Recommendation 1: Expand and infuse a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout academic departments, interdisciplinary programs, and First Year Experience using appropriate curriculum and instructional practices

● CELCS will develop competency programming and badging no later than FY22 with the goal of achieving 25% student completion by the end of FY23

CATEGORY 5: INTEGRATE DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION INTO CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY

Recommendation 1: Expand and infuse a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout academic departments, interdisciplinary programs, and First-Year Experience using appropriate curriculum and instructional practices.

Rationale: Within the context of U.S. history, society, and education, race is one of the most powerful, pervasive, and problematic manifestations of human difference. Too many educators will attempt to dismiss or neutralize its significance. Their supposition is that race is a social construction. This may be true, but racial inequities have produced significant achievement and success gaps in United States schools, colleges and universities. Culturally responsive instruction provides to Native American, Latinx, Asian American, African American, low-income students, and other underrepresented populations what traditional instructional ideologies and actions provide to middle-class white Americans. That is, skilled educators who use such approaches are able to filter curriculum content and teaching strategies through different cultural frames of reference, making the curriculum more personally meaningful and less difficult to comprehend and master. This contention may seem radical because it makes explicit the previously implicit role of culture in teaching and learning. But culturally responsive teaching insists that educational institutions accept the legitimacy and viability of various and different group cultures in improving learning outcomes (Gay, 2010)

Undergraduate students at Trinity are currently required to complete only one Understanding Diversity course within the Pathways curriculum. Although some majors seem to lend themselves easily to diversity-related discussions, as do some First-Year Experience topics, culturally-responsive pedagogy and curriculum respect diversity; engage the motivation of all learners; create a safe, inclusive, and respectful learning environment; derive teaching practices from principles that cross disciplines and cultures; and promote justice and equity in society (Wlodkowski & Ginsberg, 1995; Sleeter, 2011).

At Trinity, engagement with diversity-related curriculum is uneven across the undergraduate experience and graduate curriculum. To prepare our students to engage with the full diversity of social experience in the world beyond college, we should ensure that all students, regardless of their curricular choices and majors, encounter topics, issues, perspectives, and voices that might otherwise be silent or invisible within the normative culture.

Stakeholders: Faculty, staff, students, alumni

Recommended Actions

Redesign the August Faculty Symposium as an annual event dedicated to the pedagogical professional development of all faculty and relevant staff members.

Require all academic departments, interdisciplinary programs, and FYE topics to conduct a diversity audit, focusing on the voices, curricula choices, and perspectives that students encounter in departmental and programmatic curricula, making sure to be inclusive of all underrepresented groups.

Performance Indicators

An August Faculty Symposium is held annually, with the expectation that all faculty members (and all relevant staff members) will attend.

Responsible Parties

Vice President for Academic Affairs

A curricular audit is completed by all academic departments, interdisciplinary programs, and FYE topics, with an emphasis on the diversity of issues, authors, curricula, and speakers. Vice President for Academic Affairs; University Curriculum Council

The annual First-Year Experience workshop in May will be used as an opportunity to diversify the voices, curricula, perspectives, and topics encountered within all FYEs. At least one FYE workshop is delivered with a specific focus on diversity even though every FYE should incorporate multiple aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Associate Vice Presidents for Academic Affairs; First-Year Experience Coordinator

Suggested Timeline:

● The second annual Faculty Symposium should be offered in FY21 as time allows in a

COVID pandemic and remote learning environment. ● The next FYE workshop will be held in May 2021. ● The curricular audit should be completed by the beginning of FY22.