Below you will find sections on crafting your Inclusive Excellence plan, writing your impact report, sample plan activities, Inclusive Excellence funding, and resources and tools.

Crafting Your Inclusive Excellence Plan

Steps in the Process

1. Create an IE team. IE plans should be developed collaboratively among people representing different constituencies within your unit. The team is the primary working group for drafting your school/college, department, or administrative unit plan, and should be responsible for reviewing data and goals and updating them over time as needed.
2. Initiate pre-planning activities:

• Determine unit/department’s existing plans or goals related to inclusive excellence. This could include strategic plans, vision or mission statements, and access, diversity and inclusion plans or programs.
• Review the MU Strategic Plan and Inclusive Excellence Plan.
• Decide your desired priorities and goals around inclusive excellence for and with your faculty, staff and students.
• Design a process for gathering ideas, priorities, information, and data from your constituents and stakeholders.
• Consult with the Office of Inclusive Excellence and Strategic Initiatives regarding data needed as a baseline for your plan as well as additional resources or support.

3. Determine the impact of current activities around inclusive excellence.

• What metrics need to be developed and tracked, and how often?
  • Select the outcomes that should be affected by the activity in your plan.
  • Select quantitative or qualitative indicators to enable measurement of progress and/or the effectiveness of your plan.
  • Select a time period for the assessment process, as well as for periodic reviews of activities and progress.
• Develop a mechanism to course correct, if the leading indicators initially point to concerns or are not aligned with goals.

4. Develop your plan.

• Is your unit focused on maintenance or expansion of current activities, or identification and development of new initiatives or priorities?
• New activities should have a tangible goal or objective, incorporate collection and review of relevant data, identify a specific group of participants for the activity, and provide a timeline for implementation and periodic assessment of progress towards goals.
• Determine the mechanisms for implementation and monitoring of the plan and/or progress over time.
• Develop a strategy to review, redesign, or eliminate processes that have not produced tangible results.

5.  Finalize and Submit Your IE Plan

• Vet the draft plan with unit leadership and constituent groups.
• Ensure the plan is aligned with other unit and campus strategic plans and reflects the priorities established by campus leadership.
• Send the draft plan to the designated chair or unit leader and the Office of Inclusive Excellence and Strategic Initiatives.
• Finalize the draft and share with relevant stakeholders and submit for inclusion in the Campus Inclusive Excellence Plan.

Writing Your Impact Report

The University of Missouri System requires each unit to provide a report documenting the progress of their initial Inclusive Excellence Plan. The Impact Report should include:

• Milestones that have been met with supporting documentation
• An assessment of the projects, including indicators of success or challenges encountered
• A reflection on lessons learned while implementing the plan, including an assessment of whether the activities will be continued, redesigned or eliminated

Sample Plan Activities

1. Pipeline program to expand the pool of student applicants

• A college partners with a local organization to provide scholarship opportunities for students to attend MU if they complete an internship and maintain a certain GPA. The organization then guarantees successful program participants a job upon graduation.
  • The primary purpose of this program is to increase the depth and breadth of the applicant pool and students attending MU. However, the design of the program increases the likelihood that graduates in this field will stay in Columbia.
  • The program facilitates outreach to and support for a range of students or organizations working with students.
  • The program will be expanded and offered in St. Louis, Kansas City, and other partner cities looking to build a pipeline for students in this field.
  • The department will need detailed data to determine the success of the program, as it currently stands, and to justify expansion. Examples include:
    • The application pool and matriculating students in the college prior to program implementation compared to post implementation
    • The graduation rate of students in the program
    • The academic success of students in the program (e.g., GPA)
    • The success of student-interns produced by the program, and the continued availability of sponsoring organizations for internships
    • The availability of students in other cities who may be interested in the field or academic programs offered by the college

2. Developing administrators for Inclusive Excellence

• A college wishes to build an inclusive learning environment, and they decide to develop a program to target the primary academic and administrative leaders on campus: department chairs. The college believes that this will impact every function under the Chair’s control such as budgeting, hiring and promotion decisions, and curricular decisions.
• The purpose of the program is to increase specifically identified cultural competencies at the departmental level by engaging chairs in related Inclusive Excellence initiatives and sharing resources, innovations, and data across campus.
• The college will collaborate with the Assistant Provost for Strategic Faculty Initiatives, Dean, IDE and Academic Affairs to:
  • Identify competencies needed by chairs and gaps in knowledge base or resources
  • Use Chair’s Retreat and other meetings to deliver content and workshops
• Metrics might include
  • Leading indicators:
    • Number of chairs engaged in training
    • Number of schools and colleges participating
    • Pre-/post-psychometric inventories to measure attitude and competency
    • Focus group to gather information on the chairs’ experiences, outcomes delivered and reflections
  • Outcome indicators:
    • Change in the depth and breadth of applicant pools and growth of faculty, staff and students in a department
    • Change in retention, promotion, scholarly/creative productivity and academic success of department constituent groups
    • Improved climate as measured by faculty, staff, and student surveys and focus groups

3. Attract, recruit and retain diverse faculty

• A college has 20 faculty members, and seeks to recruit an additional 5 faculty members over the next three years. The college has identified priorities in research and teaching. The purpose of their plan is to increase the depth and breadth of the applicant pool and hires, and obtain greater coverage in the research and teaching areas identified as priorities. The college also wants to improve retention and support for new hires and current faculty members.
   
• The college’s comprehensive strategy involves:
  • Redeveloping marketing materials
  • Redesigning job announcements and broadening the placement of ads
  • Training the search committee in-person
  • Including a non-voting recruitment and retention adviser at search committee meetings
  • Developing a process for certifying applicant pools
  • Improving the sense of belonging with new hires by:
    1. Including a letter of welcome to candidates with their offer letter, encouraging acceptance and providing information about on-campus and community resources
    2. Providing on-boarding orientation for all new faculty to cultivate an inclusive culture and facilitate sharing of unit and campus resources
    3. Hosting annual department retreats emphasizing inclusion, team-building and resources
    4. Providing targeted informal mentoring of new faculty, including connecting them with multi-disciplinary research opportunities
• Suggested metrics could include
  • Leading indicators:
    • Constituency groups review marketing materials
    • Feedback from candidates on marketing materials and job announcements
    • Satisfaction with training and on-boarding orientation
  • Outcome indicators
    • Increased depth and breadth of applicant pools and hires across the identified research and teaching priorities
    • Increased retention of faculty
    • Increased sense of belonging

Templates

• IE Framework Plan Template
• IE Evaluation Rubric Template

Inclusive Excellence Funding

In 2016, the Board of Curators announced $1.7 million in annual investments in diversity and inclusion initiatives across the UM System. The DEI Advisory Council reviews all university plans and apportions funds in support of the unique university Inclusive Excellence Plans.

Funds are used to support new programs, bolster existing programs, cover requested scholarships and identify new positions necessary to accomplish continued efforts on the part of the university to be a more diverse, inclusive and equitable environment for all students, staff and faculty.

One-time funds are issued with the potential for extension. Initiatives for which funding is sought should be accompanied by an anticipated budget indicating how funds will be used.

Strong proposals:

• Demonstrate anticipated impact on the intended constituency and have clearly articulated metrics
• Describe cross campus or cross system collaboration and/or information sharing
• Develop innovative and/or cohesive approaches to solving long-standing issues

Resources and Tools

• National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity
• Research and recommendations for diversity committees at research universities (pdf)