Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 65.54
Liaison C Jane Hagen
Submission Date Sept. 3, 2024

STARS v2.2

Virginia Commonwealth University
PA-6: Assessing Diversity and Equity

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.00 / 1.00 C Jane Hagen
Sustainability Data Analyst
Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Has the institution engaged in a structured assessment process during the previous three years to improve diversity, equity and inclusion on campus?:
Yes

A brief description of the assessment process and the framework, scorecard(s) and/or tool(s) used:

VCU Universe consists of two parts: the VCU Organizational Culture and Climate Survey (OCCS) and Climatext. Both work in unison to provide a snapshot of VCU’s campus climate and culture but more importantly, provide feedback to the Division for Inclusive Excellence so that it can formulate a strategy and recommendation to the president for how to deploy resources around campus to address its needs around diversity and inclusion.

 

The OCCS is a multi-index scoring tool to monitor and record institutional as well as unit-level progress toward diversity and inclusion goals. It is administered once every 18 months to VCU’s faculty and staff within its 24 major business units, or MBUs, that comprise of both administrative and academic units. The OCCS collects survey data from across the MBUs and produces four distinct but interrelated indices. These indices produce a score for each of the MBUs and are ranked among their peers based on how they score. The rankings and indices are collected, made publicly available on the campus culture and climate dashboard that is hosted on the division’s website.

 

Climatext is administered across VCU’s 24,000 undergraduate students utilizing their smartphone’s text messaging app. The Division for Inclusive Excellence deploys a one-item survey every few weeks of a semester with the goal of receiving as many responses as possible to aggregate the results, provide a snapshot of a near real-time campus climate and culture from VCU students’ perspective, or, “campus mood”.

 

URL: https://universe.vcu.edu/


Does the assessment process address campus climate by engaging stakeholders to assess the attitudes, perceptions and behaviors of employees and students, including the experiences of underrepresented groups?:
Yes

Does the assessment process address student outcomes related to diversity, equity and success?:
Yes

Does the assessment process address employee outcomes related to diversity and equity?:
Yes

A brief description of the most recent assessment findings and how the results are used in shaping policy, programs, and initiatives:

The campus culture and climate dashboard displaying the results of the VCU OCCS Survey will inform MBUs of their standing within their peers in respect to prioritizing diversity and inclusion. More importantly, the dashboard serves as a diagnostic tool, identifying opportunities to either maintain or improve their diversity, inclusion and equity standing. Climatext provides feedback to the division and aids in formulating a response to proactively maintain or adjust campus culture and climate. 

 

VCU reflects this in their strategic plan Quest 2028 theme, Diversity Driving Excellence, where success is directly measured by year over year "positive percent change in biennium culture and climate survey results in diversity, inclusion, engagement and performance indices"

 

Strategic Plan URL: https://quest.vcu.edu/media/quest/pdf/bovdocument.pdf


Are the results of the most recent structured diversity and equity assessment shared with the campus community?:
Yes

A brief description of how the assessment results are shared with the campus community:

At the time of the completion of the assessment, results are shared via the Campus Culture and Climate Ratings dashboard. This report is publicly available online and was featured in VCU News articles and emails to give exposure of this dashboard to the wider community. 

 

Dashboard URL:  https://inclusive.vcu.edu/dashboard/


Are the results (or a summary of the results) of the most recent structured diversity and equity assessment publicly posted?:
Yes

The diversity and equity assessment report or summary (upload):
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Website URL where the diversity and equity assessment report or summary is publicly posted:

Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the institution’s diversity and equity assessment efforts is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.