Skip to content

Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion submissions

Department:

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6442

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    African Studies
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Faculty who teach courses in the African Studies program come from nearly all UO colleges and schools, and include people with provenance from Africa, women, and men. All AFR faculty have research concerns that address diversity issues including: improving access to education, health, and economic mobility by marginalized groups; gender and identity; majority-minority dynamics within African countries, the Black diaspora (in the U.S., Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe and other world regions), etc. The African Studies Program works hard to promote the teaching and scholarship of our faculty of color, and to make the UO a strong supportive community for their careers -- especially as they are drammatically of minority status on the UO campus. We highlight their scholarship via the African Studies Lecture Series, advertising their classes, and helping them make connections with others across campus.

    We would be delighted to be involved in hiring more faculty with African and/or Africanist backgrounds across campus.

    2. Staff: 

    We are staffed by the OCIAS office.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    African Studies has an African Studies Graduate list and holds occasional events for graduate students with interests in Africa and African Studies. We rely on individual departments and colleges graduate-student recruiting processes; but attempt to foster community among such students via RIG groups, the African Studies Lecture Series, and mentoring research projects. We have a Graduate Specialization in African Studies which has attracted minority graduate students, and which provides some much needed intellectual community for students with Africa related research.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    African Studies promotes undergraduate engagement with Africa and the African diaspora via a minor, study abroad programs, and Swahili and Arabic language study. We offer the undergraduate "Introduction to African Studies" course which engages students with a broad range of diversity issues (from economic, to justice, to gender, to religious, etc. factors). The course introduces undergraduate students to a wide range of faculty with whom they can continue to take courses that address African- and African-diasporic related topics. AFR faculty mentor undergraduate and honors theses on Africanist issues.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    - African Studies Lecture series (typically three speakers a term)
    - Support of on-campus symposia and conferences (past conferences and symposia include: Annual Conference on African Linguistics; Health in Africa; Everyday Life on the Continent: Fun, Leisure & Expressivity)

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6558

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    American English Institute
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    1) Daily interaction with international students.
    2) Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for 100,000 educators in over 200 countries.
    3) Online teacher training for differentiated instruction and universal design.
    4) Present to audiences around the globe - taking AEI and UO to places far away in person and virtually.
    5) Voice of America "Let's Teach English" series intended for those abroad (https://learningenglish.voanews.com/z/5203/about)

    4) E-learning programs for self-identified students with various needs.

    2. Staff: 

    1) Daily interaction with international students.
    2) Developing policies, processes and services to support international students.
    3) Providing extensive student services to aid in the linguistic, cultural, and academic adaptation of international students to the US American environment.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    1) Four new graduate level courses were developed and approved by the UO Curriculum Committee to focus on specific graduate-level skills such as writing, pronunciation, and international GE teacher training. These courses are cross listed as Academic English for International Students (AEIS) and Graduate Studies (GRST).
    2) New Intensive English Program (IEP) track for graduate students was developed.
    3) Testing and training of international Graduate Employees (GEs) on campus.
    4) Oral proficiency testing for pre-admitted students.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    1) The Global Bridge (or iFIG) program was launched in Fall 2017 with 146 students participating (https://fyp.uoregon.edu/figs-international-students).
    2) The AEIS programs: AEIS offers undergraduate for-credit courses for international students.
    4) FISSC (First Year International Student Success Collaborative).
    In response to a request for proposals from the Lisa Freinkl, Vice Provost of Undergraduate Studies, and in partnership with the Office of Academic Advising, AEI submitted a proposal to develop what we call the "First Year International Student Success Collaborative." This proposal outlined a number of steps designed to help international students more successfully integrate into the UO community, take advantage of services available to them, and thus increase retention and six-year graduation rates. The steps proposed include:
    a) Support student transition to US/UO academic culture and systems through redesigning the content delivered in the AEIS 101: Introductory Academic Oral Communication curriculum.
    b) Infused academic advising and student success content specific to the needs of the international student populations.
    c) Increased cross campus coordination and improve delivery of student services among units that focus on and/or serve international students.
    d) Created learning communities through the development of a cohort model in which students are enrolled in linked courses that focus on building stronger connection to campus and related resources.
    e) Developed enrollment structures that will guarantee matriculation of incoming students into appropriate AIES course sequences, enabling them to complete all courses during their first year.
    In response to this proposal, funds were allocated to support course development work, and a pilot version of the revamped AEIS 101 which incorporates steps a) through c) outlined above ran in Fall 2015.
    5) EAPiC (English for Academic Purposes in Context): In another attempt to increase the engagement and success of international students at the UO, AEI worked with faculty in the Physics Department to develop English support discussion sections for their popular PHYS 101 course. This work was supported by the College of Arts and Sciences GenEd Renaissance initiative.
    6) AEIS co-coordiantes an Upper Level cross cultural communication Business certificate for native/non-native speakers for. Offered each term, always full. Great way for international and domestic students to interact.
    7) Pursuing a Minor in English as an International Language to expose students (native and non-native English speakers) to Englishes of the world and how to engage in a global environment.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    1) Work closely with the UO Accessible Education Center and Testing Center to provide accommodations to students in AEI programs.
    2) Offer the Accelerating Accessibility Scholarship for a student with disability through collaboration with Mobility International USA (MIUSA), a local non-profit organization that promotes international education for leaders with disabilities.
    3) Offer Friday PD sessions on how to be supportive of faculty, staff and students with disabilities. Other departments including the Accessible Education Center on campus and MIUSA often join the sessions.
    4) Work with Office of International Affairs to support international students and education.
    5) Offer one tuition waiver to ELAW Fellow for underrepresented and economically disadvantaged grassroots leaders to work with ELAW study in the AEI.
    6) Hosting ORTESOL in November 2017 with the focus on Supporting Diverse Learners in ESOL - brings professionals from around Oregon and neighboring states and professionals from K-12 and HEIs.
    7) AEI faculty and staff serve as leaders in several professional organizations including TESOL, Study Oregon, and UCIEP.
    8) AEI has partnerships with Voice of America, Organization of American States, Alianza Binational Center Uruguay-USA, and several universities in Japan.

    6. Other: 

    1) Introduce resources on disability-related services in the International Student Success (ISS), the ongoing orientation course which is required for all incoming students.
    2) Post LGBTQ-friendly stickers all around the department.
    3) Be encouraging of all sexual orientation and gender identity being ‘normalized’ in the classroom, in materials and activities, at the discretion of the instructor.
    4) Introduce the laws and policies regarding LGBTQ positively during the Student Conduct Orientation for incoming students.
    5) Install multilingual "welcome" signs on all entrances and several office doors in Agate Hall.
    6) Hire dozens of UO students to be tutors (in ESL classrooms and at the help desk), conversation partners (cross cultural sharing), activities team members (participate in service learning, community service, and on activities with intensive English program events), and as Faculty and Staff Support Team (FASST) members.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    1) Modifications to make Agate Hall a more welcoming place for diverse communities - "welcome" signs in several languages have been placed on our doors and male and female meditation rooms have been assigned.
    2) Created the AEI resource webpage with AEI-specific resources with links and docs on supporting students with disabilities.
    3) Assist and support international students across campus including collaborating with the Health Center and University Housing. For example, our marketing team created videos in different languages for use by the Health Center in communicating immunization and health insurance requirements.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    1) Constructed the building so that all of the classes are on the first floor (because of the lack of an elevator), so that there was a kitchen on the first floor, and any student-related traffic areas that faculty might need to visit were on the first floor
    2) Offer an all-gender bathroom in Agate.
    3) Renovated Agate building to include 2 contemplative spaces and footbaths in the restrooms.
    4) Before the Ramadan in 2017, the newly created AEI Diversity Committee ensured that the prayer space is well advertised through different media and languages, as well as by improving the prayer space.
    3) Hold all-faculty/staff meetings, larger events and activities on the first floor where they are more accessible.
    3) Present the UO Diversity Statement in the application form and admission package.

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    1) Work with Office of International Affairs to support and collaborate on programming for international students.
    2) Student activities office engages international students in the community and fosters interaction both on and off-campus, through cultural and service learning opportunities.
    3) Homestay program allows vetted families to host international student in the Intensive English program thereby encouraging cross-cultural awareness, interactions and dialogue.
    4). Tutoring and conversation program offers interaction between intensive English language students and UO matriculated students encouraging cross-cultural awareness, interactions and dialogue.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    1) Support and give workshops at on-campus partners to raise awareness on unique challenges that international students with disabilities face. 2) Present workshops and presentations on the topic of supporting students with disabilities within the field. 3) Support academic projects or topics that include LGBTQ and culturally diverse perspectives. 4) Will host the 2017 Fall state conference for Oregon Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (ORTESOL) with a theme a faculty group proposed, Supporting Diverse Learners in ESOL, with threads on students with disabilities, LGBTQ students, and Adult Basic and Secondary Education. Expected faculty presentations include ones on supporting students with disabilities, Universal Design for students with learning disabilities, and cultivating an inclusive classroom. 5) Will make sure one professional development each term will be dedicated to diversity topics.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6484

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Anthropology
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Our faculty are strongly committed to creating and supporting a diverse and inclusive environment and are involved in many initiatives – individually and as a group – that speak to this commitment. Our faculty are strongly committed to the recruitment and retention of faculty from underrepresented populations and faculty in our department have been recognized for their roles as advisors and mentors for junior faculty from underrepresented populations. We have had five searches and made eight hires since our last review: two searches resulted in two hires and one hire was a spousal hire associated with another department. We made sure that we advertised all our positions in a range of places (including the Ford Foundation, AAPA diversity committee, Association of Black Anthropologists, Association for Latino and Latina Anthropologists, etc. ) to broaden the pool of applicants. Working with our AA office, we learned that we were very successful in regards to composition and size of our applicant pool (BioAnth 2011, Cultural Anthropology 2015, Archaeology 2017). We value a diverse faculty. Currently we have 21 tenure track faculty members (including hire for 2017): ten men and eleven women or 48% male and 52% female. Of our 21 current tenure track faculty members, 8 or 38% are faculty of color. We hope to increase this number in the next few years to reach a goal of 50% faculty of color. In terms of both gender and faculty of color, the Department of Anthropology does considerably better than the University of Oregon as a whole. In AY 2015-2016 the University of Oregon faculty was 62 percent male and 72 percent white.

    2. Staff: 

    As we currently have 2 staff members. Both interact daily with our diverse faculty, graduate student and undergraduate students. Our two staff members have been included in our department-wide bias training and training on best practices for search committees.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Faculty actively recruit graduate students from home countries where their research takes place and support their applications by assisting with application fee waivers and support for family visas when necessary. Faculty also actively recruit graduate students from underrepresented populations through individual outreach to colleagues (specifically those colleagues at minority serving institutions or local community colleges) and through more structured programs (Preview Oregon; submitting UMRP grants). In 2012 and 2013, a number of faculty members in our department developed and ran Preview Oregon, a graduate student recruiting effort, which brought students from underrepresented groups to visit our graduate program. Although we are no longer running this specific program, members of the Graduate and Community Committees have worked to incorporate what was learned - increasing departmental efforts in bringing prospective students to campus, trying to broader our outreach, and providing more resources to our graduate students. For example, the Graduate and Executive Committees have worked together to greatly increase the amount of summer support our graduate students can receive, a major pinch point for many students when considering our program—particularly for students from under-represented groups. We have also received 10 Promising Scholars awards over the last 4 years, combined with departmental funds to provide first year funding without teaching, to support incoming graduate students from underrepresented populations. Faculty in our department have been recognized for their roles as advisors and mentors for graduate students from underrepresented populations.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Our faculty are strongly committed to creating and supporting a diverse and inclusive environment in our classrooms. Faculty in our department have been recognized for their roles as advisors and mentors for undergraduate students (and graduate students, and junior faculty) from underrepresented populations. Anthropology as a discipline is focused strongly on questions of equity and inclusion globally and many of our classes satisfy the Multicultural Group (American Cultures or AC, International Cultures or IC, and Identity, Pluralism & Tolerance or IC) requirements. We are also on the leading edge of developing high quality online courses that help make coursework accessible to students with disabilities and/or constraints that make live classroom attendance difficult or impossible. The number of underrepresented undergraduate students in our classes has steadily increased following university trends (usually less than 10%), with a low of 3.3% (2012) and a high of 17.1% (2016).

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    The majority of our faculty conduct research outside of the United States and many are a part of international collaborations. In addition, a number of our faculty members are involved in both University-level and professional service that supports international efforts (e.g., International Affairs Office committees, editors or serving on editorial boards of international journals, international NGOs, historic preservation of international sites, etc.).
    Training Informed, Empathetic, Global Citizens: Almost 100% of our course offerings at the graduate and undergraduate level deal teach students to understand the commonalities that underlie the human species through time and the rich and complex differences that also define the different ways in which humans around the world and through time have lived and solved basic life problems. Students who major in anthropology are required to take courses about geographic diversity as well as human diversity linked to culture, biology, gender, race, ethnicity, nationalism, and other topics of difference. This is true for our graduate students as well. In addition, faculty members in our department regularly involve graduate students and undergraduates in international research. We have developed field programs (e.g., through Global Education Oregon) and help facilitate participation in non UO affiliated field schools when possible.
    Community Outreach: Our faculty are strongly committed to community outreach and interact with our communities in a variety of ways, including the following: public lectures and activities in Oregon; public lectures and activities where we conduct research; multiple workshops and institutes for K-12 educators; media interviews, films and more accessible print publications; social media; and through the development and implementation of a number of summer camps activities.
    Service Related to Equity and Inclusion: Our faculty have been involved in the following groups on campus: Grad Council, the University-Wide Diversity Committee, Women of Color Group at CSWS, CLLAS, UO President’s Native American Advisory Counsel, and UO Committee on Sexual Orientation, Attraction, Gender Identity and Expression. We also created a departmental Community Committee, which is responsible for department diversity and equity considerations and initiatives. The committee works to improve the departmental climate and the continued support of a diverse constituency. In addition, many faculty members routinely provide professional service related to equity and inclusion (e.g., Native American Scholarship Committee of the SAA, co-founded the Science and Medicine in South Asia Interest Group as part of the Society for Medical Anthropology).

    6. Other: 

    In order to collect information for the Equity and Inclusion section of our 10 year review in AY 16-17, the Departmental Community Committee conducted an on-line survey of 25 faculty members including all tenure-track faculty, senior lecturers, lecturers, and instructors. The survey included eight queries: 1. Describe any specific efforts you have made to recruit and retain faculty, staff and students from underrepresented populations; 2. Briefly describe any initiatives you are a part of that focus on international research and service; 3. Briefly describe any initiatives you are a part of that focus on the recruitment and retention of international students; 4. Briefly describe any initiatives you are a part of that provide our students with international experiences; 5. Briefly describe any community outreach initiatives you have developed and/or participate in; 6. If you are involved in any professional service (e.g., AAA, AAPA, SAA, etc.) related to equity and inclusion please describe that here; 7. If you are involved in any professional service (e.g. AAA, AAPA, SAA, etc.) related to equity and inclusion please describe that here; 8. Please provide any additional information that you feel is relevant to this part of our self-study. The lengthy and impressive responses to these queries are contained in the appendix available as an Excel spreadsheet (includes names of respondents), and Adobe PDF (does not include names of respondents).

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Anthropology
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Anthropology is devoted to exploring the diversity of humanity in both the past and present. Our faculty conduct research in communities around the globe, participate in diversity-related initiatives on and outside campus, and bring diverse perspectives on a variety of topics into the classroom. Moreover, our faculty expertise spans theoretical perspectives and methodological practices, forming a diverse intellectual community open to new perspectives. Consequently, our faculty are strongly committed to creating and supporting a diverse and inclusive environment on campus and beyond. A primary departmental focus has been the recruitment and retention of faculty from underrepresented populations resulting in current initiatives dedicated to the mentoring and advising of junior faculty (see departmental diversity action plan). Faculty hiring processes have been a central component of departmental diversity-related planning, particularly given that in a little over a decade our department has conducted eight searches and hired eleven individuals. We have focused on the composition of job ads with inclusive language, as well as the advertising of positions in a range of places to broaden the applicant pools (including the Ford Foundation, AAPA diversity committee, Association of Black Anthropologists, Association for Latino and Latina Anthropologists, etc.). Among Anthropology Department faculty at the UO, one-third are faculty of color and we are evenly split between men and women. A focus of planning for future hires is to continue diversifying the faculty through recruitment of members of underrepresented groups, and developing strategies to create even more inclusive hiring processes.

    2. Staff: 

    The anthropology staff currently consists of two individuals who work in a variety of capacities to provide support for diversity initiatives in the department and who have participated in training's related to bias and equity and inclusion. Working with faculty, they support our job searches and reporting responsibilities to various units on campus. In particular they are central to our recruitment and retention of graduate students, many from international or underrepresented groups, as they help to facilitate contracts and funding sources, including promising scholar awards. Given the number of diversity-related initiatives that faculty have created or participated in which require administrative support, the departmental staff are an integral part of Anthropology’s program.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Recruitment and retention of a diverse graduate student population is a major concern of the Anthropology department. As many of our faculty work internationally, we have successfully recruited students from several different world regions. Supporting individual international students requires different approaches, including occasional fee waivers, arranging for family visas, and other contingencies that may arise. Faculty commonly recruit students from underrepresented groups in the United States through both individual efforts as well as structured programs. In 2012 and 2013, a number of faculty members in our department developed and ran Preview Oregon, a graduate student recruiting effort, which brought students from underrepresented groups to visit our graduate program. Although we are no longer running this specific program, members of the Graduate and Community Committees have worked to incorporate what was learned - increasing departmental efforts in bringing prospective students to campus, trying to broader our outreach, and providing more resources to our graduate students. For example, the Graduate and Executive Committees have worked together to greatly increase the amount of summer support our graduate students can receive, a major variable for many students when considering our program—particularly for students from under-represented groups. We have been successful advocating for Promising Scholars awards and matching them with departmental funds to provide first year funding without teaching to incoming graduate students from underrepresented populations. Faculty in our department have been recognized for their roles as advisors and mentors for graduate students from underrepresented populations.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Our faculty work hard to create and support a diverse and inclusive environment in our classrooms. Anthropology faculty have been recognized for their roles as advisors and mentors for undergraduate students from underrepresented populations. Given the wide scope of relevant subject matter in Anthropology devoted to questions of equity and inclusion both domestic and global, many of our classes satisfy the Multicultural Group (American Cultures or AC, International Cultures or IC, and Identity, Pluralism & Tolerance or IC) requirements. Anthropology faculty have also worked extensively with the McNair program to mentor and create opportunities for underrepresented students. Moreover, we are on the leading edge of developing high quality online courses that help make coursework accessible to students with disabilities and/or constraints that make live classroom attendance difficult or impossible. Anthropology has also worked hard to create a variety of both domestic and international opportunities, including field schools, for students to work in multi-cultural settings and on research topics related to diversity, equity and inclusion. In a broad sense, the Anthropology curriculum is designed to allow students to examine the histories of and contemporary dynamics of diversity-related issues, a breadth that is key to our field’s identity.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    The majority of our faculty conduct research outside of the United States and many are a part of international collaborations. In addition, a number of our faculty members are involved in both University-level and professional service that supports international efforts (e.g., International Affairs Office committees, editors or serving on editorial boards of international journals, international NGOs, historic preservation of international sites, etc.).
    Training Informed, Empathetic, Global Citizens: Almost all of our course offerings at the graduate and undergraduate level teach students to understand the commonalities that underlie the human species through time and the rich and complex differences that also define the different ways in which humans around the world and through time have lived and solved basic life problems. Students who major in anthropology are required to take courses about geographic diversity as well as human diversity linked to culture, biology, gender, race, ethnicity, nationalism, and other topics of difference. This is true for our graduate students as well. In addition, faculty members in our department regularly involve graduate students and undergraduates in international research. We have developed field programs (e.g., through Global Education Oregon) and help facilitate participation in non UO affiliated field schools when possible.
    Community Outreach: Our faculty are strongly committed to community outreach, including the following: public lectures and activities in Oregon; public lectures and activities where we conduct research; multiple workshops and institutes for K-12 educators; media interviews, films and more accessible print publications; social media; and through the development and implementation of a number of summer camps activities.
    Service Related to Equity and Inclusion: Our faculty have been involved in, amongst others, the following groups on campus: Grad Council, the University-Wide Diversity Committee, Women of Color Group at CSWS, CLLAS, UO President’s Native American Advisory Counsel, and UO Committee on Sexual Orientation, Attraction, Gender Identity and Expression, and the Initiative on Reducing Gender-Based Violence. We also created a departmental Community Committee, which is responsible for department diversity and equity considerations and initiatives. The committee works to improve the departmental climate and the continued support of a diverse constituency. In addition, many faculty members routinely provide professional service related to equity and inclusion (e.g., Native American Scholarship Committee of the SAA, co-founded the Science and Medicine in South Asia Interest Group as part of the Society for Medical Anthropology).

    6. Other: 

    In order to collect information for the Equity and Inclusion section of our 10 year review in AY 16-17, the Departmental Community Committee conducted an on-line survey of 25 faculty members including all tenure-track faculty, senior lecturers, lecturers, and instructors. The survey included eight queries dealing in how they participate and involve diversity in their professional lives. The lengthy and impressive responses to these queries are contained in a document, available upon request.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    Staff participates in various diversity groups such as Allied Dreamers, Black lives matter and help to create undergrad programs and clubs that promote diversity.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    Staff is main support for informing, educating and facilitating all department action plans and initiatives.

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    Staff is responsible for keeping website up to date on various community and group outreach programs. Informed and educated on opportunities so we can disseminate information to relevant students and faculty. Participate in programs of outreach and attend pertinent community service events.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    Staff attend all offered training's related to diversity, title IX, discrimination, and other such workshops that revolve around social correctness and social awareness.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6544

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Biology Department
    Division: 
    Natural Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 
    • Faculty search efforts (with new diversity plan)
    • Participation in our Summer Undergraduate Research Program, which focuses on URMs
    • NIH-funded R25 grant, which funds URM students for undergraduate research from both within and outside UO
    • Application to NSF for renewal of REU grant for $360,000, which funds 10 undergraduate students for SPUR each summer running from April 1, 2018 – March 31, 2021. This program provides an opportunity for 10 week summer research experiences in biological sciences, with emphasis on recruitment of underrepresented groups, for 10 students from other campuses per year (30 interns total)
    • Membership on our departmental Diversity Committee
    2. Staff: 
    • Search efforts (with new diversity plan)
    • Training -- ODT classes
    3. Graduate Programs: 
    • Host “Preview Oregon,” an annual visitation program for URMs who are interested in applying to PhD programs
    • Employ an administrative GE to assist with URM recruitment and retention
    • Recruit students who participated in SPUR (see above), as well as McNair Scholars
    • Submit the maximum number of nominations allowed each year for Promising Scholar Awards
    • UO provides one stipend/tuition/insurance package for one URM student associated with each of the department's NIH-funded T32 training grants. For AY2017-18 there are three such slots.
    • Biology faculty attend SACNAS and ABRCMS, science research conferences for URM undergraduates (one faculty member goes through entire abstract book and tries to attend posters of all students doing projects that are relevant to faculty research labs at UO). Usually two faculty attend, including one undergraduate advisor and one TTF. Two graduate students will also be attending in 2017.
    • Some students, including all who attend ABRCMS or SACNAS, are eligible for an application fee waiver through the Graduate School.
    4. Undergraduate Programs: 
    • Participation in SACNAS/ABRCMS
    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 
    • Jana Prikryl, Career Instructor, has established a UO chapter for SACNAS.
    • Jessica Wilson and Patrick Phillips are currently working with graduate students to create a social support network, bridging all UO departments/schools, for URMs in graduate programs (in addition to building a stronger and safer community, which should help with graduate recruitment and retention).
    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    All Biology OAs and staff may serve on UO committee(s), including those related to equity, diversity, and inclusion.
    Reasonable release time from OA and staff positions is granted for this service.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 
    INCLUSION
    The Department of Biology OAs and staff work together with the UO Accessible Education Center to ensure accessibility for all students as it relates to classroom instruction.
    All Department of Biology OA and staff searches incorporate issues of equity, implicit bias, and cultural understanding via participation in implicit bias training and gender neutral review of applications.
    DIVERSITY
    The Department of Biology has a full time graduate program manager who actively seeks and implements national best practices for the recruitment and retention of graduate students. The department's graduate program also pursues URM/promising scholar funding for eligible students.
    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    N/A

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    All Biology OAs and staff may attend professional development opportunities related to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Reasonable release time from OA and staff positions is granted for these opportunities, however departmental funding assistance is limited.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6997

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Biology Department
    Division: 
    Natural Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Faculty search efforts (with new diversity plan)
    Participation in our Summer Undergraduate Research Program, which focuses on URMs
    Participation in EMBOC-- the NSF REU at OIMB
    NIH-funded R25 grant, which funds URM students for undergraduate research from both within and outside UO
    Application to NSF for renewal of REU grant for $360,000, which funds 10 undergraduate students for SPUR each summer running from April 1, 2018 – March 31, 2021. This program provides an opportunity for 10 week summer research experiences in biological sciences, with emphasis on recruitment of underrepresented groups, for 10 students from other campuses per year (30 interns total)
    Membership on our departmental Diversity Committee
    Participation in SAIL, Saturday Academy, SPICE

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Host “Preview Oregon,” an annual visitation program for URMs who are interested in applying to PhD programs
    Recruit students who participated in SPUR (see above), as well as McNair Scholars
    UO provides one stipend/tuition/insurance package for one URM student associated with each of the department's NIH-funded T32 training grants. For AY2017-18 there are three such slots.
    Biology faculty and graduate students attend SACNAS and ABRCMS, science research conferences for URM undergraduates (one faculty member goes through entire abstract book and tries to attend posters of all students doing projects that are relevant to faculty research labs at UO).
    Some students, including all who attend ABRCMS or SACNAS, are eligible for an application fee waiver through the Graduate School.
    No GRE requirement for application

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Learning Biology
    Science Literacy Program
    SCORE (Students of Color Opportunities for Research Enrichment)

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Participation in Science Pub, Quack Chats, Science Knight Out, Run with a Researcher
    Jana Prikyl and Santiago Jaramillo are faculty associated with the UO SACNAS Chapter

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    All Biology OAs and staff may serve on UO committee(s), including those related to equity, diversity, and inclusion.
    Reasonable release time from OA and staff positions is granted for this service.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    The Department of Biology OAs and staff work together with the UO Accessible Education Center to ensure accessibility for all students as it relates to classroom instruction.
    All Department of Biology OA and staff searches incorporate issues of equity, implicit bias, and cultural understanding via participation in implicit bias training and gender neutral review of applications.
    The Department of Biology has a full time graduate program manager who actively seeks and implements national best practices for the recruitment and retention of graduate students. The department's graduate program also pursues URM/promising scholar funding for eligible students.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    All Biology OAs and staff may attend professional development opportunities related to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Reasonable release time from OA and staff positions is granted for these opportunities, however departmental funding assistance is limited.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    CASIT
    Division: 
    Other
    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    The College of Arts and Sciences IT Support Services Department formed a Diversity and Inclusion Committee in October of 2017. The Committee consists of classified staff members, student employees, and unclassified staff members. The first Committee Chair was nominated by the Director of CASIT and seconded by the other members of the Committee. Future chairs will be selected based on a vote by the Diversity and Inclusion Committee, with input from the CASIT Director if appropriate/needed. The Committee Chair reports to the CASIT Director as to the work the committee is doing in addition to acting as Diversity Liaison with the Office of Equity and Inclusion, with other Diversity Committees, and with the larger university community.

    The CASIT Diversity and Inclusion Committee understands that the concepts of diversity and inclusion are not the same. The Committee understands Diversity as the inclusion of different types of people (including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, ability, class, and other areas of social equity) in a group or organization. The Committee also understands Inclusion to be a relation between two groups that exists when all members of the first are also members of the second. It is for this reason that we are the CASIT Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    Our search, interview, and onboarding processes have been reviewed and updated by the Diversity and Inclusion Committee in conjunction with the Chair and the HR manager. We have increased the breadth of our searches by posting open positions with a multitude of sites that cater towards women, people of color, and other minorities/underrepresented groups in IT. We have not yet created a detailed Diversity checklist for search committees, however we have provided some insight as to how some interview questions could be considered culturally insensitive (“How do you handle workplace conflict” vs. “What values play into how you handle workplace conflict”) and have discussed including a rotating member of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee on each Classified and Unclassified search.

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    Getting involved in some kind of outreach to the local middle/high schools was a recurring topic for the CASIT Diversity and Inclusion Committee, however it is also something that never got past the brainstorming phase. There is a potential contact with Girls Who Code (Erin Barnhart) that could assist with this outreach, however I am uncertain what the appropriate process for that is.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    Unfortunately, with the switch from Making Tracks to MyTracks Learning we have not been able to actually discuss what it would look like to require mandatory training on a more frequently occurring basis. We have created a section in our Confluence Policies and Info section that records which employees took the required trainings and when.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6543

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Chemistry and Biochemistry
    Division: 
    Natural Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    The department currently carries out a number of activities to develop the skills and enhance the effectiveness of the departmental community and broaden participation. For example, each new faculty member is assigned at least one mentor to assist him or her in excelling in all areas of their professional development.
    Several programs (COACh, Women in Science and Graduate Women in Science (GWS)) strive to ensure that women faculty and graduate students have a network of support and develop skills to excel in their careers.
    The pool of top minority faculty candidates is small and intensely sought after nationally. The Eugene community is an excellent place to live, but despite its reputation for cultural awareness, the minority population is quite low. Prospective science faculty will rely on our reputation (and their familiarity with our program) and ability to provide resources and support for their research and teaching efforts. It is clearly important to be able to provide these resources and support, however, in order to lower barriers to broadened faculty recruiting it may also be critical to take steps to ensure that potential candidates are aware of the opportunities and inclusive nature of our program, either through personal experience or through that of their mentors. Given the success of our programs that bring potential graduate students to campus, we will explore guest programs for faculty and postdoctoral associates to bring potential candidates and/or their mentors onto our campus. Possibilities include short but targeted postdoctoral summer workshops in green chemistry or nanoscience, research exchange programs, and targeted conferences.
    Another promising strategy that we have implemented is to conduct broader searches that are not restricted to a particular subdiscipline. Such broad searches maximize the pool of applicants and thereby maximize the chances that qualified members of underrepresented groups will apply. We will actively encourage such broad searches in the future as part of our overall diversity efforts and our desire to achieve a critical mass.
    Chemistry and Biochemistry faculty, in cooperation with the UO Industrial Internship Program, have led the establishment of an OUS system-wide chapter of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE). The OUS chapter was recently certified, and the west regional meeting of NOBCChE was held on the UO campus Spring 2013.
    Our recruiting office arranges faculty seminar trips to regional institutions for recruiting purposes. We continue to increase the number of institutions with large minority populations through the seminar program. We have found that developing on-going relationships with faculty at these institutions is a particularly effective strategy to enhance the quality and quantity of students that apply from these partner institutions.

    2. Staff: 

    Our staff provides a welcoming environment and they provide assistance to all individuals that come into our office. They are often our first contact with visitors and have regular contact with undergraduate and graduate students in our department.
    We follow University guidelines that promote diversity, equity and inclusion in our recruitment of staff and faculty. Our diverse faculty recruiting program includes disseminating information about our openings via sites that reach a diverse audience including COACh (an organization working to increase the number and career success of women scientists and engineers), Academic Jobs Online, Diverse Jobs, IOTA Sigma Pi (National Honor Society for Women in Chemistry), Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), American Society for Cell Biology, and the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) .
    Our staff fully supports all of our internal and external outreach programs that support diversity and assure inclusion (see other sections). Our staff assists with communications, room reservations and provide access to a variety of resources that are used to support these programs.
    The department encourages and funds opportunities for our staff to participate in specialized training related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Recruiting
    Proactive communications: We reach out to a variety of groups (e.g., current McNair scholars and all students that take the GRE) to provide them with information about our program and invite them to apply. We also let them know that we can waive the application fee.
    The National Science Foundation sponsors a program called REU _ Research Experience for Undergraduates and 60% of the students that participate in this program are minority students. At the end of each session, our graduate recruiting coordinator participates in a luncheon to showcase our graduate program and then continues the conversation with students via email.
    When students start an application to our program, our graduate recruiting coordinator collects additional information about the student using Internet searches. She tracks awards, special projects, and interests. Personal emails are sent to all students that start an application.
    If students answer one of the ethnicity questions on the UO application, we follow-up with an email and offer them an application fee waiver.
    Once a student is identified as a potential under represented minority, they receive special attention throughout the admission process.
    Our faculty focus on establishing relationships with faculty research advisors who work with under represented minority students that have applied to our program in the past. This peer-to-peer outreach effort is designed to continue to showcase our institution and program and explore how we can best meet the needs of all students.
    To build a critical mass within our graduate student population, we recruited a full-time graduate student recruiting coordinator and provide that office with a budget of ~ $100K/year to work year around to recruit a diverse population of top graduate students. Although we emphasize recruitment of women and minority students in this effort, part of our plan will be to conduct in-depth evaluation of those efforts, to determine how to enhance our ability to recruit these groups. We currently bring all graduate students to campus on a single recruiting weekend which makes it possible for students to observe the diversity of the potential incoming class as well as that of the existing community.
    Our recruiting office arranges faculty seminar trips to regional institutions for recruiting purposes. We continue to increase the number of institutions with large minority populations through the seminar program. We have found that developing on-going relationships with faculty at these institutions is a particularly effective strategy to enhance the quality and quantity of students that apply from these partner institutions.
    The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry continues to work to improve the fraction of minority graduate students through recruitment efforts. For the last three recruiting seasons, we have targeted minority applicants (from both underrepresented and socio-economically disadvantaged groups) by seeking and being awarded Promising Scholars Awards from the UO Graduate School, a source of recruiting revenue for minorities that Chemistry and Biochemistry had previously failed to utilize.
    Spring 2010 _ six awards, three joined program Fall 2010, two still here
    Spring 2011 _ three awards, one joined program Fall 2011, still here
    Spring 2012 _ four awards so far, too soon to know outcome
    Building Community
    We invite members of our local chapters of Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), American Society for Cell Biology, National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) and UO Women in Graduate Sciences (WGS) to participate in our recruiting events.
    Graduate students and faculty participate in a variety of outreach efforts designed to increase the diversity of our undergraduate population. These efforts include the Summer Academy to Inspire Learning (SAIL).

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    We utilize a divers array of communication platforms to make sure that all our students are informed about on and off campus opportunities to prepare for a career in the sciences. Our platforms include - in class announcements by faculty, a department webpage, a specific website for undergraduate majors, email announcements, department sponsored blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, and twitter feed.
    We also provide chemistry demonstration shows, both on and off campus, that support programs involved in recruiting diverse students to the UO, and provide department tours to families and guests.
    Our faculty participate in programs such as the UO Science Literacy program which assists faculty in the development of curricula that are accessible to all students.
    Our faculty and graduate students serve as mentors for students groups aimed at increasing diversity and assuring equity and inclusion. The University of Oregon has Student Chapters of NOBCChE (National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers) and SACNAS (Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science) two national organization that are dedicated to fostering the success of minorities in STEM fields. These student organizations host and participate in career development workshops; connect students with professionals; and hope to expand to include tutoring sessions as well as science outreach.
    Our faculty recruit and support undergraduates in the University's McNair Scholars Program, the MSI REU program, and the SPUR program. Each of these programs supports research experiences for students from underrepresented groups.
    Chemistry and Biochemistry has an excellent record of working with the admissions office and with developing out-reach programs to the high schools and community colleges in Oregon. This includes participating in many admissions office recruitment efforts (e.g., Duck Days) including those specifically targeted at minorities, developing summer courses for high school teachers, developing enrichment events for high school teachers (e.g., the visitation of local high school science teachers arranged by Julie Haack and Dean Livelybrooks), and applying for and being awarded large block grants such as NSF GK-12 program. Chemistry and Biochemistry will continue these efforts and looks for additional opportunities to help with minority recruitment efforts for undergraduate candidates. One of these is the recently NSF-funded "Scholarships for Oregon Scientists" program for incoming and transfer chemistry and physics majors.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Diversity has long been recognized as one of the keys to the UO Chemistry and Biochemistry Department's research and education excellence. Accordingly, the department has taken steps to broaden participation that have now been emulated by other units on campus.
    Outreach programs _ our GK-12 has created a strong bond between the UO and Oregon school districts, particularly with those with more diverse student populations.
    On-campus programs _ we pioneered one-week science experiences for freshmen and sophomores who, due to family or other constraints, can't leave home long enough to attend an REU program.
    The small number of both faculty and Ph.D. recipients in the natural sciences who belong to groups of underrepresented minorities points to a structural problem that needs to be addressed much earlier than at the stage of hiring faculty. In recognition of this, the Department, in collaboration with the Materials Science Institute and the Physics Department have implemented a number of programs to encourage students, particularly underrepresented students, to pursue science educations. Examples of these activities are listed below:
    The UO GK12 Science Outreach Program employed Chemistry and Biochemistry and Physics graduate students as resources for teaching hands-on science and mathematics in elementary and middle schools in Lane, Deschutes and Jefferson Counties. Initially funded through NSF, the program has been successfully transitioned to continuing funding provided by the Engineering Technology in Industry Council, an advisory group to the Governor of Oregon, in recognition of the importance of the program for science education in our state. Several of our partner schools have significant populations of students who speak English as a second language or are minority students (Madras Elementary: 27.5 % ESL; 50.9 % minority; Danebo Elementary: 11.8% ESL; 36.1% minority; Vern Patrick Elementary: 7.6% ESL; 22.9% minority). We have discovered that bringing inquiry-based science into the classroom reaches across the language barriers in a way that textbooks cannot. Hands-on activities engage kids in questioning, testing and learning in an experience that moves beyond a verbal or written presentation of facts.
    Science Open House. The UO Chemistry and Biochemistry and Physics departments conduct an annual Science Open House targeted at high school students all over the State of Oregon. Feedback received from students and teachers alike shows that this is a very popular and successful event that opens many students' eyes to the opportunities a career in the sciences can offer. Due to its broad scope, this event is guaranteed to reach a proportion of minority students equal to their representation in the general population.
    Summer Experiences _ ChipCamp, PolyCamp, RockCamp are intensive summer research experiences that introduce freshmen and sophomores to exciting applications of basic science. The all-expenses paid, week-long format is an attractive first off-campus experience, short enough that it is not threatening, but long enough to provide an excellent educational experience. Significant time is spent discussing career opportunities and the benefits of an advanced degree. During the last five years, underrepresented minority enrollments have been as high as 25% and women typically outnumber men in the program.

    6. Other: 

    Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has developed plans to enhance and accelerate our efforts to broaden participation based upon three key recommendations of the campus-wide diversity plan:
    Developing a culturally responsive community
    Building a critical mass
    Expanding and filling the pipeline
    The atmosphere within the department seems to be one that is very positive toward various cultural and ethnic groups, and there is substantial interest in improving diverse representations within the department. Reasons for this interest include broadening opportunities for recruiting talented students and enhanced cultural exposure for our undergraduate and graduate population, as well as working with our corporate partners to enhance diversity within their workplaces (several companies are providing scholarships or directly assisting in recruiting these underrepresented groups into our program).

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    All Chemistry and Biochemistry OAs and staff may serve on UO committee(s), including those related to equity, diversity, and inclusion.
    Reasonable release time from OA and staff positions is granted for this service.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    We follow University guidelines that promote diversity, equity and inclusion in our recruitment of staff and faculty. Our diverse faculty recruiting program includes disseminating information about our openings via sites that reach a diverse audience including COACh (an organization working to increase the number and career success of women scientists and engineers), Academic Jobs Online, Diverse Jobs, IOTA Sigma Pi (National Honor Society for Women in Chemistry), Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), American Society for Cell Biology, and the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) .

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    Our staff fully supports all of our internal and external outreach programs that support diversity and assure inclusion (see other sections). Our staff assists with communications, room reservations and provide access to a variety of resources that are used to support these programs.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    The department encourages and funds opportunities for our staff to participate in specialized training related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
    5. Other: 

    Our staff provides a welcoming environment and they provide assistance to all individuals that come into our office. They are often our first contact with visitors and have regular contact with undergraduate and graduate students in our department.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Chemistry and Biochemistry
    Division: 
    Natural Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    The department currently carries out a number of activities to develop the skills and enhance the effectiveness of the departmental community and broaden participation. For example, each new faculty member is assigned at least one mentor to assist him or her in excelling in all areas of their professional development.
    Several programs (COACh, Women in Science and Graduate Women in Science (GWS)) strive to ensure that women faculty and graduate students have a network of support and develop skills to excel in their careers.
    The pool of top minority faculty candidates is small and intensely sought after nationally. The Eugene community is an excellent place to live, but despite its reputation for cultural awareness, the minority population is quite low. Prospective science faculty will rely on our reputation (and their familiarity with our program) and ability to provide resources and support for their research and teaching efforts. It is clearly important to be able to provide these resources and support, however, in order to lower barriers to broadened faculty recruiting it may also be critical to take steps to ensure that potential candidates are aware of the opportunities and inclusive nature of our program, either through personal experience or through that of their mentors. Given the success of our programs that bring potential graduate students to campus, we will explore guest programs for faculty and postdoctoral associates to bring potential candidates and/or their mentors onto our campus. Possibilities include short but targeted postdoctoral summer workshops in green chemistry or nanoscience, research exchange programs, and targeted conferences.
    Another promising strategy that we have implemented is to conduct broader searches that are not restricted to a particular subdiscipline. Such broad searches maximize the pool of applicants and thereby maximize the chances that qualified members of underrepresented groups will apply. We will actively encourage such broad searches in the future as part of our overall diversity efforts and our desire to achieve a critical mass.
    Chemistry and Biochemistry faculty, in cooperation with the UO Industrial Internship Program, have led the establishment of an OUS system-wide chapter of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE). The OUS chapter was recently certified, and the west regional meeting of NOBCChE was held on the UO campus Spring 2013.
    Our recruiting office arranges faculty seminar trips to regional institutions for recruiting purposes. We continue to increase the number of institutions with large minority populations through the seminar program. We have found that developing on-going relationships with faculty at these institutions is a particularly effective strategy to enhance the quality and quantity of students that apply from these partner institutions.

    2. Staff: 

    Our staff provides a welcoming environment and they provide assistance to all individuals that come into our office. They are often our first contact with visitors and have regular contact with undergraduate and graduate students in our department.
    We follow University guidelines that promote diversity, equity and inclusion in our recruitment of staff and faculty. Our diverse faculty recruiting program includes disseminating information about our openings via sites that reach a diverse audience including COACh (an organization working to increase the number and career success of women scientists and engineers), Academic Jobs Online, Diverse Jobs, IOTA Sigma Pi (National Honor Society for Women in Chemistry), Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), American Society for Cell Biology, and the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) .
    Our staff fully supports all of our internal and external outreach programs that support diversity and assure inclusion (see other sections). Our staff assists with communications, room reservations and provide access to a variety of resources that are used to support these programs.
    The department encourages and funds opportunities for our staff to participate in specialized training related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Recruiting
    Proactive communications: We reach out to a variety of groups (e.g., current McNair scholars and all students that take the GRE) to provide them with information about our program and invite them to apply. We also let them know that we can waive the application fee.
    The National Science Foundation sponsors a program called REU _ Research Experience for Undergraduates and 60% of the students that participate in this program are minority students. At the end of each session, our graduate recruiting coordinator participates in a luncheon to showcase our graduate program and then continues the conversation with students via email.
    When students start an application to our program, our graduate recruiting coordinator collects additional information about the student using Internet searches. She tracks awards, special projects, and interests. Personal emails are sent to all students that start an application.
    If students answer one of the ethnicity questions on the UO application, we follow-up with an email and offer them an application fee waiver.
    Once a student is identified as a potential under represented minority, they receive special attention throughout the admission process.
    Our faculty focus on establishing relationships with faculty research advisors who work with under represented minority students that have applied to our program in the past. This peer-to-peer outreach effort is designed to continue to showcase our institution and program and explore how we can best meet the needs of all students.
    To build a critical mass within our graduate student population, we recruited a full-time graduate student recruiting coordinator and provide that office with a budget of ~ $100K/year to work year around to recruit a diverse population of top graduate students. Although we emphasize recruitment of women and minority students in this effort, part of our plan will be to conduct in-depth evaluation of those efforts, to determine how to enhance our ability to recruit these groups. We currently bring all graduate students to campus on a single recruiting weekend which makes it possible for students to observe the diversity of the potential incoming class as well as that of the existing community.
    Our recruiting office arranges faculty seminar trips to regional institutions for recruiting purposes. We continue to increase the number of institutions with large minority populations through the seminar program. We have found that developing on-going relationships with faculty at these institutions is a particularly effective strategy to enhance the quality and quantity of students that apply from these partner institutions.
    The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry continues to work to improve the fraction of minority graduate students through recruitment efforts. For the last three recruiting seasons, we have targeted minority applicants (from both underrepresented and socio-economically disadvantaged groups) by seeking and being awarded Promising Scholars Awards from the UO Graduate School, a source of recruiting revenue for minorities that Chemistry and Biochemistry had previously failed to utilize.
    Spring 2010 _ six awards, three joined program Fall 2010, two still here
    Spring 2011 _ three awards, one joined program Fall 2011, still here
    Spring 2012 _ four awards so far, too soon to know outcome
    Building Community
    We invite members of our local chapters of Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), American Society for Cell Biology, National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) and UO Women in Graduate Sciences (WGS) to participate in our recruiting events.
    Graduate students and faculty participate in a variety of outreach efforts designed to increase the diversity of our undergraduate population. These efforts include the Summer Academy to Inspire Learning (SAIL).

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    We utilize a divers array of communication platforms to make sure that all our students are informed about on and off campus opportunities to prepare for a career in the sciences. Our platforms include - in class announcements by faculty, a department webpage, a specific website for undergraduate majors, email announcements, department sponsored blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, and twitter feed.
    We also provide chemistry demonstration shows, both on and off campus, that support programs involved in recruiting diverse students to the UO, and provide department tours to families and guests.
    Our faculty participate in programs such as the UO Science Literacy program which assists faculty in the development of curricula that are accessible to all students.
    Our faculty and graduate students serve as mentors for students groups aimed at increasing diversity and assuring equity and inclusion. The University of Oregon has Student Chapters of NOBCChE (National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers) and SACNAS (Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science) two national organization that are dedicated to fostering the success of minorities in STEM fields. These student organizations host and participate in career development workshops; connect students with professionals; and hope to expand to include tutoring sessions as well as science outreach.
    Our faculty recruit and support undergraduates in the University's McNair Scholars Program, the MSI REU program, and the SPUR program. Each of these programs supports research experiences for students from underrepresented groups.
    Chemistry and Biochemistry has an excellent record of working with the admissions office and with developing out-reach programs to the high schools and community colleges in Oregon. This includes participating in many admissions office recruitment efforts (e.g., Duck Days) including those specifically targeted at minorities, developing summer courses for high school teachers, developing enrichment events for high school teachers (e.g., the visitation of local high school science teachers arranged by Julie Haack and Dean Livelybrooks), and applying for and being awarded large block grants such as NSF GK-12 program. Chemistry and Biochemistry will continue these efforts and looks for additional opportunities to help with minority recruitment efforts for undergraduate candidates. One of these is the recently NSF-funded "Scholarships for Oregon Scientists" program for incoming and transfer chemistry and physics majors.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Diversity has long been recognized as one of the keys to the UO Chemistry and Biochemistry Department's research and education excellence. Accordingly, the department has taken steps to broaden participation that have now been emulated by other units on campus.
    Outreach programs _ our GK-12 has created a strong bond between the UO and Oregon school districts, particularly with those with more diverse student populations.
    On-campus programs _ we pioneered one-week science experiences for freshmen and sophomores who, due to family or other constraints, can't leave home long enough to attend an REU program.
    The small number of both faculty and Ph.D. recipients in the natural sciences who belong to groups of underrepresented minorities points to a structural problem that needs to be addressed much earlier than at the stage of hiring faculty. In recognition of this, the Department, in collaboration with the Materials Science Institute and the Physics Department have implemented a number of programs to encourage students, particularly underrepresented students, to pursue science educations. Examples of these activities are listed below:
    The UO GK12 Science Outreach Program employed Chemistry and Biochemistry and Physics graduate students as resources for teaching hands-on science and mathematics in elementary and middle schools in Lane, Deschutes and Jefferson Counties. Initially funded through NSF, the program has been successfully transitioned to continuing funding provided by the Engineering Technology in Industry Council, an advisory group to the Governor of Oregon, in recognition of the importance of the program for science education in our state. Several of our partner schools have significant populations of students who speak English as a second language or are minority students (Madras Elementary: 27.5 % ESL; 50.9 % minority; Danebo Elementary: 11.8% ESL; 36.1% minority; Vern Patrick Elementary: 7.6% ESL; 22.9% minority). We have discovered that bringing inquiry-based science into the classroom reaches across the language barriers in a way that textbooks cannot. Hands-on activities engage kids in questioning, testing and learning in an experience that moves beyond a verbal or written presentation of facts.
    Science Open House. The UO Chemistry and Biochemistry and Physics departments conduct an annual Science Open House targeted at high school students all over the State of Oregon. Feedback received from students and teachers alike shows that this is a very popular and successful event that opens many students' eyes to the opportunities a career in the sciences can offer. Due to its broad scope, this event is guaranteed to reach a proportion of minority students equal to their representation in the general population.
    Summer Experiences _ ChipCamp, PolyCamp, RockCamp are intensive summer research experiences that introduce freshmen and sophomores to exciting applications of basic science. The all-expenses paid, week-long format is an attractive first off-campus experience, short enough that it is not threatening, but long enough to provide an excellent educational experience. Significant time is spent discussing career opportunities and the benefits of an advanced degree. During the last five years, underrepresented minority enrollments have been as high as 25% and women typically outnumber men in the program.

    6. Other: 

    Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has developed plans to enhance and accelerate our efforts to broaden participation based upon three key recommendations of the campus-wide diversity plan:
    Developing a culturally responsive community
    Building a critical mass
    Expanding and filling the pipeline
    The atmosphere within the department seems to be one that is very positive toward various cultural and ethnic groups, and there is substantial interest in improving diverse representations within the department. Reasons for this interest include broadening opportunities for recruiting talented students and enhanced cultural exposure for our undergraduate and graduate population, as well as working with our corporate partners to enhance diversity within their workplaces (several companies are providing scholarships or directly assisting in recruiting these underrepresented groups into our program).

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    All Chemistry and Biochemistry OAs and staff may serve on UO committee(s), including those related to equity, diversity, and inclusion.
    Reasonable release time from OA and staff positions is granted for this service.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    We follow University guidelines that promote diversity, equity and inclusion in our recruitment of staff and faculty. Our diverse faculty recruiting program includes disseminating information about our openings via sites that reach a diverse audience including COACh (an organization working to increase the number and career success of women scientists and engineers), Academic Jobs Online, Diverse Jobs, IOTA Sigma Pi (National Honor Society for Women in Chemistry), Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), American Society for Cell Biology, and the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) .

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    Our staff fully supports all of our internal and external outreach programs that support diversity and assure inclusion (see other sections). Our staff assists with communications, room reservations and provide access to a variety of resources that are used to support these programs.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    The department encourages and funds opportunities for our staff to participate in specialized training related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
    5. Other: 

    Our staff provides a welcoming environment and they provide assistance to all individuals that come into our office. They are often our first contact with visitors and have regular contact with undergraduate and graduate students in our department.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Classics
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    The Classics Department comprises five tenure-related faculty members and two senior instructors, of whom three are women and four are men. Christina Calhoon is currently working on a paper about transgender warriors in Classical and Indian tradition: Caeneus and Sikhandin. Lowell Bowditch has most recently paricipated in a conference on queer translation, in which she present on Catullus' translation of Sappho. Eckerman has written on the challenging Cologne epode of Archilochus. Wilson's most recent research has concerned the sex roles in animal life and reproduction.

    2. Staff: 

    Our two office staff are Carol Kleinheksel and Heidi Gese

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    The Classics Department has an M.A. program focused on preparing students to teach Latin in high school and providing supplementary training for students going on to Ph.D. programs. The Classics graduate program now has a minority of women (1 of 4).

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    David Chamberlain and Chris Eckerman got the CLAS 201 placed in the list of classes qualifying for "international culture" credit. We will do the same shortly with CLAS 202. We have expanded the teaching of ancient myth (CLAS 110), a course that introduces students to diverse ways of thinking about the cosmos, gods, and gender issues among humans. Students receive identity, pluralism, and tolerance credit for
    it. Christina Calhoon and Chris Eckerman teach courses on Greece and India and Greece and China. Christina Calhoon just recently taught LAT 411/511 ("Dream of Scipio + Aeneid book 6) also included readings in English translation from the Upanishads and selections from the Bhaghavad Gita.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Mary Jaeger and Malcolm Wilson participated in the SAIL program, which brings local high schools from challenging background to the UO for a week-long program. This was a huge time commitment. In events, Bowditch arranged a talk by Denise McCoskey on Race and Antiquity. In February 2019 Sharon James of UNC will come to talk about women in Latin elegiac poetry.

    Staff
    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    We sponsor regular diversity related talks through the AIA at the Eugene Public Library downtown.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    Staff have been introduced to implicit bias and will participate in training and conversations as they become available on campus.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    College of Arts and Sciences
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Other
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Folklore and Public Culture is an interdisciplinary graduate and undergraduate program with a core (13) and participating faculty (24) drawn from schools, departments and programs from across campus. Schools, departments and programs include English; Anthropology; German and Scandinavian Studies, Planning, Public Policy and Management; Music and Dance; Judaic Studies; Journalism and Communications; History of Art and Architecture; Historic Preservation; History; Cinema Studies; Women and Gender Studies; and Food Studies among others. Core faculty constitute the primary decision-making body of Folklore and Public Culture. Participating faculty are engaged in scholarship and teaching that touches on issues of Folklore and Public Culture.
    The American Folklore Society (AFS), a US-based international learned society, is a primary professional association for members of the faculty. AFS recognizes that its members live, teach, and conduct cultural research in many countries around the world. Members of AFS are dedicated to the larger public understanding of traditional cultural expression in communities throughout the world. Scholars with the AFS take a comparative approach to tradition demonstrating that traditions circulate independently of national boundaries and that every country has diverse and complex, even contradictory traditions.

    2. Staff: 

    Folklore and Public Culture is supported by two staff members who are located within the English Department.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    The University of Oregon offers one of the most exciting folklore graduate programs in the country. Our interdisciplinary approach allows our masters students to explore individual interests in a well-supported academic environment. Our students conduct research and delve into theoretical analyses on a variety of topics, incorporating both classical approaches to traditions with cutting-edge, modern interpretations of folklore and public culture. Current students study topics ranging from gender roles in rock music to West African drumming in suburban America; from nature pilgrimages to social media memorials; from graffiti, knitting and DIY artist movements to museum studies.
    Students in the masters degree program in Folklore and Public Culture may choose from two tracks with differing emphases. The General Folklore Track provides students with a strong foundation in folklore studies while also allowing students to take elective courses in their areas of focus. The General Folklore Track requires students to take specific classes from Folklore and Public Culture program faculty in a variety of subjects including anthropology, arts and administration, English, and music, among other disciplines. The Public Folklore Track prepares students who plan to work in the public sphere by building professional skills such as ethnographic research, documentation, grant writing, administration and programming. The program also focuses on building scholarly fundamentals of folklore and establishing relationships within the folklore field. Issues of diversity, equity and inclusion are a focus across the graduate curriculum.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    The Folklore and Public Culture Program offers a bachelor of arts with a major in Folklore and Public Culture. An undergraduate minor is also available. Courses cover an extensive range of interdisciplinary topics: cultural heritage, ethnicity, subcultures, popular culture, performance, gender, film, religion, public folklore, and issues of diversity and globalization. Folklore and Public Culture graduates work in public and private agencies as educators, archivists, editors, arts and humanities consultants, museum curators, and festival planners. Issues of diversity, equity and inclusion are a focus across the curriculum.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    Core and participating faculty in Folklore and Public Culture provide extensive internal and external service. Internal service incudes search committees, curriculum committees, Diversity Action Plan (DAP) committees, work groups on teaching and learning, and academic unit directorships. Service to the profession is guided by the AFS’s commitment to cultural diversity.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    Goal One: Create an Inclusive and Welcoming Environment for All

    Folklore and Public Culture regularly brings lecturers to campus who specifically focus on issues of equity and inclusion in their work or are engaging in scholarship that reinforces the importance of equity and inclusion in those fields associated with Folklore and Public Culture.

    2017-18 List of Folklore Guest Speakers:

    Folklore Initiated
    Nov 9, 2017 Jodi Wile, Film Screening - "The Source Family: Gender and Representation in a 70s Occult Commune"
    Jan 24, 2018 Lisa Gilman, Film Screening – “Grounds for Resistance, ” A documentary about Coffee Strong and the anti-war activism of U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars: and Andrew McLaughlin Film Screening – “Veterans Speak: Identify Community, Resistance, Disruption”
    May 8, 2018 A Book Discussion with Charlie McNabb, Author of
    “Nonbinary Gender Identities”

    Folklore Co-Sponsored
    2017-18 SOMD World Music Series
    Apr 9, 2018 SOMD Dema 2018 week-long events
    Oct 1, 2018 CLLAS’ events for Latinx Heritage Month, filmmaker Peter Bratt for the screening of his film Dolores (about Chicana activist Dolores Huerta).

    Goal Two: Increase the representation of diverse students, faculty, staff, and community partners at all levels of the university.

    Folklore and Public Culture is benefitting from the implicit bias training required of search committee members at the UO because of the number of Folklore faculty on search committees.

    Each year, the Graduate School sends the Folklore and Public Culture Program a national list of McNair scholars participants and National Name Exchange Participants. The lists include participants from each program who indicated an interest in a topic area matching our program’s area expertise. These materials are used in recruiting efforts towards admitting a diverse incoming class of graduate students. The students on these lists qualify for Graduate School Application fee waivers.

    Goal Three: Facilitate access to achievement, success, and recognition for underrepresented students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

    Through a competitive process, Folklore and Public Culture is offering two 500.00 awards (1 faculty / 1 student) for initiatives that advance equity and inclusion within the Folklore and Public Culture Program and in the fields associated with Folklore and Public Culture.

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    Closely associated with Folklore and Public Culture is the Oregon Folklife Network (OFN). The OFN is the state of Oregon’s Folk and Traditional Arts Program, made up of a network of statewide culture and heritage partners that operate on state, regional, county, and community levels to document, support, preserve, and celebrate Oregon’s cultural traditions. Headquartered at the University of Oregon, OFN is located in the Knight Library and administered by the Museum of Natural and Cultural History. Folklore and Public Culture students routinely work with this network as Graduate Employees or in an internship capacity.
    In addition, the undergraduate and graduate students interested in public folklore routinely do internships at cultural organizations within the region.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6545

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Comparative Literature Department
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    In 2015 the Department of Comparative Literature conducted a search for a tenure-track assistant professor with a focus on Translation Studies. We hired Tze-Yin Teo, a graduate of Emory and a native of Singapore (and speaker of Chinese). She is the first non-white faculty with a regular appointment in Comparative Literature.

    Sangita Gopal, Associate Professor of English, is a member of our program faculty (i. e., with standing) and brings a global perspective to our deliberations on curriculum, faculty appointments, search criteria, and she offers regular seminars on global cinema in our department. She is a recent recipient of the Martin Luther King Award, which she received in recognition of her work in support of faculty women of color.

    Roy Chan, Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures, has recently joined our department’s program faculty. A specialist in both modern Chinese and Russian literature, he promises to bring a broad trans-national perspective to our curricular work.

    2. Staff: 

    We hire student workers through the Career Center portal, ensuring access for all students. We have attracted and hired a diverse set of students.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Comparative Literature has approximately 26 doctoral students at any given time. Our current collective includes one Namibian, one Ethiopian, one South Asian, one Iranian, one Thai, two Turks, one Ecuadorian, one Finn, one Russian, two Chinese, and two Japanese Americans. Some of these students have received the Graduate School’s Promising Scholar Awards, intended for graduate students whose presence enhances ethnic and national diversity at the UO. The research and teaching interests of our graduate students revolve not untypically around concerns with globalism, race, class and gender. The courses in which they teach, either as teaching assistants of instructors of record, all satisfy either the IC or IP multicultural requirements.

    Comparative Literature’s Director of Pedagogy, Associate Professor Leah Middlebrook, puts a great deal of effort into preparing our Graduate Employees to be sensitive and effective in a diverse classroom setting.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    First of all, please refer to our website feature where a selection of our former majors are profiled:

    https://complit.uoregon.edu/2016/02/16/where-are-they-now/

    This page attests to the relatively diverse background as well as to the international orientation of our undergraduates. Former COLT majors have found jobs in Morocco, Egypt, Japan, India, Ecuador, etc.

    As state above, all gen-ed satisfying courses in COLT satisfy either the IC or IP Multicultural requirements. Additionally, third-year proficiency is required of all of our majors in COLT.

    I would add that a great many of our undergraduates are the first in their families to attend college, and many more of our undergraduates work jobs while studying.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Outreach is inherent in the structure of our Department, which, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, relies heavily on curricular offerings in other departments and programs. In addition to offerings under the COLT prefix, our majors and doctoral students take courses in the various literature departments (ENG, GERSCAN, EALL, RL, CLAS) as well as in philosophy, anthropology, CINE, Ethnic Studies and WGS. Moreover, our courses and seminars in COLT frequently have participants from those departments and programs.

    COLT not only hosts speakers of its own (e. g. Lan Samantha Chang, Saba Mahmoud and Anjouli Arandakar are recent guests) but also co-sponsors and helps host visitors invited by other units (e. g. Amitav Ghosh [co-sponsored with History], Wendy Belcher [co-sponsored with African Studies], Rochona Majumdar [sponsored by CINE]. We are currently co-sponsoring a speaker series in African Studies.

    Comparative Literature doctoral candidate Susana Gómez has received $1,500 from the Fund for Community Engaged Teaching. This amount—the largest award possible through the fund—comes in support of her course Latina Literature and Community, which she is teaching for Comparative Literature this fall. The course includes a service-learning component meant to enhance our undergraduates’ understanding of the Latina/o experience in Lane County. This is of particular importance as it represents an independent initiative (and not the first) on the part of one of our graduate students to combine learning with active community engagement. A full description of the course can be found here:

    https://complit.uoregon.edu/course/gender-identity-in-literature-2/

    The Department of Comparative Literature also provides financial and moral support to a group organized by one of our doctoral students. The group is composed of women of color, who meet on a weekly basis to discuss their experiences and air their concerns in the face of the current social and political climate.

    The Department of Comparative Literature provided a SAIL workshop in Summer 2018, engaging the high school students in linguistic, literary, and cultural activities.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    The Office Manager attended a half-day workshop sponsored by the Div of Equity & Inclusion regarding effective department activities to promote understanding among diverse constituents.

    Office Manager coordinated international hire, including sponsorship for H1B, Labor Certification, and Permanent Residency.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    Our Office manager, Cynthia Stockwell, is particularly proactive where the support of our international students, of which there are many, and faculty is concerned, addressing their needs and helping them anticipated the challenges they are likely to face on their arrival in the U. S. and at the UO. She arranged for the UO Dreamers Working Group to provide a presentation to our graduate employees, many of whom are international students.

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    Our Office Manager serves on the quality assurance committee of Looking Glass Youth and Family Services’ Center Point School. Diversity issues are included in the charge of the committee.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    The Office Manager completed Dreamer Training and Implicit Bias Training for Officers of Administration. The Office Manager is seeking further opportunities in this regard.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6551

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Creative Writing Program
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Our program is strongly committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion and demonstrates this commitment in the individuals who currently comprise the faculty, in the search and hiring process, in the curriculum taught, and in the authors invited by the faculty to participate in CRWR’s annual Reading Series. Of the seven TTF in the program, one is Asian-American (Garrett Hongo), one is African American (Mat Johnson, who was just hired at .6 FTE in CRWR), and three are women (Marjorie Celona, Geri Doran, and Karen Walker). David Bradley (African-American) taught for several years as a full professor in the program until his retirement about a decade ago. Sara Jaffe (openly queer) taught as a visiting Assistant Professor from 2016-2017. Authors who have participated in the Reading Series for 2016-2017 or as visiting poets include C. Dale Young (gay, Asian/ Latino), Rick Barot (gay, Filipino-American), Ocean Vuong (Vietnamese American), Solmaz Sharif (Iranian American), and Chinelo Okparanta (Nigerian and openly queer). This Fall, 2017, we are welcoming Michael Copperman (Asian-American) and Robin Coste Lewis (African American) as participants in the CRWR Reading Series, and Laila Lalami (Moroccan-American) will be visiting in the spring, 2018.

    Curriculum

    Our faculty strive to include as many diverse creative and critical voices as possible on their syllabi. One faculty member states that 30-40% of the fiction taught is by authors of color and about half of it is by women. Another faculty member notes that, in an effort to undo decades of white, male, hetero-normative, and American bias in reading and writing, she includes fiction by Edward P. Jones, Jeanette Winterson, Chimananda Ngozi Adichie, Ayana Mathis, and Chinelo Okparanta, as well as criticism by Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Pam Morris, Claudia Rankine, and Pauline Palmer, among others. In addition, this faculty member is now a Center for the Study of Women in Society faculty affiliate and in spring of 2017 led a reading group discussion on Ayana Mathis’ The Twelve Tribes of Hattie for Black History Month; she also participated on a Northwest Women Writers Symposium panel focused on the Great Migration and the work of women, along with Mathis, Ethnic Studies professor Sharon Luk, and community members. In his graduate courses, Garrett Hongo focuses on decolonization and decentering race by assigning works by Gloria Anzalduah, K. Anthony Appiah, Homi Bhabha, Anne Anlin Cheng, Franz Fanon, Garrett Hongo, Albert Memmi, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Charles Taylor, Derek Walcott, and more.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    The MFA in Creative Writing at the UO is committed to attracting students that represent diversity in relation to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and socio-economic background. Of the MFA students currently enrolled the program, four of eighteen come from minority and/or international backgrounds (two are Hispanic, one is Egyptian, one is Afghan, and one is Kenyan). Although successful recruitment of minorities can be difficult, ten out of the top twenty poetry candidates who were accepted or waitlisted for the program last year self-identified as coming from minority and international backgrounds (Cuban-American, Columbian, Vietnamese, Asian, Syrian-American, Metis, Puerto Rican, Afro-Cuban, Mexican-American, and African). The program consistently nominates student applicants for promising scholar awards and last year two MFA poetry student candidates received the awards but chose to go elsewhere.

    This past year, 2017-2018, the Diversity Committee of CRWR conducted diversity discussions with the MFA students regarding classroom pedagogy and the overall environment. This will be continuing this academic year, 2018-2019. To facilitate these discussions, the committee drew up and distributed an extensive document about the status of diversity in the field overall.

    See above in the faculty section for information regarding the curriculum in the MFA program.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    The Kidd Tutorial program for undergraduates also incorporates a diversity of creative and critical voices in its curriculum, looking back to its origins in the Watts Writers Workshops in Los Angeles. The curriculum includes the following texts: Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Hell-Heaven” (Indian American); James Alan McPherson’s “Why I Like Country Music” (African American); “Red Convertible” by Louise Erdrich (Native American); “The Usual Human Disabilities” by Nicolas Montemarano and A Chapter from Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips (Disability); “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin (African American). Jamaica Kincaid,“Girl” (African American). In addition, the Readers who visit campus as part of CRWR’s Reading Series also give lectures to in the Kidd classes, so this incorporates the diverse voices of such authors as Michael Copperman and Robin Coste Lewis who are visiting this Fall.

    A similar range of diverse voices is featured in the curriculum choices for the other undergraduate courses in CRWR—both at the 200 and the 300 levels. For example, in a course on Embodied non-fiction, the instructor has the students read Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (Queer); Ta-Nehishi Coates Between the World and Me (African American); Chang-Rae Lee (Asian American); Aparna Nancherla’s stand-up album (Indian-American); essays by Floyd Sloot and Nancy Mairs (Disability).

    In addition to the focus on diversity and inclusion in the curriculum, collaboration between CRWR and Ethnic Studies has resulted in cross-listing of courses such as ES 399: Special Studies: Writing from the Margins with CRWR 240: Introduction to Fiction Writing

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    The MFA students partner with Wordcrafters, a county program that, among other community events, leads a weekly one-hour creative writign class in the Phoenix program for youth in detention at Serbu

    The CRWR Reading Series that features six readers of poetry and fiction, from backgrounds representative of underrepresented groups, throughout the year is advertised prominently throughout the community through posters and listservs

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Earth Sciences
    Division: 
    Other
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Department of Earth Sciences (DoES) faculty have been engaged in a number of activities to improve inclusion in the department and equity in the faculty, staff, and students. As is now standard, all new search committee members take implicit bias training, but we have encouraged all existing DoES faculty to engage in this training. Six out of the seven most recent tenure-track hires in the department have been from groups under-represented in the Earth Sciences. Consequently, women now make up 36% of our tenure-track faculty (9 of 25), putting us at almost double the national average for geoscience departments of 20%. In addition, we have 37% women in our non-tenure-track faculty. DoES hosts an endowed visiting professorship, the Meierjurgen Fellow, and they have been consistently international scholars and/or women over the last decade, introducing the students in the department to a diversity of research and cultural backgrounds. Finally, our faculty have made a point of hosting many other international researchers, with three to five resident in the department during each academic year.

    As for teaching, faculty are supported to engage in the Science Literacy program, learning evidence-based teaching practices to make their classrooms more inclusive and effective. To make the overall curriculum more inclusive, the department has begun a discussion for providing additional non-fieldwork paths through all the degree tracks, so that students with all levels of engagement in outdoor activities can find success in our discipline.

    2. Staff: 

    The staff of DoES engage in professional development activities related to equity and inclusion as often as possible. The staff interact daily with the diverse graduate and undergraduate student body of the department, facilitating their academic careers at UO. In their roles managing all aspects of academic and financial work for DoES, the staff is integral to creating an inclusive community in the department.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    DoES has consistently supported a balance of male and female graduate students for at least the last 12 years. Our department supports a “Good Citizen Award” for graduate students, providing financial assistance to a student who has made an extra effort to produce an inclusive culture in the department. Finally, our graduate students are extremely active in groups that work towards a more inclusive campus, including Rehearsals for Life, the Community for Minorities in STEM, and Women in Graduate Science.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    To improve undergraduate engagement with research in DoES, we have encouraged faculty to engage with the Undergraduate Research Opportunities (UROP) program. DoES features extensive research opportunities in labs, allowing students to make a connection with a research mentor early so that they can improve their credentials for entering a career or graduate school upon graduation. Our faculty engage in a number of extramural funding programs to support undergraduate research, including REU programs from IRIS, UNAVCO, and SCEC. Our department is developing a plan for active recruitment of students from underrepresented groups, with a planned implementation in 2019.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    DoES collaborates extensively with the UO Museum of Natural and Cultural History (MNCH), which provides an avenue for outreach to K-12 students from underserved communities. The department encourages all faculty to produce public seminars, e.g. the OMSI Science Pub series or the MNCH’s Ideas on Tap.
    The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, hosted by DoES, has an extensive outreach mission to diverse communities across Oregon, engaging partners on earthquake early warning, and teaching residents about earthquake and tsunami risk and preparedness.
    DoES hosts an active Geology Club, open to all major and non-major UO students. The Geology Club puts on an annual Gem and Mineral Show as both an educational opportunity and a fundraiser to support students traveling on an annual geology Spring Break fieldtrip. In this way, all students can participate regardless of income. The Geology Club is also engaged in outreach to local middle schools, connecting those 6-8 grade students with UO undergraduates as role models for college success.
    Many DoES faculty have broader impacts of their external grants linked to the UO’s STEM CORE. Through this connection, faculty can engage in developing lesson plans for middle and high school science curricula, bringing their original research directly to a broad community of students, with an emphasis on underserved schools.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6532

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    East Asian Languages
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    EALL faculty teach and research the languages, cultures, societies, and literatures of East Asia, which provide students windows into an interconnected global and multilingual world, and prepare students for engagements with diverse cultural products, perspectives, and practices.

    EALL TTF faculty conduct research pertinent to diversity including linguistic and conceptual diversity, gender issues, literary representation of cultural minorities and diasporas, and identity development etc.

    EALL faculty are encouraged to participate in TEP workshops and trainings in diversity and inclusion in the classroom.

    EALL organizes departmental teacher training in learner-centered pedagogy that addresses diverse learner needs and learning styles.

    EALL faculty participate/present at IntroDucktion, Duck Days, Yamada Language Center/Language Council events, as well as at the annual FLIS Day each spring (Foreign Language & International Studies Day) to promote the learning of foreign languages and cultural understanding.

    EALL faculty Roy Chan used UMRP funds awarded to him for two events that promoted diversity and inclusion:

    Sinophonic Detours Symposium (Spring 2017): an all-day symposium that brought together three renowned scholars and which brought intellectual awareness to minority communities in the Sinophone world.

    We hosted speaker Prof. Andrew Leong (Northwestern U, Spring 2017). In addition to a public lecture, he led a workshop for graduate students across humanities departments, and we invited underrepresented grad students and faculty from English, Romance languages, COLT, EALL, and Ethnic Studies. 

    2. Staff: 

    EALL staff are strongly committed to the creation of an inclusive, respectful, and equitable work environment.

    EALL staff work together with the UO Accessible Education Center to ensure accessibility for all students as it relates to classroom instruction and assessment.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    The Department of EALL actively seeks and implements national best practices for the recruitment and retention of graduate students, including both masters and doctoral students.

    EALL offers its graduate employees a wide range of teaching opportunities, including the teaching of East Asian languages, films, literatures, and societies, to prepare them for future academic careers.

    The department's graduate program also pursues URM funding for eligible students. Two graduate students have been awarded the Promising Scholar Funding in the last three years.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    EALL faculty are dedicated to the education of undergraduates from diverse backgrounds with culturally, linguistically, and literarily enriched and enagaging programs for Chinese and Japanese majors and minors, and Korean minors, as well as other UO students learning East Asian Languages.

    EALL Recruits students from underrepresented minority communities into the Chinese Flagship program, provides overseas linguistic and cultural experiences for these students in China and Taiwan, and assist them to reach professional proficiencies and cultural competence in Chinese.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    EALL faculty undertake regular exchanges and collaborations with Portland Public Schools to promote K-16 articulation within the Chinese Flagship program.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    EALL office staff regularly assist graduate and undergraduate students in a range of areas both inside and outside the classroom. Especially vital to student success is the investment they make in assisting international students, introducing them to the university system and life in Eugene, and in helping with all levels of cultural integration to make their transition to the UO smooth and successful.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    EALL office staff regularly assist graduate and undergraduate students in a range of areas both inside and outside the classroom. Especially vital to student success is the investment they make in assisting international students, introducing them to the university system and life in Eugene, and in helping with all levels of cultural integration to make their transition to the UO smooth and successful.
    EALL posts job advertisements for faculty and staff positions in venues that emphasize the recruitment of minorities. Faculty and staff searches incorporate considerations of equity, diversity, and cultural understanding and gender-neutral practices in application review.

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    EALL engages with local Chinese and Japanese immersion schools to build community and develop partnership.

    EALL Chinese Flagship conduct regular outreaches to Portland Public Schools and other schools in the Pacific Northwest to recruit a diverse body of students

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    EALL office manager attends HR meetings which highlight Diversity and Inclusion topics.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6547

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Economics
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Service in this category is highlighted by the extensive contributions represented by the SAIL program, founded by economics colleagues Blonigen and Harbaugh and supported by broad volunteer contributions by many faculty in the department.

    While we are not advertising this year, in general our efforts to reach and recruit diverse faculty are especially thorough given that essentially every academic economist position in the US (as well as most nonacademic and non-US economist positions) is advertised in the outlet Job Openings for Economists. Moreover, representatives from the hiring institutions travel to the annual meetings of the Allied Social Science Association so as to make it especially convenient and economical for the candidates themselves to interview with many prospective employers over a four day period.

    The department has been diligent in its efforts to retain faculty from under-represented groups. This has manifested itself in a variety of ways including the provision of summer research grants as well as conference travel support.

    In regards to scholarship, many of our faculty have been pursuing research programs that examine a wide range of issues relevant to equity, diversity, and inclusion, such as discrimination, the affects of cultural and socio-economic diversity on the political process, bullying, and more.

    2. Staff: 

    Our staff has participated in various relevant workshops held at the UO and have served on committees addressing the subject matter. We offer our staff many opportunities to receive additional training so that they may continue to progress in their careers, thereby making the positions more attractive to candidates, particularly those from underrepresented groups.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Focused efforts to attract under-represented students to our graduate program have met with considerable success, particularly regarding admission of female students.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    We have several scholarships that target students from diverse backgrounds, including the Grace Miller Economics Scholarship and the Alanson Kleinsorge Economics Scholarship. These awards are given annually.

    We also have The Career & Advising Services office to support economics majors and minors in their academic planning and career development needs. As many of our majors are international students, a huge portion of this initiative directs support to a diverse group of international students. Our director, Bill Sherman, has more than a decade of experience in workforce development, helping individuals prepare for thriving careers in labor markets around the world.

    As noted in the graduate section, most if not all field in economics include explicit consideration of the socio-economic impact that stems from heterogeneity within and across populations. Nonetheless we are in the process of reexamining our curriculum with an eye toward making it even more relevant and valuable to our diverse set of majors.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    As noted earlier, the Department of Economics is the founder of the wildly successful SAIL, which reaches out to a diverse group of disadvantaged children, it spans multiple programs across the UO as well as multiple institutions across the state of Oregon. Guest seminar speakers frequently address diversity-oriented topics in their seminars. We also have a specially designed course sequence call The Economics of Community Issues, where teams of our honors students provide economic analysis of issues of interest to local nonprofit organizations and government agencies in the city, county, and state.

    6. Other: 

    Given how central diversity/heterogenity is to essentially all fields within economics, it is effectively impossible to provide a fully detailed accounting of all efforts that qualify as relevant to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Nonetheless, I would say that the lions share of such contributions can be viewed as falling into one or more of the categories listed above.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    OAC Implicit Bias workshop

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    All staff complete the implicit bias online training

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    Work with SAIL program, mentors and students

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6548

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Economics
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6479

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Environmental Studies
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    In 2015-16 we were very successful at hiring TTFs so as to diversity our faculty in terms of race/ethnicity and gender. Two of our new faculty members received UMRP funds from the Provost's office. Each was assigned a faculty mentor. We are conducting two TTF searches this year (one with Philosophy and one with the History of Arts and Architecture), and we have organized the process to meet best practices for recruiting faculty from a diversity of backgrounds.

    2. Staff: 

    Diversity is an important consideration in our decisions on hiring staff. Our staff members come from a diversity of backgrounds. We are thoughtful about creating a work environment that is sensitive to diversity and promotes inclusion.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Considerations of diversity are an important part of our graduate admissions decisions. Our graduate student body is diverse in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, and nationality.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    We have scholarships for undergraduates that aim to promote diversity.
    We make efforts to recruit students from a diversity of backgrounds to our majors.
    Our Environmental Leadership Program works to make connections to community partners in a manner that promotes diversity and inclusion.
    ENVS has taken part in the SAIL program, which promotes the recruitment of first generation college students.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Two of our faculty members work with Native American tribes.
    We aim to recruit guest speakers from a diversity of backgrounds.

    6. Other: 

    We received a Faculty Diversity Grant from CAS to help us increase faculty awareness of organizations working with communities of color in our region and to promote faculty research collaborations with these organizations. We used these funds to have a workshop on promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion at our Fall Faculty Retreat. We are organizing a number of other workshops and guest speakers for our faculty on similar topics over the next two years.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6510

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Ethnic Studies
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Professor Sharon Luk (2017) "The Problem of Study: China in American Studies and the Materials of Knowledge" American Quarterly 69 (3);

    Teves, Stephanie N. “Cocoa Chandelier’s Confessional: Kanaka Maoli Performance and Aloha in Drag.” In Critical ethnic studies: A Reader, by Nada Elia, Jodi Kim, Shana L. Redmond, Dylan Rodriguez, Sarita Echavez See, and David Hernandez, 280-300. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.

    2. Staff: 

    ES

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Ethnic Studies is in the process of creating a PhD program. This effort is being led by Professors Ernesto Martinez and Lynn Fujiwara

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Ethnic Studies faculty, Brian Klopotek and Lani Teves helped create the Native American ARC and Professor Charise Cheney has been instrumental in the African American ARC (which welcomed its first students this Fall).

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Ethnic Studies organized a whole series of political workshops geared to both UO students and the community in the wake of the Trump election.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    Professor Michael Hames-Garcia is the Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of United Academics

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    Ethnic Studies has worked with other units on campus to develop a proposal for a minor in Black Studies

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    Professor Alai Reyes-Santos wrote an op-ed in the Register-Guard that contextualizes the recent hurricanes in Puerto Rico

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    General Science Program
    Division: 
    Natural Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    The General Science Program has no dedicated faculty beyond the Program Director however, we strive to maintain divers representation on the General Science Advisory committee so as to promote consideration of equity, diversity, and inclusion in program oversight.

    2. Staff: 

    The General Science Program has no dedicated full time staff.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    The General Science Program has no Graduate Program.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    The General Science Program, more so than most traditional majors, offers a diverse and extensive set of course options that allow students to design schedules that fit within the rest of their lives. This is particularly beneficial to nontraditional students who may have to balance their education with work constraints, child care, and other family responsibilities.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    The Program sponsors quarterly professional development events, such as resume writing workshops, organized by the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) student group.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6511

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Geography
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6563

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Geography
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Faculty members in the Department of Geography regularly teach subjects related to DEI in both formal and informal ways. Our courses span the globe, and include a focus on issues of identity, mobility (economic, social, and physical), and political and environmental (in)justices. Our curriculum challenges students to consider their place and role in a diverse world, as does our research and publishing. Faculty members currently conduct research in Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and marginalized areas within the United States, touching upon topics of (among many others) resource allocation, linguistic and religious conflict, strategies of and resistance to harmful neoliberal economics, environmental racism/justice, and adaptation to the impacts of climate change associated with structural biases and segregation. Our weekly department-wide tea seminar frequently hosts guests from around the world who speak to DEI issues. Two examples from the Fall 2017 term include a presentation on population growth and resource challenges for impoverished residents of the Mekong Delta and the rise of populism in South Africa. Faculty (and graduate students) are also active in professional associations, contributing to the creation of a new Latinx specialty group and supporting outreach to HBCs in the American Association of Geographers.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    The Department has made significant strides in increasing diversity in our graduate student community and has considerably exceeded the level of diversity within our professional community. At this time approximately one-third of our graduate students self-identify in ways that reflect that effort, and they come from different countries, religions, sexual orientations, and under-represented groups within the United States. Our graduate workshop includes presentations by university staff and administrators on issues of inclusion and pedagogic methods that are designed for diverse groups of students and topics of a sensitive or controversial nature.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    In addition to our regular course offerings, undergraduate students are engaged in DEI related activities through our Geography Club and other initiatives supported by our faculty. For instance, geography students contributed to efforts to fight malaria in Kenya and provide disaster relief in Puerto Rico through the YouthMappers program. As part of one of our classes students mapped Fair Housing practices in Albany, Oregon, and elsewhere. Students have been involved in faculty research on resource conflicts in Latin America and sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. Student internships have included work in local social welfare agencies in governmental and NGO sectors, work with at-risk youth, and work with current and formerly incarcerated people. Students (graduate and undergraduate) working on projects in the S3C lab have done extensive work on issues related to disability/mobility issues, and students in the InfoGraphics lab have been involved in a number of DEI related projects, including that of tracking and visualization of diversity at the University of Oregon.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Geography faculty have been regular participants in the SAIL and Connections programs that work to empower and recruit under-represented students, and this year for the first time designed and offered one of the week-long SAIL classes. We have worked with schools and prisons in Oregon to provide educational opportunities for those traditionally lacking them, and have partnered with agencies, schools, and NGOs to support alter-abled individuals facing an array of challenges. We have sponsored programs to bring at-risk youth to campus. Faculty members have gone to community schools and organizations to teach and engage around DEI issues. One of our faculty members currently serves as head of the Ethnic Studies program and another as the head of the UO Prison Education Program. Faculty have also participated in community efforts such as the census-related canvas of residents of the area who have no fixed address. In these efforts faculty have encouraged and supported student participation at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Several of our faculty and staff participated in DACA training to learn methods for supporting those students and other targeted groups on campus.

    6. Other: 

    Department faculty serve as advisors for the No Lost Generation student club (an initiative of the US Department of State to foster student efforts to help with refugee resettlement in the United States), the Global Women’s Narrative Project, and with the Black Male Alliance.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6562

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    German & Scandinavian
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    German and Scandinavian employs eight full time TTF, one TRP Faculty, two full time Career NTTF, and three Career NTTF who teach part time. Our faculty tends towards diversity in matters of sexuality, religion, and gender, but we understand and embrace the need to open up the field to new voices. Our research initiatives (listed in the document below) reflect this, and include Gender and Sexuality studies, Orientalism, Post-colonialism, Queer Theory, Jewish Studies, Contemporary African Philosophy, Decolonial studies, Turkish-German writers and filmmakers, transcultural transmission, etc."

    The Department of German and Scandinavian responds to a changing world through teaching, research, and public programming. We are eager
    to foster an atmosphere that encourages the expression of different perspectives, ideas and experiences. Our annual conferences and public presentations regularly engage with matters like the rise of populism, migration, exclusion and access, and other related issues.

    2. Staff: 

    We recently hired Benjamin Mier-Cruz who will teach courses on gender, sexual, and ethnic diversity, and where these issue intersect with Scandinavian literature. Benjamin identifies as Latinx and genderqueer.
    We also recently hired Perri Schodorf as our department manager. Perri is Vietnamese and identifies as multiracial.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    We have made very strong efforts to upgrade our identification and recruitment of underrepresented candidates for our PhD program. We extended advertising to new venues in Africa and consulted regularly with the office of Equity and Inclusion, OIA, African Studies and the Graduate School throughout this 2 year-process. We were finally successful in recruiting and accepting an applicant from Nigeria as GE and PHD candidate and our director of Graduate Studies worked tirelessly on accommodating his move to the US. Unfortunately, he had to withdraw from our program in the last minute because of insufficient funds and support. We have successfully recruited one candidate with diverse background using UO resources (notably Promising Scholars funding).

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Diversity issues are a focus in all of our language and culture courses, for example, GER 221, 222, 223, 251, 252, 340, 351, 354 and SCAN 251, 317, 325, 341, SCAN 315, 316, 341, 353, 354.
    Every year we run appr. 3 to 4 FIGS. Our FIG instructors contribute to the UO efforts to retain at-risk students.
    We have also stared to participate in offering "Reacting to the Past" classes.

    In addition to our departmental offerings, since 2010 Stern has regularly taught a course, Humanities 300, “The Closest of Strangers.” This class covers European views on Africa, African views on Europe, and ends with a look at race relations in the United States. This winter term, Stern will teach a HUM seminar at the 400 level on the subject of “Decolonial Poetics.” The material will be largely Caribbean and African.
    We have continued offering Online summer courses to a larger diverse audience and have re-designed GER 101 as a hybrid course in Fall 2017.
    We actively engage in promoting study abroad programs.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Public Programming
    We are deeply committed to present our research and to discuss it with UO and US colleagues, students in other fields, and with the larger Eugene public. In the last year we have organized the following major events (selection):

    --Summer 2016: We hosted representatives from the German Embassy to discuss research possibilities in Germany with CAS faculty
    --Fall 2016: Campus Weeks: “Jews in Germany Today.”
    --Fall 2016: interdisciplinary lecture and exhibition on Color Theory in collaboration with Architecture, OHC, Art History, European Studies, UO library.
    --Fall 2016: Together with the German Embassy we hosted Campus Weeks with Jewish-German author Esther Dischereit visiting campus and giving a lecture to undergraduate students.
    --Fall 2017: For the lecture "Migration and Asylum in Germany Today: Sociopolitical and Cultural Dimensions," we invited a writer from Berlin and the head of the department for communications and culture at the Germany Embassy: www.Germany.info/integratingimmigrants
    -- Winter 2017: The editorial Board of Konturen hosted the crowded interdisciplinary symposium: “The Triumph of the Will? Theoretical-Critical Assessments of the New Era in American Politics.”

    For more than 10 years we've run an outreach program to local K-12 schools: "Fun with German." Last year we worked with Edison Elementary School. Undergraduate students teach a language enrichment class for 2 hours/week for 4 weeks. They are trained in winter quarter through the class German 409, and teach in spring quarter.

    6. Other: 

    We have met with a representative from the University of Tuebingen to discuss a more active graduate student and faculty exchange.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    Staff serve on search committees, where equity, diversity, and inclusion are high priority. Other UO committees promoting diversity include:

    Susan Anderson: UO Language Council. College of Arts and Sciences Languages Coordinator (Winter/ Spring 2018)

    Sonja Boos: Committee on Sex- and Gender-based Violence, Advisory Board OHC

    Ken Calhoon: COLT committee on Diversity and Inclusion

    Gantt Gurley: Directorship of Judaic Studies in Fall 2017-09-21, Core Faculty Folklore

    Jeffrey Librett: Exec Committee of Judaic Studies

    Dorothee Ostmeier: Core Faculty Folklore, Teaching Academy UO, UO Language Council, Working Group on Active Teaching and Learning.

    Michael Stern: in collaboration with colleagues from RL, CINE, and PHIL, is entering into discussions with CAS about instituting a Decolonial Studies Cluster that will include both undergraduate and graduate curricular components.

    Matthias Vogel: supports Global Scholars Hall network

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    July 2016 & 2017 SAIL Summer Program: Faculty participates in week-long SAIL program, including recent collaborations with Yamada Language Center

    Yearly endowed lecture: Gontrum Lecture Series. For 2016 partnered with AAA, European Studies, Oregon Humanities Center, and Art History.

    Faculty contributes to "Speak Out Loud" events, and regularly supports recruitment efforts of the the Admissions Office to enroll diverse students through lectures and participation in student/parent events.

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    --GERSCAN runs every summer its own popular SAIL program.

    --Faculty regularly participates in Speak out events, lectures for visiting parents and incoming students, language tables and other promotional events organized by the language council, OIA, etc.
    --For more than 10 years we have run our major outreach program to public schools: “Fun with German” and have trained advanced undergraduates to teach German to school children with diverse backgrounds from Grade 1 through 4. School classes typically include children with special needs.
    --The German Studies Committee continues publishing our online Journal “Konturen.” For recent issues see: http://journals.oregondigital.org/index.php/konturen/issue/view/476
    --Student-run clubs in GER and SCAN: The Fika-Klubb is a student-run organization that provides opportunities for students and the community to practice Swedish. Fika-Klubb meets weekly and additionally offers cultural activities, like viewing Nordic films, playing games, and celebrating Nordic holidays and traditions.
    --The Department is dedicated to encouraging students to study abroad in German-speaking countries and Scandinavia. Students are especially encouraged to study in programs that offer full immersion into the German, Swedish, Danish, or Norwegian-speaking world.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    Staff have been introduced to implicit bias and will participate in training and conversations as they become available on campus. Conversations about diversity, inclusion, equity, and bias are part of our regular faculty meetings and curriculum design. We encourage staff to seek professional development opportunities and training.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    German & Scandinavian
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    German and Scandinavian employs eight full time TTF, two full time Career NTTF, and two Career NTTF who teach part time. Our faculty tends towards diversity in matters of sexuality, religion, and gender, but we understand and embrace the need to open up the field to new voices. Our research initiatives (listed in the document below) reflect this, and include Gender and Sexuality studies, Orientalism, Post-colonialism, Queer Theory, Jewish Studies, Contemporary African Philosophy, Decolonial studies, Turkish-German writers and filmmakers, transcultural transmission, etc.

    The Department of German and Scandinavian responds to a changing world through teaching, research, and public programming. We are eager
to foster an atmosphere that encourages the expression of different perspectives, ideas and experiences. Our annual conferences and public presentations regularly engage with matters like the rise of populism, migration, exclusion and access, and other related issues.

    2. Staff: 

    We recently hired Benjamin Mier-Cruz who will teach courses on gender, sexual, and ethnic diversity, and where these issue intersect with Scandinavian literature. Benjamin identifies as Latinx and genderqueer.
We also recently hired Perri Schodorf as our department manager. Perri is Vietnamese and identifies as multiracial.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    We have made very strong efforts to upgrade our identification and recruitment of underrepresented candidates for our PhD program. We extended advertising to new venues in Africa and consulted regularly with the office of Equity and Inclusion, OIA, African Studies and the Graduate School throughout this 2 year-process. We were finally successful in recruiting and accepting an applicant from Nigeria as GE and PHD candidate and our director of Graduate Studies worked tirelessly on accommodating his move to the US. Unfortunately, he had to withdraw from our program in the last minute because of insufficient funds and support. We have successfully recruited one candidate with diverse background using UO resources (notably Promising Scholars funding).

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Diversity issues are a focus in all of our language and culture courses, for example, GER 221, 222, 223, 251, 252, 340, 351, 354 and SCAN 251, 317, 325, 341, SCAN 315, 316, 341, 353, 354.
Every year we run appr. 3 to 4 FIGS. Our FIG instructors contribute to the UO efforts to retain at-risk students.
We have also stared to participate in offering "Reacting to the Past" classes.

    In addition to our departmental offerings, since 2010 Stern has regularly taught a course, Humanities 300, “The Closest of Strangers.” This class covers European views on Africa, African views on Europe, and ends with a look at race relations in the United States. This winter term, Stern will teach a HUM seminar at the 400 level on the subject of “Decolonial Poetics.” The material will be largely Caribbean and African.
We have continued offering Online summer courses to a larger diverse audience and have re-designed GER 101 as a hybrid course in Fall 2017.
We actively engage in promoting study abroad programs.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Public Programming
We are deeply committed to present our research and to discuss it with UO and US colleagues, students in other fields, and with the larger Eugene public. In recent years we have organized the following major events (selection):

    --Summer 2016: We hosted representatives from the German Embassy to discuss research possibilities in Germany with CAS faculty
--Fall 2016: Campus Weeks: “Jews in Germany Today.”
--Fall 2016: interdisciplinary lecture and exhibition on Color Theory in collaboration with Architecture, OHC, Art History, European Studies, UO library.
--Fall 2016: Together with the German Embassy we hosted Campus Weeks with Jewish-German author Esther Dischereit visiting campus and giving a lecture to undergraduate students.
--Fall 2017: For the lecture "Migration and Asylum in Germany Today: Sociopolitical and Cultural Dimensions," we invited a writer from Berlin and the head of the department for communications and culture at the Germany Embassy: www.Germany.info/integratingimmigrants
-- Winter 2017: The editorial Board of Konturen hosted the crowded interdisciplinary symposium: “The Triumph of the Will? Theoretical-Critical Assessments of the New Era in American Politics.”

    Planned events for fall 2018 include
    - Campus Weeks: “The woman question from Mayreder to Merkel” and “From refugee crisis to Neo-Nazi crisis”; class visit on the representation of women terrorists in postwar German literature, film, and culture
    For more than 10 years we've run an outreach program to local K-12 schools: "Fun with German." Last year we worked with Edison Elementary School. Undergraduate students teach a language enrichment class for 2 hours/week for 4 weeks. They are trained in winter quarter through the class German 409, and teach in spring quarter.

    6. Other: 

    We have met with representatives from several universities in Baden-Württemberg (particularly the University of Tuebingen) and Switzerland to discuss a more active graduate student and faculty exchange.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    Staff serve on search committees, where equity, diversity, and inclusion are high priority. Other UO committees promoting diversity include:

    Susan Anderson: UO Language Council. College of Arts and Sciences Languages Coordinator
    Sonja Boos: Committee on Sex- and Gender-based Violence, Advisory Board OHC
    Ken Calhoon: COLT committee on Diversity and Inclusion
    Gantt Gurley: Directorship of Judaic Studies in Fall 2017-09-21, Core Faculty Folklore
    Jeffrey Librett: Exec Committee of Judaic Studies
    Dorothee Ostmeier: Core Faculty Folklore, Teaching Academy UO, UO Language Council, Working Group on Active Teaching and Learning.
    Michael Stern: in collaboration with colleagues from RL, CINE, and PHIL, is entering into discussions with CAS about instituting a Decolonial Studies Cluster that will include both undergraduate and graduate curricular components.
    Matthias Vogel: Global Scholars Hall Faculty in Residence

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    July 2016 & 2017 SAIL Summer Program: Faculty participates in week-long SAIL program, including recent collaborations with Yamada Language Center

    Yearly endowed lecture: Gontrum Lecture Series. In recent years we have partnered with AAA, European Studies, Oregon Humanities Center, and Art History.

    Faculty contributes to "Speak Out Loud" events, and regularly supports recruitment efforts of the the Admissions Office to enroll diverse students through lectures and participation in student/parent events.

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    --GERSCAN runs every summer its own popular SAIL program.

    --Faculty regularly participates in Speak out events, lectures for visiting parents and incoming students, language tables and other promotional events organized by the language council, OIA, etc.

    --For more than 10 years we have run our major outreach program to public schools: “Fun with German” and have trained advanced undergraduates to teach German to school children with diverse backgrounds from Grade 1 through 4. School classes typically include children with special needs.
    
--The German Studies Committee continues publishing our online Journal “Konturen.” For recent issues see: http://journals.oregondigital.org/index.php/konturen/issue/view/476
    
--Student-run clubs in GER and SCAN: The Fika-Klubb is a student-run organization that provides opportunities for students and the community to practice Swedish. Fika-Klubb meets weekly and additionally offers cultural activities, like viewing Nordic films, playing games, and celebrating Nordic holidays and traditions.

    --The Department is dedicated to encouraging students to study abroad in German-speaking countries and Scandinavia. Students are especially encouraged to study in programs that offer full immersion into the German, Swedish, Danish, or Norwegian-speaking world.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    Staff have been introduced to implicit bias and will participate in training and conversations as they become available on campus. Conversations about diversity, inclusion, equity, and bias are part of our regular faculty meetings and curriculum design. We encourage staff to seek professional development opportunities and training.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6488

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    History
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    In the past academic year, the Department of History has made great strides toward greater diversity in the composition of its faculty. In conjunction with the cluster hire in Black Studies, the department hired two new colleagues, Leslie Alexander and Curtis Austin, scholars of nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American history, respectively. As a result, our four faculty of color now comprise 16% of tenure-related faculty in the department, up from 12% in AY 2016-2017. The gender composition of our department, on the other hand, has barely changed. In AY 2016-2017, women made up 32% of regular faculty – a category that includes TT and Career NTT, but excludes pro tem and visiting faculty. This year, that figure is up, but only very slightly, to one third of our number. We still fall short of gender equity. The prospect for next year is good. We anticipate one retirement and two hires in the coming year and if both searches were to result in the hiring of female colleagues, then the proportions could shift significantly (up to 40%).

    2. Staff: 

    The composition of our staff has undergone profound changes in the past year. We have hired a new Department Manager and a new Accounting and Communications Coordinator; in addition to our continuing Academic and Travel Coordinator, this brings our total staff to three, of whom two are women.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    As always, themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion remain at the core of our graduate curriculum. This commitment to diversity and equity is reflected in the seminar topics we offer and in the thesis topics our students choose. Because our curriculum is shaped by individual study with faculty advisors, curricular diversity is tied inextricably with the research fields of faculty. As a result of recent hires in U.S. history, especially, that diversity has expanded with the introduction of seminars and directed readings courses in the history of slavery (Native American as well as African American), Native American experiences, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, miscegenation law, and Mexican immigration to the U.S. We also offer an array of graduate seminars and colloquia (HIST 608), with topics that include the history of the indigenous people of the Americas, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, and race. With the hiring of two new historians of African Americans, we also anticipate offering graduate colloquia in the coming years on such topics as African Americans, the African diaspora, and comparative slavery.

    Over the past several years, our admissions committee has looked for ways to diversify our graduate student body as well. To some extent, our ability to do so has been hampered by the composition of our applicant pool – a factor over which we exert only limited control. In the last year, however, its diversity has increased considerably. In the 2015-2016, only 20% of the pool was composed of Latinx or non-white applicants; in 2016-2017, which produced this year’s incoming class, the same figure was 27%. Our admissions have been consistently more diverse, both in terms of ethnic/racial and gender composition, than the pool. Thus the admissions for 2016-2017 was 35.39% Hispanic or non-white. In this year’s incoming class, Hispanic or non-white students comprise is 62.5%. Despite these successes, however, the overall balance remains roughly the same: this year’s graduate student body is only slightly more diverse along ethnic/racial lines than last. Our success at recruiting women into our program has been considerably better. Five of eight students in this year’s incoming class are women (62.5%), which brings the overall proportion of female students over 50%.

    We have expanded the diversity of our graduate faculty in other ways as well. One major initiative has been to integrate historians from other units – Honors College, the Law School, and Ethnic Studies – into our “graduate faculty.” That move not only added two African American women to our graduate faculty, but also deepened our ability to foster graduate study in the history of African Americans, Latin American slavery, and modern China.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Like our graduate program, our offering of undergraduate courses is driven by the subdisciplinary expertise of our faculty. Recent hires in Latino/a history (Weise) and colonial America (Rushforth) have enabled us to strength our undergraduate course offering on the history of slavery and ethnic relations in twentieth-century U.S. history. Professor Weise, for example, has developed a new, bilingual course on “Latinos in the Americas,” now regularized as HIST 248. A joint Career NTT hire with the Women’s and Gender Studies Program (Bufalino) ensures continuity in both units of course offerings in women’s history and the history of sexuality. Last year’s Black Studies hires (Alexander, Austin) will strengthen enormously our course offering all phases of African American history. This year’s hires in U.S. Women’s and Ancient history promise to diversify our curriculum further still. More broadly, our undergraduate program of study is structured to guarantee that students majoring in history study a wide range of periods and places. All students must take at least two upper division courses in three geographically defined fields; students cannot, in other words, settle into European or U.S. history without considering Asia, Africa, or Latin America. We also require our student to take at least two upper division courses that cover a period prior to 1800.

    Like most Departments of History, ours has traditionally attracted undergraduate majors who were disproportionately white and male. In recent years, our most notable success in altering this trend has been our increased share of Latina/o student majors; we have also modestly increased our share of Asian-identified majors. As of Fall 2015, 74.56% of History majors identified as white, a number almost 17 points higher than the average for departments in the Social Sciences division. Among Asians, we have modestly increased our share in the past five years while the university’s Asian population has remained stable; still, this group is underrepresented (2.5% of the major vs. 7% of the university). The number of African American, Native American, and Pacific Islander students at the university is small, in both the university and the department. Consequently, it is difficult to detect trends among these populations other than to say that African Americans are consistently underrepresented (2.4% of the university vs. 1% of the major, with both numbers mostly stable in the last five years). We hope that expanded course offerings in African American and Native American history will reverse this underrepresentation.

    One exciting trend is a marked increase in the number of Latinx students majoring in history. This tracks with trends in the profession as a whole: even as the number of History majors has declined since the Great Recession, the number of first-generation Latinx History majors has increased.6 While just five years ago our percentage of Latinx students lagged well behind the university’s by a factor of 1.5 to 2, we have been slowly catching up. By academic year 2015-2016, Latinx students comprised 10.53% of history majors, a little less than their portion of the student body as a whole. Given expected growth of the Latinx population at UO, this is a welcome trend.

    Unfortunately, the gender balance among history students has unfortunately shown a disconcerting trend. Despite concerted efforts to create more courses of interest to female students, women remain badly underrepresented among History majors – less than a third, down from 40% six years ago. The department continues to review its curriculum and marketing efforts to find a successful strategy for luring more women into our ranks. We hope that hiring a specialist in U.S. Women’s history will help reverse this trajectory.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Our ties to sister departments and programs reinforce our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We have worked closely with Women’s and Gender Studies to ensure the continuity of curricular offerings in women’s history and the history of sexuality. Throughout the cluster hire in Black Studies, we collaborated closely with the Ethnic Studies program, and look forward to the closer ties that our new colleagues will bring. We remain especially active in relation to Latino/a studies. Professor Robert Haskett continues to participate in an NEH Summer Institute for School Teachers. More recently, Associate Professor Julie M. Weise was awarded a faculty fellowship in the Division for Equity and Inclusion to develop a university-wide “DREAMer Ally Training” program for faculty and staff. Since 2013, the state of Oregon has allowed undocumented immigrant students with established Oregon roots to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities. The number of such students at UO is growing, as are the challenges these students face in the current political climate. Ensuring their safety and success is a core part of our academic mission. The training will take place three times during 2017-18, and is supported by DEI and the Division of Student Life. Weise is also working with the DREAMers Committee to institutionalize their work and the training for future years, so that UO may be a welcoming institution for students from immigrant backgrounds.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6512

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    History
    Division: 
    Other
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    History
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Building on our successful recruitment of Leslie Alexander and Curtis Austin, who began at UO in fall 2017, we have added four women to our department in fall 2018, addressing but not resolving a major area of inequity in faculty representation. Women now represent roughly 41 percent of our TT faculty, up from about one third before this year. We have also added faculty from other underrepresented groups, including those who identify as LGBTQ and first-generation college students. We remain committed to continuing and expanding our efforts to hire as diverse a faculty as possible.

    In September 2018 we began the year with a full-day departmental retreat dedicated to questions of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We focused on strategies for making our department a more welcoming, safe, and empowering space for everyone, particularly women and those from underrepresented groups. There were workshop sessions dedicated to inclusive teaching methods, gender equity and sexual harassment, and outreach to students of color, LGBTQ students, and first-generation college students. We have enlarged our diversity committee to include faculty, staff, and students with interests and expertise in all of these areas. By the end of fall 2018 we will have a new website for faculty focused on these issues, drawing from existing CAS and TEP resources but expanding significantly beyond them. We have also initiated a project in the Diversity Committee centered on sexual harassment, Title IX, mandatory reporting, and department climate related to gender equity.

    The department has also created a dedicated fund to support bringing speakers from underrepresented groups to present their scholarship to the department. Our Speakers and Events Committee can allocate matching funds to enhance travel reimbursements, honoraria, or events involving scholars of color, women and LGBTQ scholars.

    2. Staff: 

    This year, due to a departure, the department hired a new Accounting and Communications Manager. This brings our total staff to three, of whom two are women and one is a person of color. Lauren Pinchin, our Department Manager, does a remarkable job creating a supportive and inclusive atmosphere among the staff and in staff relations with students and faculty. We are working with faculty to continue and, where needed, develop a healthy climate in faculty-staff relations.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    As always, themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion remain at the core of our graduate curriculum. This commitment to diversity and equity is reflected in the seminar topics we offer and in the thesis topics our students choose. Because our curriculum is shaped by individual study with faculty advisors, curricular diversity is tied inextricably with the research fields of faculty. As a result of recent hires in U.S. history, especially, that diversity has expanded with the introduction of seminars and directed readings courses in the history of slavery (Native American as well as African American), Native American experiences, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, miscegenation law, and Mexican immigration to the U.S. We also offer an array of graduate seminars and colloquia (HIST 608), with topics that include the history of the indigenous people of the Americas, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, and race. Recent hires of historians focused on women’s and gender history, including LGBTQ, servitude and slavery, and race and ethnicity in the ancient world will surely continue a well-established trend in the department.

    Over the past several years, our admissions committee has looked for ways to diversify our graduate student body as well. To some extent, our ability to do so has been hampered by the composition of our applicant pool – a factor over which we exert only limited control. In the last year, however, its diversity has increased considerably. In the 2015-2016, only 20% of the pool was composed of Latinx or non-white applicants; in 2016-2017, the same figure was 27%. Our admissions have been consistently more diverse, both in terms of ethnic/racial and gender composition, than the pool. In this year’s incoming class, Hispanic or non-white students comprise 37.5% (three of eight) of incoming students. We have also have had success recruiting women into our program. In 2016-2017, 62.5% (five of eight) of admitted students were women and in 2017-2018, 37.5% (three of eight) admitted students were women. Efforts to recruit more women and graduate students of color has made our graduate student body slightly more diverse than it has been in previous years. Of the 31 graduate students currently enrolled in the program, 48.3% (fifteen) are women and 25.8% (eight) are students of color. While these figures do show increasing diversity in our graduate student body we also feel strongly that they indicate there is still much work to do in diversifying our graduate program.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Like our graduate program, our offering of undergraduate courses is driven by the subdisciplinary expertise of our faculty. Recent hires in Latinx history (Weise) and colonial America (Rushforth and Madar) have enabled us to strength our undergraduate course offering on the history of slavery and ethnic relations in twentieth-century U.S. history. Professor Weise, for example, has developed a new, bilingual course on “Latinos in the Americas,” now regularized as HIST 248. A new hire in U.S. Women’s History (Heinz) allows us to offer even more classes on histories of gender and sexuality, and a joint Career NTT hire with the Women’s and Gender Studies Program (Bufalino) ensures continuity in both units of course offerings. Last year’s Black Studies hires (Alexander, Austin) have strengthened enormously our course offerings in all phases of African American history. Finally, a hire in Ancient history (Mazurek) promises to diversify our curriculum further still. More broadly, our undergraduate program of study is structured to guarantee that students majoring in history study a wide range of peoples, periods, and places. All students must take at least two upper division courses in three geographically defined fields; students cannot, in other words, settle into European or U.S. history without considering Asia, Africa, or Latin America. We also require our student to take at least two upper division courses that cover a period prior to 1800.

    Like most Departments of History, ours has traditionally attracted undergraduate majors who were disproportionately white and male. In recent years, our most notable success in altering this trend has been our increased share of Latinx student majors; we have also modestly increased our share of Asian-identified majors. As of Fall 2015, 74.56% of History majors identified as white, a number almost 17 points higher than the average for departments in the Social Sciences division. Among Asians, we have modestly increased our share in the past five years while the university’s Asian population has remained stable; still, this group is underrepresented (2.5% of the major vs. 7% of the university). The number of African American, Native American, and Pacific Islander students at the university is small, in both the university and the department. Consequently, it is difficult to detect trends among these populations other than to say that African Americans are consistently underrepresented (2.4% of the university vs. 1% of the major, with both numbers mostly stable in the last five years). We hope that expanded course offerings in African American and Native American history will reverse this underrepresentation.

    One exciting trend is a marked increase in the number of Latinx students majoring in history. This tracks with trends in the profession as a whole: even as the number of History majors has declined since the Great Recession, the number of first-generation Latinx History majors has increased. While just five years ago our percentage of Latinx students lagged well behind the university’s by a factor of 1.5% to 2%, we have been slowly catching up. By academic year 2015-2016, Latinx students comprised 10.53% of history majors, a little less than their portion of the student body as a whole. Given expected growth of the Latinx population at UO, this is a welcome trend.

    Unfortunately, the gender balance among history students has shown a disconcerting trend. Despite concerted efforts to create more courses of interest to female students, women remain badly underrepresented among History majors – just 37.9 % (91 of 240), down from 40% six years ago. The department continues to review its curriculum and marketing efforts to find a successful strategy for inviting more women into our ranks. We hope that hiring a specialist in U.S. Women’s history and more women faculty members will help reverse this trajectory.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Our ties to other departments and programs reinforce our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We have worked closely with Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies to ensure the continuity of curricular offerings in women’s history and the history of sexuality. History faculty provide leadership for the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies (Carlos Aguirre), the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies (Jeff Hanes), the Umoja Pan-African ARC (Curtis Austin), Black Studies (Curtis Austin), and are affiliates with many related departments and programs dedicated to these concerns, including Ethnic Studies and African Studies.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6492

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Human Physiology
    Division: 
    Natural Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    The department has made substantial efforts to increase the visibility of job announcements, particularly to individuals who identify with a group that is typically underrepresented in the sciences. We have successfully recruited more women in both tenure-track and non-tenure-track positions in the past few years. These efforts have improved our representation of women to 40% of our full-time faculty.
    All members of search committees complete the Implicit Biased training offered by the university. We have also developed a checklist for our hiring procedures to be used by all search committee chairs. This checklist helps to ensure we are using best practices for equity and inclusion when reviewing applicants, and ensures that these efforts are documented. We have also received funding from CAS to further improve our equity and inclusion practices around hiring and retention. With this funding, we will be working with a consultant to develop a plan for improvement and a metric by which to assess improvements over time.
    We have included an equity and inclusion speaker as part of our ongoing seminar series within our department, to provide professional development opportunities for our faculty. All faculty are encouraged to seek out and attend additional professional development opportunities in this area. We are working with our Equity, Inclusion and Diversity committee to develop an effective method of communicating these opportunities in a timely manner.

    2. Staff: 

    In hiring of staff, we follow Human Resources' protocol and advice during interview selections. We have also created a checklist for procedures during staff hires. This checklist helps to ensure we are using best practices for equity and inclusion when reviewing applicants, and ensures that these efforts are documented.
    Staff members assist research faculty to help insure equity and fairness in compensation and promotion decisions for their lab staff. If a perceived disparity occurs, the administrator reports the details to Human Resources and advocates for a remedy. Staff regularly attend trainings and meetings to stay abreast of current and pertinent equity, inclusion and diversity policies, and they disseminate these changes to departmental stakeholders.
    All staff are encouraged to attend professional development opportunities involving equity, inclusion and diversity efforts. One staff member is on our departmental Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity committee and all staff will be involved in our upcoming training on best practices for equity and inclusion during hiring and retention, funded by a grant from CAS.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    We actively and aggressively seek out additional funding sources to assist our current and prospective minority students with their educational expenses. This includes monitoring and matching students with scholarship opportunities as well as special programs in the graduate school that assist with tuition for qualifying minority or under-represented students who are continuing their studies in our graduate program. We continue to try to recruit and retain graduate students and lab personnel that represent the diversity of our nation through various fellowship and scholarship programs on campus or professional societies, such as the Promising Scholars Award from the UO Graduate School and the Porter Fellowship from the American Physiology Society.
    Our graduate students are heavily involved in the delivery of our undergraduate curriculum, where we have specific initiatives around equity, inclusion and diversity. This provides them with training around the importance of inclusive teaching practices. Our graduate students also attend our departmental seminar, where we include one speaker per year who addresses equity and inclusion topics. We also encourage our students to seek out additional professional development opportunities in this area and have a graduate student representative on our departmental Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity committee.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    We have developed a teaching mission statement as follows: “In the Department of Human Physiology, we value engaging, inclusive and evidence-based teaching. Teaching is engaging when students participate in active learning, inclusive when students belong, are represented and have a voice, and evidence-based when course design and classroom activities are grounded in the scholarship of teaching and learning.” It is expected that all faculty teaching courses in HPHY have objectives around making students feel they belong, are represented, and have a voice and present specific examples of how this will be achieved on the first day of each class. Undergraduate students are asked to complete a survey for each course at the end of the term, specifically addressing how well the objectives of making them feel included were met. The results of these surveys will be used to continue to improve our efforts in this area.
    The widespread adoption of evidence based-teaching in our department also supports the mission of increasing diversity in our community. Multiple studies show that college science courses with more structure and more active learning reduce achievement gaps for under-represented students, reduce DFW rates, and increase student learning. Our department provides an annual two-day Teaching Academy to train new and returning graduate students and faculty members on evidence-based teaching practices. Our departmental commitment to evidence-based teaching also extends to our peer-review of teaching process which was recently updated to include the Teaching Practices Inventory (TPI), a peer-reviewed and validated instrument that measures the degree to which evidence based practices are employed in a course.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    We work with high schools, the Development Office, and the Athletic Department to give tours of our research laboratories to minority and under-represented students who are interested in attending the University and have expressed an interest in our Department. We also maintain contact with our minority alumni and have plans to establish a network of our graduates who can assist us in the recruitment and retention of minority students.
    Several of our faculty work with community outreach programs, providing talks within the community, including OMSI and Quack Chats. Our faculty also participate in programs specifically designed to provide lab experiences to students typically underrepresented in the sciences, including the Summer Academy to Inspire Learning and the Summer Program for Undergraduate Research. One of our faculty members also arranges a weekly volunteer opportunity for our students through Food for Lane County. Approximately 20 undergraduate students and 2-3 faculty members from our department participate in this program on a regular basis.

    6. Other: 

    Our faculty incorporate equity and diversity issues in research designs, by involving subjects who represent the diverse population of the nation, in regards to both minority and sex distributions.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    Staff members provide support to under-represented students by directing them to educational and job resources available on campus and in the community. They relay research opportunities and entitlements to interested students from under-represented or vulnerable populations. in the bio-medical sciences.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    In hiring of staff, we follow Human Resources' protocol and advice during interview selections. We have also created a checklist for procedures during staff hires. This checklist helps to ensure we are using best practices for equity and inclusion when reviewing applicants, and ensures that these efforts are documented.
    One staff member is on our departmental Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity committee and all staff will be involved in our upcoming training on best practices for equity and inclusion during hiring and retention, funded by a grant from CAS.

    Staff are encouraged to join campus committees and events that will allow them to advocate for fair and balanced procedures in all campus operations and policies. One staff member served on the UO’s inaugural Presidential Sexual Assault Advisory Council to advise and help draft policy on issues related to the prevention-of and response-to gender-based misconduct within our campus community.

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    Faculty and Staff members in Human Physiology pursued and achieved a campus-wide Educational Services Agreement with the Academy of Health Services, Department of Health Education Training, a department of the United States Army. This educational agreement provides access and support to active-duty military personnel who wish to gain an in-depth research experience in human physiology through our Research PhD Program.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    All staff are encouraged to attend professional development opportunities involving equity, inclusion and diversity efforts.
    5. Other: 

    A staff member from our department participates in the Food for Lane County program on a regular basis and all staff members disseminate information related to food pantries, food drives and charity enrollment. One staff member regularly hosts an international exchange or sponsored student during International Student Orientation.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Human Physiology
    Division: 
    Natural Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    The department has made substantial efforts to increase the visibility of job announcements, particularly to individuals who identify with a group that is typically underrepresented in the sciences. We have successfully recruited more women in both tenure-track and non-tenure-track positions in the past few years. These efforts have improved our representation of women to 40% of our full-time faculty.
    All members of search committees complete the Implicit Biased training offered by the university. We have also developed a checklist for our hiring procedures to be used by all search committee chairs. This checklist helps to ensure we are using best practices for equity and inclusion when reviewing applicants, and ensures these efforts are documented. We received funding from CAS during 2017/18 to further improve our equity and inclusion practices around hiring and retention. With this funding, we worked with a consultant to assess the current climate of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the department, held a workshop to develop a plan to improve issues, and are in the process of developing a metric by which to assess improvements over time.
    We have included an equity and inclusion speaker as part of our ongoing seminar series within our department, to provide professional development opportunities for our faculty. All faculty are encouraged to seek out and attend additional professional development opportunities in this area. We are working with our Equity, Inclusion and Diversity committee to develop an effective method of communicating these opportunities in a timely manner.

    2. Staff: 

    In hiring of staff, we follow Human Resources' protocol and advice during interview selections. We continue to utilize the Human Physiology checklist for procedures during staff hires. This checklist helps to ensure we are using best practices for equity and inclusion when reviewing applicants, and ensures that these efforts are documented.
    Staff members assist research faculty to help insure equity and fairness in compensation and promotion decisions for their lab staff. If a perceived disparity occurs, the administrator reports the details to Human Resources and advocates for a remedy. Staff regularly attend trainings and meetings to stay abreast of current and pertinent equity, inclusion and diversity policies, and they disseminate these changes to departmental stakeholders. A staff member attended the ACAA workshop on intercultural communication which focused on helping undergraduate students who are experiencing difficulties working with international graduate employee instructors and the UO’s Implicit Bias workshop.
    All staff are encouraged to attend professional development opportunities involving equity, inclusion and diversity efforts. One staff member is on our departmental Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity committee and all staff were involved in our September Workshop on best practices for equity and retention of Women in Science, funded by a grant from CAS.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    We actively and aggressively seek out additional funding sources to assist our current and prospective minority students with their educational expenses. This includes monitoring and matching students with scholarship opportunities, as well as special programs in the graduate school assisting with tuition for qualifying minority or under-represented students continuing their studies in our graduate program. We continue to try to recruit and retain graduate students and lab personnel that represent the diversity of our nation through various fellowship and scholarship programs on campus or professional societies, such as the Promising Scholars Award from the UO Graduate School and the Porter Fellowship from the American Physiology Society.
    Our graduate students are heavily involved in the delivery of our undergraduate curriculum, where we have specific initiatives around equity, inclusion and diversity. This provides them with training around the importance of inclusive teaching practices. Our graduate students also attend our departmental seminar, where we include one speaker per year who addresses equity and inclusion topics. We also encourage our students to seek out additional professional development opportunities in this area and have a graduate student representative on our departmental Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity committee.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    We have developed a teaching mission statement as follows: “In the Department of Human Physiology, we value engaging, inclusive and evidence-based teaching. Teaching is engaging when students participate in active learning, inclusive when students belong, are represented and have a voice, and evidence-based when course design and classroom activities are grounded in the scholarship of teaching and learning.” It is expected that all faculty teaching courses in HPHY have objectives around making students feel they belong, are represented, and have a voice and present specific examples of how this will be achieved on the first day of each class. During 2017/18, we had undergraduate students complete a survey for each course at the end of the term, specifically addressing how well the objectives of making them feel included were met. Overall, the results of these surveys indicated the student experience of equity and inclusion was high and indicated specific under-represented groups for us to focus our efforts in the future. The department reviewed detailed results of the surveys in our Annual Teaching Academy and discussed changes to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.
    The widespread adoption of evidence based-teaching in our department also supports the mission of increasing diversity in our community. Multiple studies show college science courses with more structure and more active learning reduce achievement gaps for under-represented students, reduce DFW rates, and increase student learning. Our department provides an annual two-day Teaching Academy to train new and returning graduate students and faculty members on evidence-based teaching practices. Our departmental commitment to evidence-based teaching also extends to our peer-review of teaching process which was recently updated to include the Teaching Practices Inventory (TPI), a peer-reviewed and validated instrument that measures the degree to which evidence based practices are employed in a course.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    We work with high schools, the Development Office, and the Athletic Department to give tours of our research laboratories to minority and under-represented students who are interested in attending the University and have expressed an interest in our Department. We also maintain contact with our minority alumni and have plans to establish a network of our graduates who can assist us in the recruitment and retention of minority students.
    Several of our faculty work with community outreach programs, providing talks within the community, including OMSI and Quack Chats. Our faculty also participate in programs specifically designed to provide lab experiences to students typically underrepresented in the sciences, including the Summer Academy to Inspire Learning and the Summer Program for Undergraduate Research. One of our faculty members also arranges a weekly volunteer opportunity for our students through Food for Lane County. Approximately 20 undergraduate students and 2-3 faculty members from our department participate in this program on a regular basis.

    6. Other: 

    Our faculty incorporate equity and diversity issues in research designs, by involving subjects who represent the diverse population of the nation, in regards to both minority and sex distributions.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    Staff members provide support to under-represented students by directing them to educational and job resources available on campus and in the community. They relay research opportunities and entitlements to interested students from under-represented or vulnerable populations within the bio-medical sciences.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    In hiring of staff, we follow Human Resources' protocol and advice during interview selections. We use the Human Physiology checklist for procedures during staff hires. This checklist helps to ensure we are using best practices for equity and inclusion when reviewing applicants, and ensures that these efforts are documented.
    One staff member is on our departmental Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity committee and all staff were involved in our upcoming training on best practices for equity and retention of Women in Science, funded by a grant from CAS. The objective of this workshop was to increase awareness of the challenges related to retaining women faculty in STEM disciplines. There will be a follow-up session this year related to the recruitment of women faculty in STEM.

    Staff are encouraged to join campus committees and events that will allow them to advocate for fair and balanced procedures in all campus operations and policies. The DEI representatives for Human Physiology participated in the UO’s Showcase Oregon 2018 Poster Gallery exhibit for which the department was awarded for “best use of data in a presentation.”

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    Faculty and Staff members in Human Physiology continue to recruit via the Educational Services Agreement with the Academy of Health Services, Department of Health Education Training, a department of the United States Army. This educational agreement provides access and support to active-duty military personnel who wish to gain an in-depth research experience in human physiology through our Research PhD Program. One staff member attended training sessions provided by the City of Eugene for inclusion efforts with her community work.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    All staff are encouraged to attend professional development opportunities involving equity, inclusion and diversity efforts. One staff member attended the ACAA workshop on intercultural communication which focused on helping undergraduate students who are experiencing difficulties working with international graduate employee instructors.
    5. Other: 

    A staff member from our department participates in the Food for Lane County program on a regular basis and all staff members disseminate information related to food pantries, food drives and charity enrollment.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6552

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Linguistics
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Faculty Members of the "UO Linguistics Committee on Diversity and Inclusion" (LCDI)
    Chair: Eric Pederson (Associate Professor)
    Lisa Redford (Professor)
    Melissa Baese-Berk (Associate Professor)
    Charlotte Vaughn (Instructor)

    The faculty is acutely aware of the shortage of underrepresented groups on our faculty. We are hoping to partially address this in our upcoming faculty search by active solicitation and consideration of candidates from such groups (especially those who may belong to a minority language community).

    2. Staff: 

    Staff member(s) of the "UO Linguistics Committee on Diversity and Inclusion" (LCDI)
    Linda Campbell (office and budget manager)

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Graduate student member of "UO Linguistics Committee on Diversity and Inclusion" (LCDI):
    Milntra Raksachat (PhD student)

    We actively recruit graduate students from underrepresented groups in both our Language Teaching program (MA) and our Theoretical (PhD) program. We have traditionally focused on Native American and international linguistic minorities as might be expected from the international reputation of the department. We are also trying to develop our program to better attract students from other underrepresented US groups. For example, a number of African American students take the department's Swahili courses and can become interested in linguistics through that connection.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Undergraduate student member of "UO Linguistics Committee on Diversity and Inclusion" (LCDI): TBD

    The profile and efforts are similar to that of our graduate program.
    We also attract interest of diverse students through our undergraduate classes "Language and Power", "Sociolinguistics", "Languages of the World", and "African American English Seminar"

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    The Department of Linguistics has been engaged throughout its history with Native/Indigenous/First Nations/Adivasi / “Fourth World” communities in North and South America, Africa, and South / Southeast Asia. Originally this engagement consisted primarily in research by Oregon academics on undocumented languages, but over the past 20 years we have been increasingly involved with community language development programs and with “capacity development”, providing training for community language workers, and, ultimately, trying to bring students from these communities into our undergraduate and graduate programs.
    Among the ways this outreach is accomplished:
    1) literacy development of unwritten minority languages
    2) summer workshops bringing community workers together
    3) active recruitment of students (Grad and UG) from minority language communities (US and abroad) to bring their linguistic training back to their communities

    6. Other: 

    For many reasons, especially but not only financial, it is more difficult to bring students to Oregon from overseas communities. The Department is dedicated to this goal, however. For example, in Summer 2017, our PhD student from the minority Boro tribe of North East India successfully defended his dissertation and is now employed at Gauhati University in Assam State.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6553

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Linguistics
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    Providing good service starts with hiring the right person for the job. When hiring I'm looking for soft skills more so than hard skills (computer literacy, etc). The interviews (there are two interviews per finalist) is where the candidate sells me on their ability to work with a diverse group of people. With a high international population (faculty and students) in our department the candidate should have interacted (either personally or professionally) with people from various economic, social and cultural backgrounds. It's a bonus if they traveled and/or lived overseas. That way they experience firsthand what it’s like to be a foreigner in a foreign land.

    Each time a student or faculty calls or comes in-person for assistance from the staff member (there's only one), the person does a needs assessment of the problem. It's not just a matter of answering the question, but does the person understand the answer. The staff person isn't looking at the person's race, gender, disability, etc., only what does the person need. Sometimes answering the question means going the "extra mile" by calling the Registrar's Office to get an answer and writing down the answer or instructions

    Getting back to the hiring process, during the interview I'm listening for key words (such as "expect them to know", "people ask stupid questions") that alerts me that this person won't be a good fit for the position. On the other hand when describing a time they had to work with a difficult person (a standard question) and the person tries to provide service during trying times, is someone who should be in the department.

    Since my office is next to the staff person's office, I will stop and listen periodically to how staff person responds to various questions. Should a problem occur I would ask the staff person about the interaction and recommend a better way to handle it in the future.

    On a daily basis, it’s not so much how we handle diversity its more about how we meet the needs of the customer.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    This department has a high population of international students and faculty. On a regular basis we work with people who have language and cultural differences. Yet, we still meet their needs and maintain a friendly atmosphere in the office.

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    Not sure what to put here. Community service and outreach is done by the faculty, not staff.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    All UO training is available to the staff person.
    5. Other: 

    None

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Linguistics
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    The Linguistics department faculty has developed a standing Committee on Diversity and Inclusion. Individual faculty membership on the committee is determined on a yearly basis.

    Although we have made some strides in recent years, our department is acutely aware of the shortage of underrepresented groups on our faculty. We are hoping to partially address this in our upcoming faculty search by active solicitation and consideration of candidates from such groups.

    The research programs of many of our faculty are inherently invested in diversity in various ways, including (but not limited to): work with underrepresented communities within the US and around the world on documenting and revitalizing their languages; the description and empirical investigation of stigmatized varieties of English such as African American English; empirical investigation into the bases of prejudice against speakers of accented language varieties such as Spanish-accented English, etc.

    2. Staff: 

    Staff membership on the departmental Committee on Diversity and Inclusion is encouraged, and the precise staff person(s) serving on the committee is determined on a yearly basis.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Graduate student membership on the departmental Committee on Diversity and Inclusion is encouraged, and the precise graduate student(s) serving on the committee is determined on a yearly basis.

    We actively recruit graduate students from underrepresented groups in both our Language Teaching program (MA) and our Theoretical (PhD) program. We have traditionally focused on Native American and international linguistic minorities as might be expected from the international reputation of the department and following the principle that members of language minorities, with their cultural acumen, are especially well suited to carry out the analysis and description of their languages. We are making improvements to our program to better involve and engage students from other underrepresented US groups. For example, a number of African American UO students take the department's Swahili courses and can become interested in linguistics through that connection.

    Finally, for many reasons, especially but not only financial, it is rather difficult for prospective students to attend our graduate program coming from overseas. The Department is nevertheless committed to facilitating access to our program to prospective students from a diversity of international backgrounds. For example, in Summer 2017, our PhD student from the minority Boro tribe of North East India successfully defended his dissertation and is now employed at Gauhati University in Assam State.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Undergraduate student membership on the departmental Committee on Diversity and Inclusion is encouraged, and the precise undergraduate student(s) serving on the committee is determined on a yearly basis. The profile and efforts for our undergraduate program are similar to that of our graduate program.

    We also promote diversity among diverse student populations through undergraduate classes such as "Language and Power", "Language and Society in the USA", and "Languages of the World". These, and most of our other lower division courses in Linguistics, convey research-based messages of inclusion. In turn, we expect that these efforts will result in increased enrollment of students of underrepresented minorities in Linguistics courses.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Various faculty members and graduate students in the department have created a Language Diversity Ambassador Program, an outreach program for the UO campus and the broader community, aimed at raising awareness about linguistic prejudice and strategies to prevent it. We plan to offer workshops and trainings regarding the impacts of linguistic prejudice. As the program progresses, we aim to recruit more undergraduate students to serve as pivotal leaders in this effort.

    The Department of Linguistics has also been engaged throughout its history in partnerships with Native/Indigenous/First Nations/Adivasi/ “Fourth World” communities in the US and throughout North and South America, Africa, and South/Southeast Asia. Originally this engagement consisted primarily in research by Oregon academics on undocumented languages, but over the past 20 years we have been increasingly involved with community language development programs and with “capacity development”, providing training for community-based researchers, and, ultimately, trying to serve students from these communities through our undergraduate and graduate programs.

    6. Other: 

    The commitment of the Linguistics Department to promoting diversity and inclusion is reflected in the leadership role it is taking on as the host of upcoming international upcoming international conferences on campus (e.g., Breath of Life, a workshop devoted to the restoration of Native American languages; New Ways of Analyzing Variation, the premier North American sociolinguistics conference). Our hope is that these efforts will increase our department’s visibility as a leader in these issues, making the department an appealing place to be for a range of potential students and faculty members.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6540

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Mathematics
    Division: 
    Natural Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    In 2017-18 the department made a hiring offer to a new female faculty member, although this was ultimately unsuccessful. In 2018-19 we made offers to a married couple, and this was again unsuccessful (we were underbid on salary by UC Davis by $10,000 each). Hiring under-represented minorities remains a high priority.

    In 2017-18 the department saw the successful promotion of our only two women faculty to Associate Professors.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    In 2016-17 the department's Executive Committee worked to assess the climate for female graduate students, in particular by holding a discussion forum with a female scientist from outside the department who afterwards met with the Executive Committee to discuss problems and recommendations.

    In 2017-18 the mandatory teaching meeting for all GEs included a discussion of diversity issues within the department and a suggestion of best practices for being a good citizen when it comes to diversity in STEM-related fields. In 2018-19 we held this meeting for only the incoming GEs, with some brief reminders at the all-GE meeting.

    In response to some of the difficulties reported by female GTFs, in 2017-18 we adopted a revision of the qualifying procedures for our PhD program.
    In 2018-19 we will be working on other changes to the first two years of the program which we believe will make the program more appealing to under-represented minorities.

    For the past several years the Math Department has funded the local chapter of the Association for Women in Mathematics, which is run by our graduate students. Among other things, the AWM chapter brings women mathematicians to campus for undergraduate- and graduate-level talks each quarter, and the visiting mathematicians have a meeting with the graduate students to discuss life in the field, advice on career trajectories, and so forth. In 2017-18 our AWM chapter won a national award for some of their work.

    Starting in 2018-19 we will be piloting a one-credit "Ethics and Diversity" course that will be required for all first-year graduate students. The course will focus on issues centered around professional success, and in particular including diversity issues.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    In 2016-17 and 2017-18 we piloted a new course designed to help students who need math remediation to better succeed in their first year of college.
    Starting in 2018-18 we have completely revised our approach to remedial math courses and math placement, to better serve students coming to college who are underprepared in math. This group of students includes a higher than average proportion of under-represented minorities and first-generation college students. The changes focus on the introduction of the new course Math 101.

    Starting in 2017-18 we completely revised the math major, as well as the criteria for departmental honors. We hope that these revisions will better serve the Secondary Teaching Track of the math major, which contains a higher than average population of our female students.

    Three years ago we began the Oregon Distinguished Mathematics Lectures for Students, where we bring in talented speakers to address the undergraduates. There is also a dinner between the speaker and a small group of undergraduates. Efforts have been made to have the speakers represent a particularly diverse pool, as can be see here: https://blogs.uoregon.edu/mathisawesome/

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    One faculty member spent close to half time working with the local schools on K-12 outreach. She is mostly in smaller poorer districts and works as far as Oakridge and Junction city. Her efforts will help improve math education in districts that have fewer resources.

    The Eugene Math Circle, an after-school program started by the department four years ago, continues to flourish. It now has four sessions that meet every Thursday evening during the school year. The Math Circle tuition is waived for low-income students, increasing accessibility to math enrichment for that group.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    Our office manager has been a vocal supporter of equity issues for OAs.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    In 2017-18 our staff redesigned the daily departmental teas to be more inclusive and welcoming.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    Our staff are given many opportunities to develop new skills, and are encouraged to attend frequent trainings throughout the year.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6718

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Philosophy Department
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Western academic philosophy and before that, western philosophy beginning in the ancient world has largely had white male practitioners who spoke and wrote to other white males. Beginning in the 1970s, there has been a counter-trend in professional academic philosophy, led by individual scholars, with support from the American Philosophical Association. Studies in Feminism, LGBT issues, race, ethnicity, Latin American Philosophy, Asian American Philosophy, and Disability have entered the profession as an integral part of recognized scholarly work, as well as demographic difference represented by women and people of color. The University of Oregon Philosophy Department has over the past twenty years affirmed this new intellectual and demographic inclusivity as a core element in all aspects of our work, goals, and daily functioning. The “diversity inventory” that follows, here, merely highlights some of these achievements and efforts.
    We are a diverse faculty in terms of ethnic background, gender, and nationality, with a majority of women in departmental leadership positions, which is not typical in our discipline. Our faculty has been considering equity, diversity, and inclusion in their research, in teaching, and in committee-work and we have the reputation of being a leading pluralist department representing multiple traditions that strives to expand the curriculum beyond its traditional borders. Our faculty actively publishes not only in areas that are more traditional but also in feminism, Latin American and decolonial philosophy, philosophy of race, environmental philosophy, and indigenous philosophies.
    Generally, faculty takes diversity into account both in their approach to teaching (in the effort to be equitable and inclusive) and in expanding the traditional canon by including feminist and minority perspectives and non-Western approaches in their approach to various topics and by offering courses in feminism, philosophy of race, Indigenous and non-Western philosophies. Among a new introductory course we will be offering in the future is a course in world-philosophies.
    Our faculty keeps diversity in mind in its committee work, in hiring and graduate student recruitment efforts. We recently hired an African-American philosopher specializing in critical philosophy of race and faculty actively considered diversity in a search for a position in Environmental Philosophy.
    In our Colloquium series we also have been mindful of having diverse speakers addressing diversity related topics such as decolonial philosophy, feminism, and philosophy or race.
    Last year, our diversity committee chair initiated and lead the creation of an (optional) Diversity Focus both for undergraduate and graduate students that is taking effect this academic year and that requires student to take diversity related courses and attend diversity related events on campus. We created a weblink in our departmental website dedicated to diversity that has information not only on the Diversity Focus but also about other diversity related activities and resources: https://philosophy.uoregon.edu/diversity/. We participated at the poster session organized by the Division of Equity and Inclusion featuring our new Diversity Focus and won a prize for our poster.
    Last year we also started a reading group in disability studies and organized a workshop with Eli Claire, a leading figure in disability studies.
    A major new event this academic year is that the leading feminist philosophy journal Hypatia moved to the University of Oregon. (More information can be found here: https://philosophy.uoregon.edu/2018/08/24/new-editorial-team-chosen-for-...) Four of our faculty members jointly took on the editorship of the journal and two graduate students work for the journal as well.

    2. Staff: 

    We have two staff people from different racial and ethnic background who strive to be welcoming and helpful to our diverse student body’s and faculty’s needs and provide any special accommodations faculty or students might need.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Graduate students entering our program are from diverse background, open to a pluralist approach to philosophy, and often interested in diverse subjects such as feminist, indigenous, and non-western and cross-cultural philosophies, gender, and race issues. We also have been able to maintain a gender balance in our graduate student population over a decade.
    Last year we received 144 applications for 5 PhD spots. A sixth spot was secured through a Raymund Fellowship We are extremely competitive nationally in the areas in which our program excels: Continental Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy, American and Latin American Philosophy, Philosophy of Race/Ethnicity, and Environmental Philosophy. Because of our not only national but also international reputation in these areas, we attract a more diverse groups of applicants than might be found in a more traditional program, and we are very successful in transforming those applications into diverse graduate student body that is diverse in terms of gender, ethnic, and national background.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Our undergraduate studies director and committee have placed considerable effort in diversifying the undergraduate student population and in promoting interest in issues of diversity and inclusiveness. We successfully promoted the diversification of the undergraduate philosophy club, we alert undergraduate students to diversity related events, and invite speakers who promote diversity in philosophy. We expose students to issues of diversity both in our classes and through public lectures. In 2017, our annual undergraduate philosophy talk was Lewis Gordon an American philosopher who works in the area of Africana philosophy. Last year's undergraduate speaker was Melvin Rogers who gave a talk on surviving in the face of white supremacy.

    We offer an undergraduate curriculum that goes beyond traditional subjects and includes courses in feminism, indigenous philosophies, Latin American philosophy, philosophy of race, environmental philosophy, global justice, and (starting next year) world-philosophies. Our ethics minor has been very successful in terms of enrollment and courses offered in the minor engage students in actively reflecting on ethical issues arising in the present-day global and diverse world.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Our Community Philosophy Institute provides opportunities to organize events and conversations between philosophers and various sectors of the community, these have included groups such as medical professionals, "workers" (business community), and the homeless. Upcoming plans include CPI events focused on veterans and the Native American community.

    6. Other: 

    We maintain a department-specific "Committee on Diversity and Inclusion" which regularly reflects on department policy and practices, organizes events and workshops, and updates and implements the department’s strategic diversity action plan.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    Currently, there are two staff persons in our office. Our Office Manager serves on the Department Diversity Committee and one Office Specialist is the acting liaison for the classified bargaining union and employees on unpaid leave.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    The Office staff has contributed extensive time and effort to diversity work on campus and in the community by working diligently with coordinators to ensure that our events have been inclusive and supportive and inviting guests who work and live in diverse areas. Staff have recently promoted a number of events within the Department and across campus, which have addressed diversity: Transgender issues, Homelessness in our community, Women in Philosophy, Latina Feminist Philosophy, Transamerican Philosophy, and Native American issues. In particular, they have provided support for symposia about Islam and Feminism, Environmental Justice, Migration, The American Philosophical Institute, and colloquia speakers. Staff has also been active in supporting accessibility changes in the Department and becoming knowledgeable about specific accommodations through trainings.
    The staff has promoted and put into place extensive measures to help make our International travelers and visitors feel welcome and to make sure their travel arrangements are as smooth as possible as it relates to the University of Oregon's "Foreign" visitors policies, procedures, and paperwork. As a team, the staff is determined to help as much as possible those students, visitors, and guests with their questions and processes while they work to get here.
    Especially the office manager worked on extensive department renovations to address accommodation issues.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    Last year, faculty and staff participated in meeting with representative from Epileptic Society and ADA office for training on seizures.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6974

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Physics Department
    Division: 
    Natural Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Recruitment:
    - Advanced recruitment (through invitations for seminars/colloquia) of potential faculty candidates from underrepresented groups
    - Faculty candidates are questioned on their potential contributions to equity, diversity, and inclusion during the interview process
    Persistence:
    - Participation in University Minority Recruitment Program
    - Faculty peer mentoring

    2. Staff: 

    In hiring of staff, we follow Human Resources' protocol and advice during interview selections. Staff regularly attend trainings and meetings to stay abreast of current and pertinent equity, inclusion and diversity policies, and they disseminate these changes to departmental stakeholders. All staff are encouraged to attend professional development opportunities involving equity, inclusion and diversity efforts. One staff member is on our departmental Diversity committee and all staff will be involved in our upcoming training on “Understanding Implicit Bias” presented by the Center on Diversity and Community. This training seeks to explore and take practical steps to eliminate implicit bias in the workplace and in hiring and recruitment practices.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Recruitment:
    - Students, staff, and faculty participate in recruitment of potential graduate students through attendance at conferences such as SACNAS, LSAMP, and CUWiP. Physics (in conjunction with the Master's Industrial Internship Program and Women in Physics) hosted CUWiP in January 2018.
    - Support for current graduate students to recruit potential students from their home undergraduate institutions
    - Graduate student recruitment visit activities have been aligned to incorporate inclusive practices
    - Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program sponsored by the Materials Science Institute
    Persistence:
    - 'Putting your Physics Degree to Work' career seminar series
    - Women in Physics group
    - Peer mentoring (led by graduate students)
    - Graduate Studies committee initiatives focused on graduate student success in first and second years
    - Graduate student code of conduct for shared student spaces
    - Student participation/leadership in Women in Graduate Sciences, Community for Minorities in STEM

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Recruitment:
    - North Star
    - Saturday Academy (research opportunities for high school interns)
    - Visits to high schools (students and faculty)
    - Science Program to Inspire Creativity and Excellence (SPICE)
    - Summer Academy to Inspire Learning
    - Freshman interest group courses (taught by faculty)
    - Science Open House
    Persistence:
    - North Star
    - 'Putting your Physics Degree to Work' career seminar series
    - Women in Physics group
    - Undergraduate research fair (organized by Women in Physics)
    - Peer mentoring program (organized by Women in Physics)
    - Code of conduct established for shared student spaces
    - Society for Physics Students
    - Support for undergraduates to attend CUWiP
    - Physics (in conjunction with the Master's Industrial Internship Program and Women in Physics) hosted CUWiP in January 2018.
    - Scholarship for Oregon Scientists II program ($10K for up to 2 years for Physics, Chemistry, or Biochemistry majors)

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    - Saturday Academy (research opportunities for high school interns)
    - Visits to high schools (students and faculty)
    - Science Program to Inspire Creativity and Excellence (SPICE)
    - Summer Academy to Inspire Learning
    - Science Open House
    - Regular science pub presentations and public lectures in the community (faculty)
    - Booth at Oregon Country Fair
    - Tesla: Light, Sound, Color collaboration with UO School of Music and Dance
    - Physics Slam (April 2015, January 2018)
    - Scholarship for Oregon Scientists II program ($10K for up to 2 years for Physics, Chemistry, or Biochemistry majors)
    - Pine Mountain Observatory

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6440

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Political Science
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    We have continued strengthening and systematizing our priority on inclusion and diversity into 2018-19. We've taken the following recent steps:

    1. Hiring

    We added a new woman of color TTF this fall, Assistant Professor Yeling Tan. She is a specialist of Chinese and international political economy who was hired in 2017 and spent 2017-18 as a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University.

    For our TTF search in 2018-19, we revamped every step in our search process from initial recruitment through each step of consideration to render more explicit and deliberate our priority on diversity. Not only did all search members undergo implicit bias training, but we have now asked all faculty and grad students who may encounter candidates during the search to undergo this training as well. Though unfortunately some aspects of our large applicant pool were somewhat disappointing in representation relative to availability in our discipline, careful construction of our long list and short list strengthened diverse representation at each step. We will select interviewees on October 18, 2018.

    2. Organizational reforms

    Our Equality and Inclusion Committee got up and running in its first year in 2017-18. Its members focused on information gathering and consultation with other such committees and relevant partners across campus to identify how to model our activities on best practices and connect to other resources and energy outside the department. Progress was made setting the lines of an annual climate survey; launching an across-the-board discussion of how the department responds to climate concerns from students or faculty; and formulating ideas for how to identify and promote students and faculty from underrepresented categories for support, awards and other recognition.

    3. Other activities

    With UMRP funds, we are organizing a substantial symposium on Race and Politics to be held in June 2018, under the leadership of Associate Profs. Debra Thompson and Joe Lowndes.

    2. Staff: 

    This year we onboarded and trained our first woman of color of our departmental staff. It has gone extremely well.

    All classified and OA staff and roughly have of our TTF also participated in the DREAMer ally training this year.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    As a result of very strong efforts to upgrade our identification and recruitment of underrepresented candidates this year for our PhD program, we have a remarkably diverse first-year cohort. Among the six students are five women and five people who identify as underrepresented minorities in either ethnic or racial terms.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Our newly reformed undergraduate major went live this fall. proposed and passed at the department level. Among other changes, it upgrades the existing class PS 106 Power, Politics and Inequality to be one of three "core" classes, and launches a new lower-division class that will substantially address diversity issues, PS 199 Ethics, Identity and Society.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Our Equality and Inclusion committee is developing relationships with our departmental committees and relevant units and resources across campus.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    Staff serve on search committees, where equity, diversity, and inclusion are high priority.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    Daily interaction with a diverse community of students, staff, faculty, and visitors. Recognizing diversity in a broad and inclusive manner, staff interact with each individual; assessing needs and offering service or direction to appropriate resources.

    We serve faculty who are involved in research and teaching that are intrinsically immersed in questions of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Our media resources are utilized to highlight a diversity of faculty and student research. We are also involved in bringing guest speakers to campus, to offer a variety of world perspectives; many of these guest speakers research equity and diversity.

    Staff are encouraged to participate in conversations with other staff, faculty, and guests; recognizing that those moments can bring valuable perspective and will contribute to a strong sense of inclusion. We strive to provide an atmosphere that balances professionalism with the realities of being human; recognizing that different perspectives and experiences enrich our understanding of this growing community.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    Staff have been introduced to implicit bias and will participate in training and conversations as they become available on campus. Additionally, staff participate in conversations about diversity, inclusion, equity, and bias. We encourage staff to seek professional development opportunities and training.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Psychology Department
    Division: 
    Natural Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    • Efforts to increase diversity in faculty searches: requiring diversity statement, consideration of best practices in reviewing applications (including focus on specific, scored criteria)
    • Participation in natural sciences diversity meetings
    • Two faculty members (minimum) serve on departmental diversity committee
    • Faculty are eligible for diversity awards that support activities (e.g., travel to conferences of workshops) that will increase diversity and inclusivity in the department
    • Yearly visit from Rehearsals for Life (specifically for faculty) to discuss and act out situations (and appropriate responses) related to diversity and inclusivity
    • Regular faculty meetings (at least once per year) for discussing CIC survey results and diversity/community related issues

    2. Staff: 

    • Staff are eligible for diversity awards that support activities (e.g., travel to conferences of workshops) that will increase diversity and inclusivity in the department
    • Planned visit from Rehearsals for Life (for staff + ?) to discuss and act out situations (and appropriate responses) related to diversity and inclusivity
    • Staff are welcome to be members of CIC

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    • Yearly visit from Rehearsals for Life (specifically for grad students) to discuss and act out situations (and appropriate responses) related to diversity and inclusivity
    • Annual Student Dialogue (w/o faculty) to discuss climate in department and what we can do to improve things
    • Student-only safe spaces during grad recruitment weekend so that prospective students can ask questions and get candid feedback about diversity and inclusivity
    • Dedicate one class session from the first year graduate seminar for visit from and discussion about CIC
    • All new graduate students are introduced to the CIC during new grad student orientation
    • Grad students are eligible for diversity awards that support activities (e.g., travel to conferences of workshops) that will increase diversity and inclusivity in the department
    • We screen for grad student applicants that are first generation and/or URM or veterans to ensure that they receive full consideration
    • GE position dedicated to diversity committee
    • Regularly submit PSA awards
    • Currently planning efforts to start targeted recruitment at conferences (e.g., at poster sessions geared toward URM students)
    • Looking into application fee waiver for URM students applying to Ph.D. program

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6430

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Romance Languages
    Division: 
    Humanities
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6560

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Romance Languages
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    The nature of our subjects, hiring policies, and pedagogical practices shape RL as a diverse, multicultural, and plurilingual academic unit. We carry out research and instruction in French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish language and culture. The largest language, literature, and culture department in the American Northwest, we are faculty members of different national origins who are nationally and internationally distinguished for teaching and pedagogy, plus students pursuing minors, majors, master’s degrees, and PhDs in the four languages. RL sponsors and supports activities such as lectures, film festivals, study abroad programs, international conferences, and community events. The department acknowledges our own diversity of educational and cultural backgrounds, ethnicities, races, gender–identities, social class, and sexualities as a positive richness, and we bring this attitude into classrooms and interaction with students.

    Hiring practices: Before every search for TTF or NTTF faculty, every member of the search committee participates in implicit bias training. Clear instructions are given to committee members and to the faculty as a whole regarding current practices on diversity, equity, and inclusion during the process of the search. We take an innovative approach to defining fields of expertise for faculty hires, and seek to publicize faculty searches widely. As an example, our newly opened position in Spanish linguistics reflects the emphasis we are placing on social justice as a core principle of our programs. 

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    In addition to the fields of study undertaken by our graduate students, which include Latin American/Caribbean, African, and Chicano Studies, RL recruits graduate students of color from the US and abroad. Current or recent graduate students and GEs hail from Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Colombia, France, Hungary, Iran, Italy, Romania, Spain, UK, and the US.

    For graduate students teaching in the basic language programs, the Director of Language Instruction works with new GEs every year in RL 608, a course that includes training on working with diverse learners. We prepare GEs to work with learning accommodations, non-traditional status, and other variables. The level/language supervisors spend additional time on this in weekly practicum meetings.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Our curricula have been revised over the past few years to include a stronger emphasis on topics such as Spanish in the US and the Francophone world. The general tendency is to “decenter” the content away from the traditional centers of colonial power and raise students’ awareness of peoples and cultures that have traditionally been marginalized in university language/culture study.

    The Spanish Heritage Language Program (SHL) is an initiative of the UO Department of Romance Languages to meet the needs of the changing population of our university. The SHL Program is designed specifically for Spanish heritage language learners, students who have a personal, familial, or community connection to Spanish. It is comprised of a variety of courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels taught by a diverse cross-section of University of Oregon faculty.

    Our Italian program promotes inclusion by encouraging Latinx students to take intensive first-year Italian and continue in the program. We have developed a new course, “The Italian-American Experience,” to attract Italian-Americans as Heritage Learners.

    Our program in French is developing its course offerings to increase students’ knowledge of Francophone Africa and the Caribbean, including study abroad programs in Morocco and Senegal.

    All of our advising is in the spirit of diversity, equity and inclusion. All students are welcome in our office, and advisors work with each individual student to develop an effective graduation plan and to connect them to resources on campus (CMAE, TLC, Career Center, AEC, GEO, Counseling Center, various student associations). Our Head Undergraduate Advisors also facilitate dissemination of information to department colleagues on best advising practices and on opportunities for our students. Advisors attend workshops and sessions on campus to remain current on needs of and opportunities for our diverse population. CMAE, TRIO, the Career Center all rely on us to inform our students of their programs, and will also enlist us to help them reach out to students.

    In collaboration with the Accessible Education Center, we include relevant accommodations information on syllabi.

    Study abroad and exchanges: RL works with the Office of International Affairs to maintain and develop our program abroad, ensure economic accessibility of programs, reciprocate exchanges with our partner universities abroad, and accommodate visiting international students.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Romance Languages’ Spanish Heritage Language Program (SHL) engages in a number of different forms of outreach to connect Oregon Latinx students with the UO and with Spanish language education at the UO.

    Faculty serve on the Dreamers Working Group Steering Committee. An appointed group, the Dreamers Steering Committee works collaboratively with the UO community and DREAMer Allies to ensure that our campus is: inclusive, friendly and supportive to students, faculty, and staff irrespective of their immigration status, country of origin or ethnicity.

    Tarea Time is an initiative of the Center for Multicultural Academic Excellence (CMAE), originally developed by the SHL director and coordinated by Karla Pérez-Young, which focuses on mentoring by guiding students from all backgrounds in the utilization of all resources available regarding financial aid, scholarships, internships, career development, professionalization, and ultimately academic success. Tarea Time meets once a week, form 3:00pm to 5:00pm (weeks 2-10).

    Faculty and students participate with RUYC (Raza Unida Youth Conference) and with the Latinx student organization MEChA in volunteer, training, and community presentation activities.

    The Latino Strategy group (LSG) includes faculty from the RL/SHL program with representatives from around UO campus including CMAE, Mills International Center, Advising, Housing, Visit Programs, Ethnomusicology, Admissions, Oregon Folklife Network, Theatre Arts.

    RL sponsors initiatives and cultural events on campus and beyond, to bring students and faculty into participation with the Latinx community. We collaborate with the JSMA, the Knight Library, and others to extend awareness of and access to the cultural and archival materials, such as Guatemalan and Mexican textiles in the JSMA permanent collection or PCUN archives at the library.

    Advisors organize the Fall Opportunities Fair for all RL students. We include tablers from the TRIO and TLC, the Career Center, PLE, Teach for America, and Peace Corps. These programs and offices are interested in connecting with our diverse population of students.

    We recruit at all UO IntroDucktion, orientation and WOW events throughout the year.

    Faculty organize and present numerous workshops each year, on topics such as National Spanglish Day, Empowering Heritage Students, and strengthening student support networks.

    6. Other: 

    RL hosted the third national symposium on Spanish as a Heritage Language (“Multilingualism, Diversity, Translanguaging”), held February 18 to 20, 2015.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    The RL Office Manager serves as Treasurer of the Latinx Strategy Group.
    She was a member of the "Faculty and Staff of Color" group that later morphed into CODAC. She recently cycled off from serving on the FAC for four years. RL staff serves regularly on search committees for OA and Classified positions across campus.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    In addition to the office manager, the department has two office staff members. Both are UO graduates, one with a BA in Anthropology, the other with a degree in International Studies and a minor in conflict resolution.  Both are proactive in assuring students and faculty from underrepresented groups are well served and made to feel welcome in the office. The entire staff (OA and Classified) are aware of the university's mission to diversify the student and faculty population and endeavor to meet the goal through their level of service and clear communication in all situations.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6561

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Romance Languages
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    The RL Office Manager serves as Treasurer of the Latinx Strategy Group.
    She was a member of the "Faculty and Staff of Color" group that later morphed into CODAC. She recently cycled off from serving on the FAC for four years. RL staff serves regularly on search committees for OA and Classified positions across campus.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    In addition to the office manager, the department has two office staff members. Both are UO graduates, one with a BA in Anthropology, the other with a degree in International Studies and a minor in conflict resolution.  Both are proactive in assuring students and faculty from underrepresented groups are well served and made to feel welcome in the office. The entire staff (OA and Classified) are aware of the university's mission to diversify the student and faculty population and endeavor to meet the goal through their level of service and clear communication in all situations.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2019-2020
    Department: 
    Romance Languages
    Division: 
    Humanities
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2019-2020
    2020-2021
    Department: 
    Romance Languages
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    The nature of our subjects, hiring policies, and pedagogical practices shape RL as a diverse, multicultural, and plurilingual academic unit. We carry out research and instruction in French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish language and culture. The largest language, literature, and culture department in the American Northwest, we are faculty members of different national origins who are nationally and internationally distinguished for teaching and pedagogy, plus students pursuing minors, majors, master’s degrees, and PhDs in the four languages. RL sponsors and supports activities such as lectures, film festivals, study abroad programs, international conferences, and community events. The department acknowledges our own diversity of educational and cultural backgrounds, ethnicities, races, gender–identities, social class, and sexualities as a positive richness, and we bring this attitude into classrooms and interaction with students.

    2. Staff: 

    N/A

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    In addition to the fields of study undertaken by our graduate students, which include Latin American/Caribbean, African, and Chicano Studies, RL recruits graduate students of color from the US and abroad. Current or recent graduate students and GEs hail from Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Colombia, France, Hungary, Iran, Italy, Romania, Spain, UK, and the US.

    For graduate students teaching in the basic language programs, the Director of Language Instruction works with new GEs every year in RL 608, a course that includes training on working with diverse learners. We prepare GEs to work with learning accommodations, non-traditional status, and other variables. The level/language supervisors spend additional time on this in weekly practicum meetings.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Our curricula have been revised over the past few years to include a stronger emphasis on topics such as Spanish in the US and the Francophone world. The general tendency is to “decenter” the content away from the traditional centers of colonial power and raise students’ awareness of peoples and cultures that have traditionally been marginalized in university language/culture study.

    The Spanish Heritage Language Program (SHL) is an initiative of the UO Department of Romance Languages to meet the needs of the changing population of our university. The SHL Program is designed specifically for Spanish heritage language learners, students who have a personal, familial, or community connection to Spanish. It is comprised of a variety of courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels taught by a diverse cross-section of University of Oregon faculty.

    Our Italian program promotes inclusion by encouraging Latinx students to take intensive first-year Italian and continue in the program. We have developed a new course, “The Italian-American Experience,” to attract Italian-Americans as Heritage Learners.

    Our program in French is developing its course offerings to increase students’ knowledge of Francophone Africa and the Caribbean, including study abroad programs in Morocco and Senegal.

    All of our advising is in the spirit of diversity, equity and inclusion. All students are welcome in our office, and advisors work with each individual student to develop an effective graduation plan and to connect them to resources on campus (CMAE, TLC, Career Center, AEC, GEO, Counseling Center, various student associations). Our Head Undergraduate Advisors also facilitate dissemination of information to department colleagues on best advising practices and on opportunities for our students. Advisors attend workshops and sessions on campus to remain current on needs of and opportunities for our diverse population. CMAE, TRIO, the Career Center all rely on us to inform our students of their programs, and will also enlist us to help them reach out to students.

    In collaboration with the Accessible Education Center, we include relevant accommodations information on syllabi.

    Study abroad and exchanges: RL works with the Office of International Affairs to maintain and develop our program abroad, ensure economic accessibility of programs, reciprocate exchanges with our partner universities abroad, and accommodate visiting international students.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Romance Languages’ Spanish Heritage Language Program (SHL) engages in a number of different forms of outreach to connect Oregon Latinx students with the UO and with Spanish language education at the UO.

    Faculty serve on the Dreamers Working Group Steering Committee. An appointed group, the Dreamers Steering Committee works collaboratively with the UO community and DREAMer Allies to ensure that our campus is: inclusive, friendly and supportive to students, faculty, and staff irrespective of their immigration status, country of origin or ethnicity.

    Tarea Time is an initiative of the Center for Multicultural Academic Excellence (CMAE), originally developed by the SHL director and coordinated by Karla Pérez-Young, which focuses on mentoring by guiding students from all backgrounds in the utilization of all resources available regarding financial aid, scholarships, internships, career development, professionalization, and ultimately academic success. Tarea Time meets once a week, form 3:00pm to 5:00pm (weeks 2-10).

    Faculty and students participate with RUYC (Raza Unida Youth Conference) and with the Latinx student organization MEChA in volunteer, training, and community presentation activities.

    The Latino Strategy group (LSG) includes faculty from the RL/SHL program with representatives from around UO campus including CMAE, Mills International Center, Advising, Housing, Visit Programs, Ethnomusicology, Admissions, Oregon Folklife Network, Theatre Arts.

    RL sponsors initiatives and cultural events on campus and beyond, to bring students and faculty into participation with the Latinx community. We collaborate with the JSMA, the Knight Library, and others to extend awareness of and access to the cultural and archival materials, such as Guatemalan and Mexican textiles in the JSMA permanent collection or PCUN archives at the library.

    Advisors organize the Fall Opportunities Fair for all RL students. We include tablers from the TRIO and TLC, the Career Center, PLE, Teach for America, and Peace Corps. These programs and offices are interested in connecting with our diverse population of students.

    We recruit at all UO IntroDucktion, orientation and WOW events throughout the year.

    Faculty organize and present numerous workshops each year, on topics such as National Spanglish Day, Empowering Heritage Students, and strengthening student support networks.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    N/A

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    N/A

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    - Sociolinguistic field research (downton Eugene) on Spanish and ethnolinguistic vitality
    - Spanish Heritage Language Program multiple fieldwork in the community
    - The migrants labor in agriculture in Oregon

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    Regular participation of TTF and NTTF to TEP training
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6475

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Russian and East European Studies
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    REEES's core faculty is small, but diverse, in terms of its strong representation of women and international scholars. Although REEES has not been in a position to make a permanent hire in a number of years, it has participated directly or weighed in on searches in the CHC and EALL that resulted in the hiring of diverse candidates who now serve as core or participating faculty in REEES and who have helped to expand REEES's offerings and, more importantly, to teach courses such as "Russian and Chinese Realisms" and "Self and Other in Russian Culture," which have attracted students from underrepresented groups. If allowed to hire in the future, REEES will make recruiting diverse candidates a high priority.

    2. Staff: 

    REEES does not have its own staff but is housed in OCIAS.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    REEES has had considerable success in the last ten years in recruiting underrepresent U.S. minorities and international students from Azerbaijan, China, Korea, Russia, and Ukraine. Almost all of our graduate students receive full funding in the form of GTF support, and having access to GTF support has been essential for attracting diverse U.S. and international candidates.

    Although our budget is small, we provide each of our M.A. students with the opportunity to apply for $250 once in their career to offset travel expenses to a regional, national, or international. Typically students apply for this funding in their second in the M.A. program, when they are completing their M.A. theses. REEES also holds a Biennial REEES Graduate Student Conference, which provides M.A. students in REEES and Ph.D. students in allied disciplines, to present research on various aspects of Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies.
    Given the geographical orientation of the discipline, and the fact that there is a sizable Slavic community in the state of Oregon, REEES is naturally concerned with providing its students at the graduate as well as undergraduate level with a global education, but one that also speaks to the diversity of the state. Our unit is unique among similar units across the nation insofar as we have a number of scholars working on and offering classes on Eurasia and on Russian-Asian literary and cultural connections.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    REEES has done an excellent job in recent years of attracting a diverse student body that includes women, recent Slavic immigrants or children of immigrants, and first-generation college students. Unfortunately, REEES has a small budget and is not in a position to offer much in the way of financial support to undergraduates. However, as outlined in the previous section, we offer a diverse curriculum, and sponsor cultural events that are of great interest to the students and that foster awareness of the Slavic community in Oregon and beyond.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Despite our historically small Services and Supplies budget, which was cut by 39% several years ago, REEES has played a very active role in sponsoring activities that foster knowledge and understanding about Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia, as well as the Slavic community in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. These events include, lectures, colloquia, a biennial graduate conference, musical performances, Russian teas, and an annual Russian play. All of these events are free and open to the public and are well attended by students, faculty, and community members alike.

    6. Other: 

    In winter 2014, REEES completed an extensive self-study in connection with its fifteen-year external program review. Please see this program review for a more detailed discussion of REEES's past diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Recent and upcoming events include a conference on "Russians in the Pacific Northwest: From Fort Ross to the Aleutian Islands" (April 6-7, 2018), which will include papers on the complex history of relations between Russians and Native Americans in the region, and a combined faculty and graduate student workshop on gender equity and inclusion in the Russian language classroom.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6478

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Sociology
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6489

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Sociology
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Our faculty include scholars of gender, race/ethnicity, and social class. Nearly all of our faculty publications are centrally tied to the study of inequality and entail recommendations for a more equitable society.

    Our faculty do significant service for other UO units including WGS and Ethnic Studies, and for disciplinary associations (e.g., section officers for the Sex & Gender Section, Latina/o Sociology Section, and the Asia and Asian American Section of the American Sociological Association).

    Concerning hiring, chairs of hiring committees attend workshops on increasing faculty diversity and implicit bias training. We have made sustained efforts to recruit a diverse faculty and have been fairly successful. We actively mentor junior faculty in effort to support their careers here and ensure their retention.

    Our faculty also participate in university and college-wide efforts regarding equity, diversity, and inclusion such as serving on university committees that clarified and strengthened family leave policies at the UO (that became the groundwork for their incorporation into our Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in 2013). Faculty also have worked with students in the ASUO, the fossil fuel divestment campaign, the student labor action project, and the black student taskforce. Our faculty also helped to coordinate (and participated in) the Faculty Writing retreat sponsored by CoDaC, which specifically drew from diverse faculty or those who work on issues of diversity.

    2. Staff: 

    The department leadership strives to make department family-friendly for all staff. This has included supporting staff members in their professional goals and making accommodations for a staff person after the birth of a baby.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    We increased our efforts to recruit diverse graduate students by selective invitation and outreach to students from the the two lists of prospective non-traditional students that the graduate school provides to us (McNair Scholars and National Name Exchange). We have a very diverse cohort this year (AY18-19), which may be partly from those outreach efforts.

    We hold a grad student recruiting weekend to help prospective grad students decide on UO. The weekend was initially supported by UMRP funds.

    Nearly all of our classes address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion and the mentorship between faculty and graduate students supports these research agendas. Further, nearly all graduate student research addresses issues of inequality, diversity, and equity.
    The department also supports the Lawrence Carter Graduate Research Award, which encourages research "from a diversity of perspectives," and the Joan Acker Fellowship, which goes to a promising student in the sociology of gender. A recently-formed Committee on International Graduate Students was developed to bring to light and aim to remedy difficulties such as not having the ability to legally work during the
    summers.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Most instructors strive to recognize inequalities concerning gender, sexuality, race, class, and nation in their classes. One of our faculty has taught for the Inside Out Prison Exchange Program in the Honors College, and we now host a class in Sociology. Some of our faculty have experimented with flexible assignments to maximize the success of non-traditional students. We also recently introduced a few online classes which will boost accessibility for non-traditional students. Our teaching strategies and curricula are increasingly emphasizing diversity with respect to including a variety of scholars (such as racial minorities and women) as well as bringing attention in class to issues relative to socioeconomic status that affect working-class and poor students and first-generation college students.

    Under the stewardship of our Undergraduate Program Director, our department altered application for the Sociology Honors program in order to be more inclusive of students with varied educational experiences. The application used to have a strict GPA cut off. But as we know, evaluations based on one measure tend to favor privileged groups. We now encourage students whose GPA does not meet the traditional requirement to solicit brief recommendations from faculty or graduate students who know them and their work. This seems to have increased the diversity of our honors program participants in terms of both economic background and race/ethnicity, though not gender. The Undergraduate Program Director makes a concerted effort to do outreach for the Honors Program through the peer advising program and the applied sociology course in a wide variety of classes so that students who perhaps have different forms of cultural capital can can avail themselves of the variety of enhanced educational offerings we provide in the department.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    We host and support speakers around issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. One way this regularly occurs is through our (near) weekly colloquia series that runs throughout the year. A few more examples: we have supported a conference on gender studies in China, which brought two Chinese scholars to the UO. We collaborated with Latin American Studies to bring Oscar Arias to UO for the Bartolome de las Casas lectures. One faculty member co-hosted a conference on Nonviolence. The department also helped host Patricia Hill Collins, a prominent sociologists of race, gender, and class, and Michael Omi, a preeminent scholar of race, to UO. Our reach also extends beyond the ivory tower, from one faculty member’s long-running partnership with a Native American tribe to investigate issues of environmental justice, another who gives regular public lectures about bullying and homophobia, and another who is currently exploring a public sociology project with Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) on air pollution in nonwhite, low-income, immigrant neighborhoods of Portland, OR.
    Our sociology faculty regularly join forces with other efforts around campus to support equity, diversity, and inclusion goals. Examples include: participation on panels hosted by the Veritas Forum (a campus organization focused on pressing social questions), outreach events, cultural programming, and services provided by the Center for Multicultural Academic Excellence (such as Black Night of Achievement which recognizes the leadership of Black students on campus and the Division of Equity and Inclusion’s Weaving New Beginnings and Communities of Color Network which seeks to bridge ties between campus and city-members while generating ideas for community building). Additional alliances between sociology faculty and other UO programs include involvement in the Women of Color Project, which seeks to institutionalize racial diversity, build mentoring networks, and advance women of color to administrative leadership positions and CoDaC (from Writing Circles to Junior Faculty Mentorship programs).

    6. Other: 

    Sociology faculty are active at the national level, as illustrated by organizing mentoring programs that address underrepresented minorities through the auspices of the Pacific Sociological Association’s Mentor/Mentee Program and the American Sociological Association. At the department level, we recently advocated for and installed gender inclusive bathrooms in PLC.

    Staff
    1. University Service: 

    Participation in specific efforts demonstrate the Sociology staff’s devotion to campus-wide efforts at inclusion: Queer Ally Coalition (QAC) training and member certification plus Continuing Education events offered by the QAC. Participation in large events such as Unpack the Quack (greeting and assisting students who were arriving on campus) as well as small but important efforts such as listing preferred pronouns on office doors and in my email signatures signals the Sociology staff’s inclusive efforts. Another university-wide effort was a staff member’s work to promote scholarships and opportunities for under-represented students; this entailed designing materials for the sociology department college block that aimed to represent the positive values of diversity and inclusion in the department. Members of the Sociology staff also serve on university-wide committees wherein a concern for equity and diversity issues arise and their input can further these goals. Staff have served as members of the following committees in recent years: Faculty Advisory Council (FAC), Senate Executive Committee (current and past 3 years), HR OA Policy Committee, and CAS Task Force for Shared Services.

    2. Departmental Contributions: 

    The staff member in charge of advising reports not assuming that all students will take 16 daytime, in-person credits every term, understanding that many students have family obligations, full time jobs, or other situations which require a more flexible model. Reflecting this recognition of students’ diverse needs, this staff person has arranged advising worksheets to accommodate a range of academic plans. The department staff are always welcoming to faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students irrespective of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, national origin or ability. This attitude and comportment fosters an inclusive environment.

    3. Community Service and Outreach: 

    One staff member serves on the board of directions for the Oregon Association of Rowers, an organization which serves its members (mostly women and seniors) and make annual contributions of money or service to the City of Lowell and the local volunteer fire fighters. Another staff member volunteers in a special education kindergarten class.

    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    Efforts in professional development and training are numerous, including voluntary unconscious bias training, LGBTQA Ally training, and DACA support training. Some of the department staff have attended the Women’s Leadership in Higher Ed Conference; ACAA (All Campus Advising association) meetings regarding advising of student athletes, international students, Pathway Oregon students and DACA/Dreamer students; workshops aimed at understanding the needs of students who are military veterans; and a Financial Aid Expo with workshops on a variety of topics relevant to students receiving financial aid. This impressive sampling of staff efforts to meet the needs of students from various backgrounds illustrates the staff’s commitment to serve the student body as effectively and caringly as possible.
    5. Other: 

    One of the staff members has been involved in planning meetings for the new Tykeson Hall building for advising resources and voiced the need for accessible furniture and counter heights for wheelchair users. Going above and beyond work-week duties, a staff person in charge of advising voluntarily arranged to be available to students by email on evenings and weekends, opening up additional advising availability to students who may work or have parental obligations during the standard working day.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6474

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Theatre Arts
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Theatre Arts faculty teach and conduct research in a wide variety of dramatic fields, including particular emphases in Arab and Arab-American theatre, Latino/Latina theatre, and Indigenous/Native theatre. The department also offers graduate seminars on production theory and aesthetics, particularly queer/avant-garde/postmodern. The faculty has voted to attend an implicit bias training with ArtsEquity, a national organization that specializes in implicit bias trainings specifically geared toward arts organizations. TA Associate Professor Michael Najjar will host Egyptian-American playwright Yussef El Guindi for a series of UO and community events during Winter Term 2019. El Guindi will deliver the keynote address at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, hosted by UO, on February 22. He will also address TA students in Professor Najjar’s class on career options in the field of theatre, and he will meet with audiences of Professor Najjar’s production of Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World, sponsored by Minority Voices Theatre and The Very Little Theatre. During AY 2018-19, Professor Najjar will also be directing Scenes from 71* Years with Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco, which focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Professor Najjar will be working with a diverse group of actors hailing from the Middle East.

    2. Staff: 

    Our office staff is committed to maintaining a welcoming and supportive work environment. As an indication of this commitment, our Business Manager, Marie Greig, sits on the department's Diversity Committee.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    Recent Graduate Seminar topics have included African American theatre and popular entertainment, Arab-American Drama, Intra-Cultural Theatre, Native/Indigenous North American Drama, Latino/Latina theatre and drama. The department voted in spring of 2018 to fund Olga Sanchez Saltveit’s two-week intensive course on Public Humanities at the Mellon School of Theater and Performance Research at Harvard University.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Our undergraduate curriculum currently includes courses in Israeli-Arab-American theatre and Indigenous/Native North American theatre. Soon, we will be offering a new course in costume design focused on representation of ethnicities, as well as self-definition in fashion. With donor support, we have instituted scholarships for first-generation and economically disadvantaged undergraduates seeking to participate in our annual Spring Break at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (students see plays, take tours, have talks and do workshops with a wide variety of OSF professionals). TA faculty voted in spring of 2018 to create a new undergraduate scholarship for outstanding academic performance by a TA major from an underrepresented group.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Within the department, we hosted Crystal Roman's Black Latina, The Play in October, 2018. Ms. Roman also conducted two workshops in the department, one on AfroLatinx Identity and another on Beauty. We regularly use department funds to support other departments and units who are hosting activities that enhance the intellectual diversity of the university community. In 2017, we supported the Anthropology Department's symposium on "Islam, Feminism, and Women's Mosque Movement" and the Department of Ethnic Studies' visit by Native American lawyer and author Mary Kathryn Nagle, who spoke on “Sovereignty in the Law, Sovereignty in Our Stories.” In fall of 2018, the department has supported the UO Confucius Institute visit of Professor Nancy Rao from Rutgers University, for a public talk on Chinese Opera in the U. S. Theatre Arts provides faculty leadership and financial support for the Native Play Reading Series. In recent years, the Department has organized public readings in the Many Nations Longhouse of The Edward Curtis Project and The Girl Who Swam Forever, by Marie Clements, The Woman Who Was a Red Deer, by Diane Glancy, In a World Created by a Drunken God, by Drew Hayden Taylor, Sliver of a Full Moon, by Mary Kathryn Nagle, and WaterWays, a new play with UO students. In 2018-19, we will present a reading of Salmon Is Everything, by TA faulty member Theresa May, in addition to other titles.

    6. Other: 

    The department is currently exhibiting an elaborate Dia de los Muertos display in the main office in order to expose students, faculty, and visitors to this important cultural tradition. Issues of diversity play a crucial role at every level in University Theatre productions. Decisions about play selection, casting, costuming and set design all involve careful consideration of the way cultures and identities are represented on stage. During the 2018-19 season, plays of particular relevance to issues of racial, cultural, and gender diversity include Avenue Q, a musical about gender identity by UO playwright Jeff Whitty, Machinal, an American classic about marriage and gender inequality in the 1920s, and The Home Planet, a devised work exploring (among many other themes) Native American stories about the earth. During the 2017-18 University Theatre season, the department produced Professor John Schmor's original adaptation of Award-winning Oregon author Ursula K. Le Guin’s groundbreaking novel, The Left Hand of Darkness. The department also staged graduate student Olga Sanchez Saltveit's Tricks to Inherit, the first English translation of Fermin de Reygadas’ Astucias por heredar un sobrino a un tío, which is known as the “first drama staged in California." Written in Mexico City, Tricks to Inherit is a satirical comedy about a miserly uncle, his love-struck nephew, and their wily servants..

    Staff
    4. Professional Development and Training: 
    Marie Greig, our Business Manager, represented the department at the CAS Workshop on Diversity in spring 2018, and she has attended multiple UO implicit bias trainings. Marie also attended a UO Queer Allied training. Marie and Alohi Wright, our Office Specialist 2, both attended the UO Dreamer Allied training in AY 2017-18. Marie and Alohi together attended the UO Title 9 training in summer of 2017, and Alohi attended a UO training on purchasing and contracting with minority-owned businesses.
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6556

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Women's And Gender Studies
    Division: 
    Social Sciences
    Other
    Academics
    1. Faculty: 

    Equity, diversity, and inclusion are at the heart of Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies as a field, and we strive to thread these initiatives throughout everything we do as a faculty. Each of our faculty member’s research and teaching engage, at various levels, questions of inclusion, diversity and equity. Our faculty members engage in service to the institution, profession, and community that foster these larger goals, including work with African Studies, Native Studies, Disability Studies, and the LGBTQ+ ARC. All our faculty have taken or plan to take the Implicit Bias Training by the end of fall term 2017.

    2. Staff: 

    Staff are critical to every facet of the department’s work, and are particularly important in fostering a welcome and inclusive environment in the WGS office. Our business manager has participated in multiple trainings, including the Implicit Bias training as we conducted a search last year.

    3. Graduate Programs: 

    We have a very popular Graduate Certificate in WGS, enrolling graduate students from all over campus. We offer two scholarship awards for exceptional graduate student work in WGS, and one award is particularly for work in the field of LGBTQ+ Studies.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    WGS has an undergraduate major and minor in WGS, and a Queer Studies minor. We Our students experience a curriculum that centers questions of equity, diversity and inclusion, and faculty work to engage research led content and inclusive pedagogical practices in their classrooms. We just revised our undergraduate curriculum for the major and minors, which in part included centering courses on Black Feminist Studies, and Indigenous, Transnational, and Decolonizing Feminisms. We offer two scholarship awards for exceptional undergraduate student work in WGS, and one award is particularly for work in the field of LGBTQ+ Studies.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    WGS recently completed a successful and exciting search with the hire of our newest faculty member, which was part of the CAS cluster hire in Black Studies. Our faculty members engage in service to the institution, profession, and community that foster these larger goals, including work with African Studies, Native Studies, Disability Studies, Black Studies, and the LGBTQ+ ARC.

  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion 6482

    Academic Years: 
    2017-2018
    Department: 
    Yamada Language Center
    Division: 
    Humanities
  • Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

    Academic Years: 
    2018-2019
    Department: 
    Yamada Language Center
    Division: 
    Humanities
    Academics
    2. Staff: 

    Goal: Diversifying our staff (student, temporary, and professional)
    Our small staff has always been linguistically diverse, and skewed towards international students and faculty (usually more than half of our staff). This year we’ve intentionally sought out and hired 4 Pathways students to bring more diversity among our American undergraduate staff. In addition, we have been able to add three part time or limited duration appointments (.65 FTE): they include a Turkish-American instructor, a Mexican-American graphic designer, and an Asian-American web designer.

    4. Undergraduate Programs: 

    Goal: Improving language opportunities for students and the community to study indigenous languages

    We’re partnering with NILI and Latin American Studies to add two indigenous language opportunities to our Self Study Language Program this year, Chinuk Wawa (a language of the PNW Coastal and Columbian River tribes) and Quechua (the language of the Incas, spoken by 8 million people in Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. We will also partner with Linguistics’ Language Diversity Ambassador Program in outreach efforts.

    5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

    Goal: Increasing our community outreach efforts

    Besides our annual FLIS day, which bring 1200 high schoolers to campus for a day of language and culture learning, we’ve embarked on a campaign to sponsor a variety of professional and community events that make the UO/Eugene/Springfield more welcoming and inclusive. We hosted a public forum on Suicide Prevention for the local National Alliance on Mental Illness, which featured Spanish language translation. We co-sponsored the COFLT conference in Fall 2017 (it hadn’t been held outside of Portland in more than a decade). In 2019 we’ll bring an International conference on Language and Technology to Eugene, which hasn’t been held in the PNW in two decades.

    6. Other: 

    Goal: Seeking federal grants for teacher training in less commonly taught languages

    We just finished hosting 74 Fulbright scholars who were in Eugene for a week. It was successful and we believe that it’ll be funded for 4 more years. These scholars came from 34 countries and will be teaching 27 languages at 33 different universities across the country. This partnership with Language Teaching Studies and International Affairs is both an excellent professional development opportunity (we employed 12 UO language teachers and 10 graduate students in languages) and a recruitment effort. Many of these scholars are under-represented countries at the UO; they are seeking further graduate work upon finishing their Fulbright stay, and we want the UO to be one of the schools they consider first.