UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
STRATEGIES GOAL 1: R ecruit and retain a diverse student body.
STRATEGY A: CREATE DIVERSITY@DIETRICH, A SERIES OF DEI EVENTS AND TRAININGS Convene a committee of students with a faculty representative to organize a DEI event for Fall 2020, and a series of events for the following academic year. The budget for Fall 2020 could be as low as $500, and for academic year 2020-2021 could be between $3,000 and $5,000. To improve the reach of DEI programs and to directly address undergraduate student requests for more education and training resources to improve student, staff and faculty awareness and acceptance of our diverse student-base, we propose three initiatives: • Establish a fall and spring semester colloquium focused on DEI. We envision the colloquia to be a pairing of speakers (faculty working in this space, notable speakers from other institutions or local leaders) and student-led panels/workshops. • Host monthly/quarterly lunch workshops targeted at educational practices for educating students, centered around a specific issue/problem/challenge each session. • Increase awareness and marketing for DEI events already occurring around campus, making it easier for our students, staff and faculty to find and attend these events. Toward that end, we recommend a central repository that draws together all the unique, culture-shaping events around campus. Currently, there are no courses offered at Dietrich College that directly focus on sensitivity training in areas such as race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, ancestry, and veteran status, though there are new initiatives such as the Grand Challenges that are opening up these topics. Additionally, while Orientation provides incoming students with some resources and expectations about DEI on campus, we believe that these efforts must be expanded. As it stands, orientation primarily consists of new students gathering by their schools for a couple of hours and discussing their experiences after watching videos showing the effects of racism. The training first-year students receive during orientation does not capture, in its depth and intersectionality, the breadth of DEI. We propose facilitating more specialized sessions in which diversity, equity and inclusion can be discussed in its complete complexity in a safe, respectful and productive space. We particularly want to target the first-year students in order to keep DEI efforts as their priorities, but these events will be designed for all students at Dietrich College to attend and participate. Ultimately, it is our hope that as students grow and develop during their years at CMU, more students will feel empowered to advocate for themselves and their fellow classmates. We hope that pairing academic genres, like a speaker series, with more participatory ventures, like student panels and workshops, will allow students to feel empowered to speak up about their experiences, advocate for the campus culture they envision and value and provide opportunities to meet and learn from other influential figures. The main mantra of most, if not all, diversity, equity and inclusion training sessions is to listen to everyone. Listening to different perspectives and having discussions with fellow students are imperative life skills. We look to maintain this idea in our efforts in Dietrich College. However, we also propose to add another pillar to DEI training: student-to-student connections. We believe that while discussions can be productive, they are not as impactful to students when used alone in training sessions. In the Carnegie Mellon context, these trainings often put students from marginalized groups in the position of having to talk about their trauma when they might not want to. We strongly believe that increasing efforts in DEI should not be placed on the shoulders of already marginalized students. It must become a campus-wide effort.
DIETRICH COLLEGE DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION PLAN
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