Strategies and action items for Process are designed to support and strengthen the development of policies, procedures and practices that create an inclusive and equitable campus climate and encourage a culture of belonging in which every member of our community can grow and thrive.
As part of DEI 1.0 efforts, the Trotter Multicultural Center, named in honor of African American civil rights activist William Monroe Trotter (1872-1934), celebrated its grand opening on April 11, 2019 with more than 1,500 U-M community members in attendance. Since its opening, Trotter has registered 1,400+ meeting reservations, 589 individual study space reservations resulting in 12,177 visits and engaged with 815+ participants across 25 interfaith-focused events, among other activities.
During DEI 1.0, Student Life provided numerous programs and resources to improve the campus climate for students. Student Life had 92,000+ total student contacts across 121 advocacy, transition support and educational offerings, and provided over $100,000 in grants and emergency financial assistance to student groups and individual students.
The Staff Ombuds Office was established in 2017 to promote the university’s DEI commitment and core values by educating, informing and acting as a catalyst for staff in order to assure a positive, inclusive and accessible workplace. Since 2019, 1,750 appointments, group facilitations and mediation sessions have been conducted.
In June 2022, deans, executive officers and the leadership teams of their respective units participated in a daylong DEI 2.0 Strategic Planning Retreat to build a foundation for DEI 2.0 strategic planning and identify tools for inclusive and collaborative DEI 2.0 engagement within their units.
During DEI 1.0, the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), an innovative student assessment and training program, became a major component of the intercultural learning program at the Trotter Multicultural Center. Over 5,450 undergraduate and graduate students have participated in the IDI program.
During DEI 1.0, a central website to house accessibility-related resources, guides and training materials (accessibility.umich.edu) was developed. Further, another website (disability.umich.edu), which houses all U-M disability, accommodation and accessibility resources in one centralized location was created to help expedite the process of locating and navigating the many offices and support services available to those with disabilities.
Over the course of DEI 1.0, the DEI Facilities Working Group expanded into the U-M Student IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility) Board. The Student IDEA Board is implementing a wide array of initiatives to ensure that U-M’s infrastructure supports students, faculty and staff who are or may be impacted by barriers within the university culture relating to disability, accessibility or ableism. Since 2020-2021, actions have been taken with all 48 Student IDEA Board recommendations, with 14 that have been implemented or substantially achieved.
Over the five years of DEI 1.0, a vibrant campus network of professionals was created, with over 100 members representing 50 units—each having its own DEI strategic plan. The DEI Implementation Leads Group (DEI-ILG) supports and develops leaders across the institution charged with managing implementation of their unit-based DEI plans.
Throughout the course of DEI 1.0, Organizational Learning (OL) became the central hub for DEI education and training resources intended to enhance campus climate. Since the launch of DEI 1.0 in October 2016, OL and Michigan Medicine’s Office of Health Equity and Inclusion (OHEI) have offered more than 1,560 instructor-led courses that have reached over 50,000 participants.
The University of Michigan continues to promote best practices for including DEI-related contributions and training in staff performance reviews. Organizational Learning (OL) introduced and worked to instill the Michigan Expectations Model, with a specific emphasis on the DEI Lifelong Learning framework. Many campus units now include DEI course attendance as one of the professional development components of their staff performance reviews.
In support of DEI efforts across the university, communications professionals from the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI), U-M Public Affairs, and Michigan Creative (MC) continued working together to provide critical DEI updates and announcements to students, faculty, staff and community members, including an awareness campaign for our next 5-Year strategic plan, Moving Forward Together: DEI 2.0 Transition.
In 2021, the university conducted its five-year climate survey follow-up to generate comparative data for the original effort in 2016. In Fall 2022, data will be presented to the campus community in a session that will explore key results and next steps as we advance into planning for DEI 2.0. Special Impact Analyses for the Campuswide Climate Experiences that were conducted as part of the DEI 1.0 Evaluation.
