University of Minnesota, Morris
PA-4: Diversity and Equity Coordination

UMM is home to Equity, Diversity & Intercultural Programs (EDI), which comprises or supports the Multi-Ethnic Resource Program, International Students Program, and the Resource Center for Gender, Women, and Sexuality; three federally-funded programs, the Native American Student Success (NASS), Summit Scholars Programs. Additionally, EDI supports a number of affinity student orgs: Morris Queer Student Initiative for Equality, Disability Alliance, Circle of Nations, Black Student Union, Women of Color Association, Asian Students Association, United Students for Africa, etc. Each of these student orgs sponsors a variety of events each year; the World Touch Cultural Heritage Week represents a week of themed programming around difference, and the annual EDI Connectections Retreat trains student leaders in equity and diversity. Finally, the Morris Intercultural Education Initiative promotes community integration and cultural exchange in the Morris community, offering community-based supports to Latino families in Morris. These include free ESL and Spanish classes, a network of volunteers trained in translation and interpretation, and Spanish-language after-school tutoring for K-6. Currently within shared governance, the Multi-Ethnic Experience Committee (MEC) is “responsible for promoting campuswide understanding of racial and ethnic minorities and for enhancing their educational opportunities. It considers and makes recommendations regarding curriculum, educational programs and extracurricular activities where these touch upon the interests of racial or ethnic minorities. It consults, advises, and cooperates with existing committees that have jurisdiction in these areas to develop and recommend policies.” Morris is in the process of revising the committee charge to capture our efforts towards inclusivity in a thriving campus environment. Additionally, in an effort to infuse shared governance with systematic attention to issues of equity and diversity, we will in the fall of 2018 launch a pilot program, placing a trained equity and diversity “advocate” on each committee.

Many aspects of Morris’s effort in equity and diversity are in development, so new programs are not yet represented in our on-line profile. In 2017, Morris launched a six-workshop series in equity and diversity issues and has trained 12 facilitators to deliver this workshop annually. To date, 30 faculty and staff have completed most of the series. The workshops include: Beyond Diversity 101: Micro-inequities, Implicit Bias, and Moving toward Equity Creating an Inclusive Organization: Addressing Conflict and Building Authentic Dialogue Leading on Equity: How Leaders Take Risks, Model Inclusion, and Share Vision Gender and Sexuality Literacy Universal Design in Mind: Inclusive Program Development and Communication Teaching with a Social Justice Lens & Understanding and Challenging Implicit Bias in Decision-Making

Morris now has a corps of 12 trained facilitators, capacity that allows us to offer the workshop series at Morris (in the past, faculty & staff desiring training had to travel to the Twin Cities campus.