Foreword

FOREWORD

The Context

When we were approached by President Anderson in June, 2020 about Co-Chairing a task force on diversity and inclusion, it was during a national health pandemic and a period of city-wide “stay-at-home” order from the governor. It was, also, following the conclusion of a Spring semester that had made a unique and abrupt switch to totally remote working, teaching and learning because of the threat of infection from the COVID-19 virus that was quickly spreading across the nation causing vast amounts of illness and deaths. But, more important, it was at a time in the nation when the country was reeling with thousands of protests. The catalyst for these protests was an outrage of disbelief from the murder of an African American man, George Floyd. The nation watched a horrifying recording that was televised as a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee to Mr. Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes while he was handcuffed and lying face down. What is even more disturbing is that the nation was made aware that approximately 1,100 people had been killed annually by the police’s use of similar force with a disproportionate number of the people killed being African American. All of these events and others set in motion a need for our entire university to situate itself into a place of examination, identification, and reconciliation around our value of “intentional inclusion.” At this time in our history, colleges and universities are experiencing perhaps the biggest upsurge of student activism since the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. And Trinity is not immune to these issues as students, faculty and some staff are actively organizing around issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. While “diversity” can be perceived as increasing the representation of underrepresented students, faculty, and staff populations, “inclusion” takes the next step of striving for involvement of all underrepresented populations by providing equitable access to opportunities, influence, and engagement across all areas. Using an analytical framework, inclusion can be defined as considering several dimensions: access, quality, relevance of the living-learning experience, and equity for all student success through the comprehensive commitment of all university structures. Simply put, “intentional inclusion” means including groups of people who have been historically excluded and marginalized.

As a university that aspires to embrace this value of “intentional inclusion,” we have the responsibility to adopt policies, practices, and programming designed to deliberately eliminate institutional inequity while promoting inclusion that reinforces an anti-bias learning and living environment benefiting the educational experiences of all students. So, University President Danny Anderson established the President’s Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion comprised of faculty and staff. And since the work of culture change at this level must permeate all corners of the university, another advisory group of brain trust consultants and subject matter experts composed of students, faculty, and staff was also appointed. The role of the latter group was to provide responses and insights to any draft recommendations from the task force. The group served as a valuable resource for the completion of recommendations prior to final approval from President Anderson. The core value that has guided the entire task force project is the university’s value of “intentional inclusion”. In fact, it is pivotal to the philosophical foundation for all the task force recommendations. Below was the charge to the task force with goals, assumptions, risk and dependencies:

Goals

Review the recommendations jointly proposed by the Black Student Union, the African Student Association, and the Trinity Diversity Connection along with key faculty suggestions, and input from the Trinity Black/African American alumni;

Engage the university in action strategies for the implementation of best practices in all academic and non-academic units to advance the institutional value of “intentional inclusion” for the common good and for generations to come;

Create venues for the professional development, usage, and accountability of robust pedagogical practices and curricular content that is culturally responsive while reflecting, encouraging and rewarding a creative learning environment in preparation for life after graduation and increasing the value of the academic degree;

Consider the multicultural workforce of the future when planning for recruitment and campus programming;

Ensure academic freedom, faculty, staff and student guidelines/policies, and predictability for all students by integrating diversity, equity, and educational quality efforts into all institutional operations; and

Provide a framework from which trustees, president, administrators, faculty, staff, students and alumni can attend to issues of inclusive excellence practices and attitudes.

Assumptions

The task force used guidance informed from the research on inclusive excellence for higher education.

The task force sought to preserve the unique Trinity Experience of a liberal arts and sciences educational environment as a primary consideration for decision-making.

Risks and Dependencies

Success was dependent on the task forces’ ability to communicate and resolve any paramount objections of the subject matter experts and student brain-trust members identified as stakeholders and beneficiaries of the final product. The final report is further predicated on these ideals:

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5. The Board of Trustees has a critical role to play in holding the President accountable to the actions and outcomes described in this report.

Human Resources will need to occupy a proactive role in professional development for the university and enforcing equity in all its forms.

Discrimination is not restricted to racism but could be widespread to sexism, classism, and homophobia as well as other types of difference.

At the core of everything we do is academics so there was a deliberate need to encourage faculty to adapt to changes in the profession while embracing inclusive pedagogies as well as anti-racist modes of thinking.

The categories presented in this report are not silos and independent from each other. Rather, they are interdependent and interrelated. Work in one area is inevitably

6. influencing and influenced by work in all other areas. It takes a village to achieve intentional inclusion.

All the recommendations should not be read as specific execution guidelines, but, instead as an overall direction for all university units. Details for implementing these recommendations will be the responsibility of specific units based on actual and differing circumstances and the instructions of the President of Trinity University. It is beyond the scope of the charges of this task force to provide such implementation details.

The Conclusion

This task force was created in the midst of an extraordinary moment of demographic, economic, and cultural transition in order to accomplish decisive campus leadership for addressing the most pressing issues and challenges related to our role around diversity, equity, and inclusion. It has prepared recommendations that include principles and guidelines to address everything from the building of relationships across all units to plans for implementation of best practices leading to anti-bias, anti-racist structures, striving for meaningful involvement of all student populations, overall professional development, and the creation and maintenance of an inclusive campus culture. As Trinity University seeks to take positive steps toward our aspirational value of “intentional inclusion”, the task force contends that we must be open to the realities of our own campus and to making changes not only to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion but also to create a safe learning environment for our students and a safe workplace environments for all our employees.

Respectfully submitted,

Deneese L. Jones, Ph. D., Co-chair and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Wilson Terrell Jr., Ph. D,. Co-chair and Associate Professor of Engineering Sciences