Eastern Connecticut State University
PA-4: Diversity and Equity Coordination

Eastern has an Associate Vice President for Equity and Diversity and an Office of Equity and Diversity that advises the President and supports the University community on hiring practices and procedures, affirmative action plans, equity policies and civil rights issues. This Office is also responsible for ensuring the University’s compliance with all state and federal laws pertaining to equity and diversity. These include Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, state and federal affirmative action and sexual harassment laws and regulations, The American with Disabilities Act, as well as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Eastern also has a Diversity Race and Social Justice Council, with the mission to “Support and monitor the University’s evolution towards inclusive excellence through the promotion of coherence, cohesion, and collaboration of diversity initiatives and institutional structures within and across organizational systems at Eastern CT State University.” This counsel supports students, faculty, and staff. This council has four subcommittees that focus on: creating a welcoming campus climate environment, maintaining a diverse community, facilitating the interdepartmental collaborations of academic departments to support diversity missions and initiatives, and facilitating non-academic department collaborations to support diversity missions and initiatives.(university senate committee)

Eastern has cultural competence training for students on sexual discrimination, domestic violence, and sexual assault mandatory for all students. Eastern also performs a diverstiy training that occurs every year. The Diversity and Social Justice Council provides cultural competence training to faculty and staff. Faculty and Staff receive general cultural competence training while certain administrators receive specialized training. There is diversity training for Eastem's police force as well as diversity training and LGBT training for athletic coaches. The university also offers ethnicity and migration workshops led by a working campus group, has hosts University Hour events, as well as other events which are focused on bringing speakers who are socially, culturally and otherwise representative of diverse groups to campus for students, faculty and staff campus to attend. http://www.easternct.edu/universityhour/

Information for this section was input by Torin Radicioni using information gathered through Meetings with Associate VP Dr. Stacey Close.