OSU Equity and Inclusion Blog

All students, staff, and faculty are invited to participate in a conversation with the external review team members who will be at Oregon State on October 25^th and 26^th as part of the self-study of all university efforts related to equity, inclusion, and diversity. Please join the review team on Thursday, October 25^th from 4:00-5:00pm in the Memorial Union Journey Room. This is an open session, so please feel free to share this invitation with others who may be interested. The discussion will be streamed live. (live.oregonstate.edu)

As many know, last summer President Ray called for a comprehensive self-study that would engage the Oregon State University community in examining equity, inclusion, and diversity efforts university-wide. Over the course of the 2011-12 academic year a self-study team co-chaired by Susan Capalbo and Angelo Gomez reviewed literature, examined promising practices at comparator institutions, and engaged over 400 members of the university community in dialogue in order to develop recommendations that will guide our collective efforts to make Oregon State a model of an equitable and inclusive university. Over the summer the team drafted a report that details the self-study process and proposes the most important goals for the university to pursue to realize its aspirations. The self-study and appendices are available on the Office of Equity and Inclusion website.

In this next phase of the self-study process an outside team of experts will review the university’s capacity to plan, implement, and assess efforts related to equity, inclusion, and diversity. They will also consider the extent to which the university community is and is perceived to be committed to supporting and sustaining such efforts. The external review team will be led by Dr. Daryl G. Smith, Professor of Education and Psychology at Claremont Graduate University and a renowned scholar on the subject of diversity in higher education. Her most recent book, Diversity’s Promise for Higher Education: Making it Work, has served as a framework for our analysis of OSU’s efforts. The team also includes Dr. Michael J. Tate, Chief Diversity Officer for Washington State University and an extension professor in the Department of Human Development, and Dr. Sharon Parker, Assistant Chancellor for Equity and Diversity at University of Washington Tacoma.

Please join us for this important conversation!