(2) Organizational change will be achieved through a dynamic process of year-over-year planning, implementation and assessment of the unit-level and campuswide DEI plans.
The year-over-year assessment workflow is key to making U-M a more diverse, equitable and inclusive environment. It achieves this by: emphasizing DEI in terms of strategic priorities; building a campuswide effort; developing institutional and constituent capacity to implement and improve the DEI effort; fully institutionalizing DEI into the university; and ensuring continued progress and long-term sustainability.
(4) Self-evaluation helps to identify which “institutionalization” components (policy, practices, structures, culture, and climate) or dimensions (constituents, campus, community) are progressing well and which need more attention.
Each school, college or unit is encouraged to collect information relating to its successes, challenges and overall progress, which can then be used to report data-informed (quantitative and/or qualitative) evidence of its DEI Plan implementation. This in turn will generate performance measures. Regardless of data type, the focus is on reporting information that illustrates accomplishments during DEI 1.0 as well as implementation challenges. Ultimately, the unit self-evaluation should increase communication, establish clear expectations and reinforce good performance within a context of cooperation, organizational learning and teamwork. Ideally, the self-evaluation will provide all constituencies with ample opportunity for feedback and suggestions.
(6) We will measure progress of organizational change as evidenced through indicators of change in policy, practices, structures, culture and climate.
Identifying processes and points of accountability for achieving designated goals makes it possible to measure movement toward institutionalizing DEI within the university infrastructure (Guy, Reiff, and Oliver 1998; Williams, Berger, and McClendon 2005; Williams and Clowney 2007). Measurable progress suggests that a school, college or unit is moving closer to incorporating DEI into its structures, policies, practices and procedures. When that happens, the university as a whole advances in its goal of changing the campus culture and climate.
Centrally, we engaged in an evaluation process using multiple sources of institutional data to understand the impact of the first five years of DEI 1.0 on the demographic makeup of the university (People); the policies and procedures that support an inclusive climate (Process); and the education, scholarship and service efforts of U-M (Products). In doing so, we also supported units with their self-evaluations and analyzed their subsequent reports to understand how unit efforts have impacted the campus overall.
Felecia Webb
Director of Evaluation and Assessment, Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion