depth campus-wide campus climate assessments based on quantitative data, interviews, and surveys to identify specific areas of concern and gaps in diversity, equity and inclusion.
- Conducting a detailed gap analysis of the specific areas of concern to identify discrepancies between the existing culture on campus and the desired culture as outlined by the Seven Standards of Inclusive Excellence.
- Conducting a campus-wide inventory of existing efforts that support the Seven Standards.
- Assessing which campus-wide efforts support our goals and which efforts need to be revised and realigned to maintain positive movement toward excellence.
- Catalyzing transformation, innovation and development by using the diverse perspectives and data collected to form actionable, targeted steps and goals that identify the specific behaviors needed to meet our strategic objectives. These steps will work in tandem with university strategic planning.
Standard 1: Create a welcoming and inclusive campus environment by integrating and advancing inclusive excellence within all aspects of the CSUN experience. Actively speak out against words or actions that are insensitive or inconsistent with CSUN's mission and values.
Action Items
- Develop and adopt University-wide definitions for key inclusive excellence terms.
- Create a model diversity strategic plan for use by all administrative and academic units.
- Establish guidelines for reporting progress on diversity goals.
- Develop, launch and analyze a campus climate survey every 3 years.
- Adopt recommendations to improve campus climate.
- Assess and address policies and practices that create barriers to retention of underrepresented and underserved community members on our campus.
- Provide institutional support to increase partnerships with community groups that support traditionally marginalized groups.
Standard 2: Create a community of shared values in which faculty, students, staff, administrators and alumni will experience personal satisfaction and pride in our collective achievements.
Action Items
- Identify that diversity and inclusion are key priorities of the university and develop and adopt University-wide definitions for diversity, equity, and inclusion to create the community experience of inclusivity in all areas, including spatial features, institutional communication, cultural practices, languages, participatory activities, educational programs, and courses.
- Develop effective strategies to promote personal development, personal satisfaction, and collective achievements for all CSUN members, especially those in underserved and underrepresented groups.
- Disseminate definitions and promote effective strategies.
- Foster a campus culture that treats all people with dignity, respect and fairness to ensure that all members, especially those from underserved and underrepresented groups, feel safe, respected and valued.
- Celebrate personal and collective achievements.
Standard 3: Recruit and retain a diverse workforce by building structures that promote inclusiveness and equity for all members of the CSUN community, especially our colleagues from traditionally underserved and underrepresented groups. Provide an environment that appreciates and celebrates inclusive excellence.
Action Items
- Develop and adopt innovative best practices to improve recruitment of employees from underserved and underrepresented communities in conjunction with Human Resources and Faculty Affairs.
- Create a culture of care by promoting polcies that provides all employees an equal opportunity to balance work and life commitments.
- Explore commonalities and differences in a work context of mutuality to build community.
- Develop and deliver implicit bias training for all search and screen committee members.
- Integrate information regarding CSUN's commitment to inclusive excellence in new employee orientation programs and materials.
Standard 4: Actively engage the rich background and diverse talents of university faculty and staff to propel CSUN forward and achieve inclusive excellence.
Action Items
- Develop and adopt innovative best practices for faculty and staff through professional development programs.
- Provide opportunities for university faculty and staff to share their rich backgrounds, unique gifts, and diverse talents through lecture series and professional development.
- Create an engaging, collaborative work environment by bringing diverse people and roles together.
- Foster teamwork through inclusion, support, cooperation, and productivity to help members recognize the value of perspectives that differ from their own.
- Cultivate an active network of relationships inside and outside of the functional area.
Standard 5: Recruit and retain a diverse student body by providing transformative learning experiences and developing and supporting programs and policies that ensure access to all, including those whose perspectives have been historically underrepresented and underserved in higher education
Action Items
- Develop and adopt innovative best practices to improve recruitment of students whose perspectives have been historically underrepresented and underserved in higher education, in conjunction with The Office of Student Affairs and Admissions.
- Identify and track areas where individual students and identity cohorts of students who require support. Develop and assess strategies for groups of students whose retention, persistence and graduation rates are lower than those of the general student population and/or who experience a lack of integration into our community.
- Increase partnerships with students, recruitment and outside agencies through outreach and engagement efforts in order to work collaboratively to eliminate economic, cultural or political barriers to student success and promote retention of all students especially those whose perspectives have been historically underrepresented and underserved in higher education.
- Increase efforts to focus on reaching out to high-achieving students from underrepresented communities in our area in conjunction with Student Affairs.
- Provide support to existing onsite, online and experiential learning programs related to diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice for students to educate the whole person in an inclusive context.
Standard 6: Honor commitments to others, value all voices, give everyone a seat at the table, and model and maintain high ethical standards and integrity.
Action Items
- Develop opportunities for all CSUN members and the outlying community to share their diverse perspectives and be heard.
- Provide opportunities to learn new things from people with different perspectives.
- Create a consistent alignment of words and actions to earn trust throughout the community by communicating more clearly that our commitment to diversity flows from our belief that inclusive excellence is the center of our institutional excellence.
- Follow through with action items to promote trust, increase diversity, and advance inclusive excellence.
Standard 7: Communicate CSUN's accomplishments, initiatives and innovations as the university advances inclusive excellence.
Action Items
- Annually publish progress reports on unit-level diversity strategic plans.
- Increase communications highlighting successes and accomplishments of all students, employees and alumni especially those whose perspectives have been historically underrepresented and underserved in higher education.
- Highlight efforts and initiatives to advance inclusive excellence at CSUN.