Elon University
PA-5: Diversity and Equity Coordination

Elon has a Center for Equity and Inclusive Excellence and three administrative roles: Director of the Center for Equity and Inclusive Excellence, Dean of Student Inclusive Excellence and Associate Vice President for Inclusive Excellence and Civic Engagement. The Center for Equity and Inclusive Excellence supports and provides educational opportunities for faculty and staff around inclusive community efforts. In addition, the Center works on policy and practice development, anti-bias training for students, community outreach and oversees the university Bias and Harassment Reporting and Response System. The Dean of Student Inclusive Excellence oversees Student Diversity Education and supports identity offices in the Division of Student Life. The Associate Vice President serves in the senior staff role leading efforts around diversity, inclusion and equity development. The three positions work as a team to lead Elon in the new strategic plan around diversity, inclusion and equity efforts.
Elon also has an Inclusive Community Council (ICC) and Provost Inclusive Community Team (PICT). The ICC’s charge is to provide institutional oversight for programs and policies to further a campus climate that upholds the dignity of each community member, and to oversee campus-wide response and education to acts of bias and discrimination. The PICT meets regularly to focus on implementing the diversity, inclusion, and global engagement strategic plan. In 2020, these two groups will become incorporated into one Presidentially appointed advisory body.

Several offices on campus provide training for students, faculty and staff (including administrators) in the areas of ethnic and racial diversity, sexual and gender diversity, awareness of bias, cultural communication and reporting bias.
Elon requires all first-year students to complete an online diversity curriculum, called Diversity EDU, before beginning at Elon. This mandatory session during orientation began in the 2015-16 school year and focuses on intercultural understanding and identity exploration. All first-year students take a course called The Global Experience, which examines personal and social responsibility in domestic and global contexts, helps students develop their own view of the world and learn about the many peoples, societies, and environments that form the complex relationships that may both promote and obstruct human interaction.
Elon University works to intentionally train all staff and faculty members (including administrators) in cultural competence. Cultural competence is addressed in the day-long faculty orientation as well as the first monthly professional development session of the first-year faculty cohort. The Inclusive Community Conversations program is a three-hour curriculum specific to the Elon context, and all university staff and faculty (including administrators) are strongly encouraged to attend. These sessions provide an in-depth look at the systems to respond to and prevent bias and harassment on campus. The sessions cover three main areas: Identity Reflection, Cross-cultural Engagement, and Bias Response Skill Development. Elon offers this in conjunction with the Joining Elon program, which is an orientation program offered by the Office of Leadership and Professional Development once every six months for staff members who have been at Elon less than one year.
There is also a second phase of the Inclusive Community Conversations called Phase II, which is a deeper dive into the concepts introduced in Inclusive Community Conversations and is for anyone who has participated in previous sessions. Phase II, builds on Inclusive Community Conversations by engaging participants in a deeper exploration of the three focal areas. Participants begin to examine structural contributions to discrimination and oppression and practice skills that confront those in their work space and community. Participants talk across difference and challenge themselves around constructs such as micro-aggressions, implicit bias and privilege. Elon introduced the second phase program after receiving a positive response from the beginner level and was asked to further develop the program.
Elon also offers tailored Inclusive Lens Departmental Workshops specific to department needs. Inclusive Lens Workshops offer the opportunity for a department, division, or area to work with the Center for Equity and Inclusive Excellence to craft a workshop that addresses specific needs in their area. A department may have identified a particular need that would benefit from a deeper engagement with issues of diversity and inclusion. In this instance, the Director of the Center for Equity and Inclusive Excellence would meet with the department leadership to craft a unique opportunity for that area. This approach has been used for units across campus including Advancement, Alumni Engagement, Communications, Student Life, Admissions, Financial Planning, Human Resources, Bursar, Registrar and a number of academic departments.
A more in-depth option is Elon’s year-long intercultural consciousness certificate, which supports faculty and staff to view and grow in their current work with the lens of intercultural consciousness. Twenty-four faculty and staff were part of the 17-18 cohort. 22 faculty and staff were a part of the 18-19 cohort.
Elon's identity centers also offer workshops specific to certain constructs. Some examples include: The Director of Disabilities Resources hosts a disability awareness month with programming and training sessions for faculty and staff (including administrators). The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning also hosts training sessions for faculty on inclusive classrooms. The Gender and LGBTQIA Center hosts Ally trainings for students and colleagues. The Center for Race, Ethnicity and Diversity Education (CREDE) offers a monthly discussion about race and its intersections for faculty and staff, a summer race reflections lunch series for faculty and staff and a number of workshops for students including DEEP, which is the CREDE’s signature program for social justice, and The Big 8, which is an introduction to social identities where students work together to understand these social identities and reflect on their own experiences that were shaped by their multiple identities. The Center for Access and Success offers sessions on working with high financial need students, and the Global Education Center offers sessions on international students on campus. The Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life offers lunch and learn sessions on major world religions, hosts a student multifaith conference, and programs about religion and its intersections.
Elon offers a number of majors, minors and courses that focus on cultural competence including minors in poverty and social justice studies, African and African American Studies, Latin American Studies, Asian Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexualities Studies.