Central Washington University Board of Trustees February 20, 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY – Workforce Diversity Plan Update
Diversity is a core value and critical to the sustainability of the university. Our strength lies in the diversity of our staff and faculty, which we believe positively impacts productivity, innovation, academic excellence and ultimately student success. The goal clearly stated by President Gaudino in the October 2019 State of the University, is to increase workforce diversity by 5% over the next five years. This can be done by cultivating a diverse workforce pipeline and ensuring that campus policies, departmental procedures, and funding models align to make progress quickly. Every division, college, school, and department must participate in and have a responsibility to bring diversity and inclusion excellence into recruitment, hiring, and retention practices. Central Washington University has a long-standing commitment to access to higher education for those who have been traditionally underrepresented. This commitment has been reflected in the university’s positions on recruiting and retaining minority students. Our institutional strategic planning envisions a future of continued growth in both student and faculty/staff diversity. To fulfill the university’s primary mission of providing excellence in education, teaching, and facilities, we must continue to evolve as a diverse community and serve the needs of our region, nation and international community. The educational experience and learning from those different from ourselves can only be taught in intellectual and social environments that are diverse. Increasing the diversity of our faculty and staff promotes critical thinking, intercultural communication and challenges preconceived notions. Achieving our goals has required us to be intentional in the way we do business and make a conscious effort to build learning environments that take advantage of the abilities and talents of a diverse group of people. In doing so we can prepare students to engage and contribute in a global society that is increasingly complex, pluralistic, and that requires teamwork, collaboration and innovation. Identified in the Workforce Diversity Plan were several “quick wins” that provided intentionality in doing searches, particularly searches for diverse faculty. There has been an assumption that the diversity of faculty for the computational and natural sciences was near to impossible. But academic searches are making exciting progress. These national searches all have exceeded availability of a diverse pool at each step of the process.
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker