COMMISSION ON INCLUSION & DIVERSITY INITIATIVES
MEETING MINUTES
11/14/2018
11:02am – 11:55am
OV-16
In Attendance: : Debra Hammond, Marta Lopez, Mary-Pat Stein, Natalie Mason-Kinsey, Priscilla Ramos, Theresa White, Flavia Fleischer
Discussion Items:
A. Heed Award: For the third year in a row CSUN has received the Heed Award, which celebrates its commitment to diversity and inclusion. The award reception was held at California State University, San Marcos on October 25th. Although only a few of the CSUs won the award this year, the CDOs from campuses that won plan to work with the other campuses in hopes that they may win in the future. Some of the criteria used to judge applicants of the Heed award are: recruiting strategies, campus culture, student success programs and other metrics related to diversity and inclusion.
B. Revisions & Roll-out Plan: Based on Dr. Schutte’s summary and figures, Mason-Kinsey proposed removing section 3 (reference categories by questions by individual characteristics). These changes were proposed to address the confusion they caused in the previous commission meeting. Mason-Kinsey asked that commissioners consider this request as soon as possible, as many departments are asking for this data. Several departments have shared that the data is needed for their grant proposals, and accreditation reporting. Additionally, Mason-Kinsey would like for this data to be published on the CSUN Counts Dashboard if possible. Furthermore, the LGBTQ Advisory Committee has requested the data as well. Upon reviewing the results, they hope to develop an additional survey that will target some of the areas that were addressed in the campus climate survey, on a deeper level.
A question was raised, regarding whether the questions/comments provided by survey participants would be available to administrators. Specifically, students’ comments regarding areas that different divisions should work on to improve their services. According to Ryan Eskin, General Counsel to the CSUs, this may require that administrators and commissioners sign a confidentiality agreement. Unfortunately there is not currently a way to only pull students’ comments; should the commission choose to pursue access to student feedback, they will also receive feedback from staff, faculty and administrators. This is a result of the vendor the commission chose to work with in the previous year. When asked if administrators could quote feedback anonymously, Mason-Kinsey shared that since survey participants were not given the option to provide consent to share their feedback, it cannot ethically be used at this time.
Moving forward, Mason-Kinsey suggests that the commission considers utilizing Qualtrics for future surveys of this nature. It was shared that the faculty senate has just begun using Qualtrics, and so have a few other departments on campus. Mason-Kinsey shared that in the future, perhaps departments could purchase a license to use Qualtrics together. Although some areas on campus currently use “campus labs” to administer surveys, their contract is expiring in June 2018.
The Associated Students (AS) are working with the LGBTQ Advisory Committee to identify whether or not there is a need for more in-depth diversity training on campus. As such, they are curious to learn whether this question was addressed in the campus climate survey. Mason-Kinsey informed commissioners that while this was addressed in Dr. Schutte’s summary, these results were part of section 3, which she plans to redact from the report that will be shared with the campus. Another commissioner emphasized that perhaps since only 4.1% of students participated in the survey, the results may not be significant enough to draw conclusions from.
Mason-Kinsey shared that she would prefer for the results to be shared with the campus community as soon as possible. The commission discussed having different constituency groups on campus administer their own climate surveys to receive a more thorough understanding of the results which may be redacted. Mason-Kinsey shared that once the commission begins rolling-out the results, she hopes to visit the individual departments to help them interpret the data. Additionally, she hopes that in these visits, she can discern what questions or discussion items they would like to have included on future campus climate surveys.
C. Future Survey Discussion: Mason-Kinsey shared that most universities employ campus climate surveys every three years. As such, she hopes the commission will take some time to work together to identify the best practices to engage the campus community. Additionally, she hopes that the commission could develop questions that may be included on Student Affair’s annual survey. Moreover, Mason-Kinsey hopes that 2019/2020’s survey will be developed with another vendor. Additionally she shared that some questions will have to be re-written for clarity, and that there are less opportunities for participants to leave comments/feedback as they are not necessary for all questions.
Action Items:
1. Natalie will work with Ryan Eskin to develop a confidentiality agreement form for commission members.
2. Natalie will provide commissioners with the questions from the survey, and possibly the cover letters.
3. Commissioners will review the proposed report, and provide any feedback they may have no later than Wednesday, 11/21/2018.
4. At the next meeting, the commission will review and vote on everyone’s suggested changes
End: The meeting concluded at 11:55am.