Search 
Goal: Fostering diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging
Objective: Address institutional barriers to close student outcome gaps
Strategy 9: Expand peer-to-peer support, other programs facilitating access to co-curricular activities, and early outreach efforts to low academic performers.
Example Action Steps
- At the college-level, identify first- and second-year Pell-eligible students with low academic performance indicators and offer bundled services and supports (financial, time/study skills, peer tutoring, alumni/faculty mentoring, etc.).
- Expand college programming to connect first generation undergraduates to first generation faculty and first-generation graduate students as part of ongoing effort focused on this particular student segment.
- Two local academic units will launch programs focused on student groups that typically struggle to connect to high impact co-curricular pathways (e.g., change of campus students and students struggling to meet basic needs) via peer-to-peer and faculty outreach and creation of expanding meaningful on-campus work-study opportunities.
- Another local academic unit will expand an established year-long peer-mentoring program for entering students to a multi-year program focused on students from historically under-represented groups
Targets related to priority University metrics
| University Metrics | Target* |
|---|---|
| Retention of underrepresented student groups across academic programs | • Continue the impressive trend of decreasing the gaps in first-year retention and four-year graduation between Pell recipients and Non-Pell/Non-Direct-Student Loan students (gap on the former will move below five percentage points and gap on the latter will reach five percentage points). |
| Student sense of belonging | • Reach 75% of first year students reporting “good” or “great” on first semester survey question asking “How would you rate the progress you made in feeling a sense of belonging in HHD through PSU14? • Reach a 4.25 average rating on student agreement rating (1 to 5 scale indicating increased agreement) on the first semester survey question “Please rate how much you agree with this statement: I feel like I belong in the College of Health and Human Development?) • Increasing trend in summary perception student sense of belonging metrics on other available self-report surveys. This will include relevant items in a new college-level survey to be launched college-level survey of all graduate students. (Note that many University surveys of well-being do not currently generate college-specific data.) |
* Unless an alternate time-period is specified, target refers to change from the start to the end of the five-year plan implementation period.
Note that percent increases applied to metrics that are themselves percentages are multiplicative not additive (e.g., a 5% increase to a four year graduation rate of 72.1% is 1.05*72.1% or 75.7% not 77.1% (72.1% plus 5 percentage points).
Objective: Cultivate belonging for faculty and staff
Strategy 10: Implement community-building and professional advancement programs that foster a supportive and inclusive work environment.
Example Action Steps
- Launch a new college-based program for faculty interested in developing leadership skills and understanding the nuances of academic leadership.
- Launch a college faculty professional development online resource hub that will consolidate and curate available PD resources and house on-demand PD training resources.
- One local academic unit, with a high baseline level of industry engagement, will seek to translate industry’s best practices around inclusive workplaces from industry to the academic setting.
- Continue working with Staff Advisory Council to co-create college-level professional development opportunities like the recently launched departmental advisor exchange initiative.
Strategy 11: Create opportunities for peer-to-peer support and mentoring.
Example Action Steps
- Expand the reach of the recently established, college-based mentoring circles program geared to mid-career faculty.
- One local academic unit will launch a new undergraduate teaching roundtable forum to give instructors an opportunity to share experiences and practices in what is anticipated to be a rapidly changing instructional ecosystem.
- Another local academic unit will be forming “teaching pairs” that cut across subdiscipline areas and faculty ranks/titles to conduct mutual observations and offer yearly formative teaching feedback.
Targets related to priority University metrics
| University Metrics | Target* |
|---|---|
| Faculty and Staff Sense of Belonging | • Longitudinal improvement in faculty and staff responses to belonging-related items on established climate and engagement surveys (e.g., COACHE, ModernThink), evidenced by increased favorable responses and positive directional change across successive survey administrations. |
| Retention Rates | • Demonstrated stable faculty retention rates over time (improving rates among faculty engaged in mentoring and peer-support program), with no patterning of retention gaps across demographic groups. |
| Training Offered on Hiring Practices | • Year-over-year increases in the number of trainings offered to faculty and staff and rising participation in equitable and inclusive hiring practices, tracked using college and institutional records. |
| Outreach to a Wide Variety of Applicants | • Demonstrated expansion in the breadth and diversity of faculty position applicant pools, measured through longitudinal analysis of aggregate applicant data and search documentation, including increased representation across disciplinary backgrounds and demographic groups. |
* Unless an alternate time-period is specified, target refers to change from the start to the end of the five-year plan implementation period.
Note that percent increases applied to metrics that are themselves percentages are multiplicative not additive (e.g., a 5% increase to a four year graduation rate of 72.1% is 1.05*72.1% or 75.7% not 77.1% (72.1% plus 5 percentage points).