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Strategic Plan

Pathway to the CAS Strategic Action Plan for Inclusive Excellence

The work to develop the College of Agricultural Sciences (CAS) Strategic Action Plan for Inclusive Excellence can be traced back to September 2020, when former CAS Dean Alan Sams convened and charged a Climate, Diversity, and Inclusion (CDI) Task Force with:

  1. developing recommendations for identifying and addressing bias,
  2. improving dialogue on diversity and inclusion,
  3. building the presence of underrepresented people in our organization, and
  4. promoting sustainable programs that improve access, visibility, and success for underrepresented people in the College.

It is important to note that the CDI Task Force was convened during a year of immense societal challenge, including the COVID-19 pandemic (declared a public health emergency by the US Department of Health and Human Services on January 31, 2020) and racial unrest and national protest in response to the murders of Ahmaud Arbery (February 23, 2020), Breonna Taylor (March 13, 2020), and George Floyd (May 25, 2020).

During this time of unrest and national protest, campus leaders stepped forward to publicly acknowledge a need for systemic change in policing (“After Another Tragedy, It’s Time to Make Real Change a Priority”, email message from former OSU President Ed Ray, May 31, 2020), call out white privilege (“Act Now to Support Black Students, Faculty, and Staff”, email message from Provost Ed Feser, June 3, 2020), and to make clear that Black Lives Matter (“Black Lives Matter”, email message from former CAS Dean Alan Sams, June 4, 2020). The tumult of 2020 provides important context for the foundations of this strategic action plan.

In creation of this foundational document, the task force evolved its name to better reflect embedded priorities of equity. CDI became CEDI: Culture, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. 

In March 2022, Dr. Staci Simonich was appointed Dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences. One of her first actions as Dean was to convene a committee to write the College’s first Strategic Action Plan for Inclusive Excellence.

Charge from the Dean:

In March 2022, Dean Staci Simonich charged the committee to:

  • Write a strategic action plan to improve opportunities and outcomes for underrepresented students, faculty, staff, and stakeholders of the College.
  • Develop the action plan consultatively with the faculty, staff, students, stakeholders, and Climate Diversity and Inclusion Task Force in the college, as well as with the Office of Institutional Diversity (OID).
  • Uphold the principles and practices of the CAS CARE Commitment document.
  • Align the Action Plan with OSU’s 2019-2023 Strategic Plan SP4.0 and OSU’s diversity strategic plan, Innovate and Integrate: Plan for Inclusive Excellence.

When crafting the strategic action plan, the committee was further instructed to: 

  • be open to constructive criticism from any reasoned point of view, and X be data- and evidence-based.

Strategic plan for Inclusive Excellence

Methods: Our Approach to Crafting a Strategic Action Plan for Inclusive Excellence

The CAS Strategic Action Plan for Inclusive Excellence launched in February 2022. In March 2022, the committee held our first meeting and established working agreements. The committee followed the process and framework outlined in the OSU Office of Institutional Diversity’s (OID) Adaptive Strategic Planning for Inclusive Excellence: Guidance and Toolkit. OID’s Acting Assistant Vice President for Strategic Diversity Initiatives, Teresita Alvarez-Cortez, was also an active member and valued consultant. In accordance with the charge from Dean Simonich, the committee used the CAS CARE Commitment document as a basis for working agreements.

We reviewed SP4.0 and OSU’s diversity strategic plan at the onset of the planning process. As specific goals, actions, and strategies emerged for the CAS Strategic Action Plan for Inclusive Excellence, we cross referenced them with SP4.0 and OSU’s diversity strategic plan to ensure alignment. We also consulted strategic plans from multiple units within OSU, including the College of Science 2021 Strategic Diversity Action Plan, and draft plans in process from the OSU College of Business and OSU Ecampus. We also reviewed the College of Food Agricultural, and Natural Resources Sciences (University of Minnesota) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Plan. Our committee reviewed relevant, existing data, including the CAS 2020 Student Demographics report and the 2020 Faculty-Staff University Climate Survey report for CAS.

In May 2022, our committee participated in the visioning process outlined in the OID Adaptive Strategic Planning for Inclusive Excellence: Guidance and Toolkit. Specifically, committee members were asked to consider three questions:

  1. If our College were truly equitable, accessible, inclusive . . . what would that look like? Put another way, what would our College look like, if we centered the most marginalized stakeholders in teaching, research, and extension?
  2. What barriers are presenting us from getting there?
  3. Where should we invest time, money, and other resources?

Each committee member posted answers to a Google Jamboard, before reconvening as a group to discuss and sort individual answers into collective themes. These themes would go on to form the basis of Strategic Action Plan goals, actions, and strategies. Following a more formal analysis of this qualitative data, we drafted Version 1 of the Strategic Action Plan for Inclusive Excellence in July 2022.

From September – October 2022, we asked the broader CAS community to participate in the visioning process, by answering the same three guiding questions from the OID guide and toolkit. Responses from the broader CAS community were used to vet and prioritize the draft goals, actions, and strategies that populated the first iteration of the Strategic Action Plan for Inclusive Excellence, as well as to identify key gaps that were missed during the committee’s visioning session.

A total of 661 individuals responded to the Inclusive Excellence visioning survey, representing a broad cross-section of the CAS community including faculty (74% of respondents), students (24%), and staff (6%). The remaining 23% of respondents included CAS alumni (8%) and stakeholders (e.g. volunteers or collaborators, 5%). Student respondents included Ecampus students (28%), in-person students (36%), and those who take both Ecampus and in-person classes (36%). Most employees worked on an OSU campus (65%), with 15% of employees working from an off-campus OSU location. The remaining 20% included remote workers (15%), and those who declined to answer (5%). In terms of gender identity, respondents were women (47%). men (29%), non-binary or gender non-conforming individuals (14%) and those declining to answer (10%). In terms of race, respondents were white (67%), non-white (22%), and those declining to answer (11%).

In total, more than 818 written comments were submitted to the three questions. These comments totaled more than 47,229 words, or the equivalent of more than 106 pages of written text. Two committee members independently reviewed and sorted responses from each of the three visioning questions into key themes. These themes were collated, and mapped onto the first iteration of the Strategic Action Plan to vet existing goals, actions, and strategies and to identify items of importance from the community visioning session that were missed during our committee’s visioning session. Version 2 of the draft Strategic Action Plan was developed across November and December 2022. This version removed actions/strategies that did not appear in the survey results (e.g. ‘update the College’s name to better reflect the breadth of the work that we do) and incorporated novel actions/strategies that appeared in survey results but were absent from the first draft of the Strategic Action Plan (e.g. support for childcare for students who are parents).

In January 2023, we hosted a series of five focus groups to get specific feedback on the second draft of the Strategic Action Plan (two focus groups for employees, and one each for undergraduate students, graduate students, and stakeholders). We drew from a list of people who volunteered to participate in the Focus Groups (in connection with the Inclusive Excellence visioning survey), to extend invitations to focus group participants. Because relatively few stakeholders or graduate students volunteered to participate in the focus groups during the survey, the stakeholder member and graduate student members of our committee suggested several individuals to invite. A total of 26 individuals participated, across the five focus groups, representing diverse perspectives of the broader CAS community. These include academic advisors, program coordinators, administrative office staff, tenure track and tenured faculty, unit heads, CAS alumni, CAS volunteers and board members, and undergraduate and graduate students.

In February through March 2023, the Strategic Action Planning committee reviewed focus group feedback. Focus group participants shared suggestions about key actions and prioritized strategies that would result in better achieving plan goals (e.g. including support of CAS academic advisors as a key component of supporting student success). The plan was slightly edited for Version 2.5 to reflect focus group feedback and priorities.

In March through May 2023, the draft plan was shared with the CAS Unit Leaders, CAS Administrative Team, CAS Culture, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (CEDI) committee, OSU Equity Leaders Consortium, and key DEI leaders across campus. These groups and individuals provided feedback related to plan launch and implementation. Based upon the collective feedback received from all groups and individuals, Version 3 of the Strategic Action Plan for Inclusive Excellence was developed.

 

Collective Vision for Inclusive Excellence within CAS

Across both visioning sessions (committee and community), our collective vision for Inclusive Excellence prioritized:

  • Accurate and Just Representation of Diversity within CAS
  • Support to Enable Individuals from All Backgrounds to Flourish

In terms of Accurate and Just Representation of Diversity within CAS: underrepresented members of the CAS community should be able see themselves in CAS leadership, faculty, and staff. Students also specifically stated a desire for CAS course lessons, guest speakers, field trips, and other learning materials to better reflect diverse knowledge systems and identities of CAS community members. Race and ethnicity, disability status, parental status, age, sexual orientation, and gender identity, were specifically referenced as being underrepresented aspects of diversity within CAS, in the community visioning survey.

In terms of Support to Enable Individuals from all Backgrounds to Flourish: CAS community members identified a diverse set of goals that included support for Ecampus students (who often don’t have access to on-campus student services), accommodations for historically excluded groups, fair compensation for labor (including student internships), support for international students and employees, and childcare supports for employees, on-campus students, and Ecampus students.

Other important themes which emerged included:

  • Fostering Welcoming/Safe Environments: including evaluation and merit standards that include DEIJ impact and principles.
  • Listening, Transparency, Participation: including encouraging participation across the spectrum of the CAS community that includes underrepresented or underserved groups.
  • Invest in Positions: by centering Inclusive Excellence in the recruitment, hire, and retention of CAS personnel, including recognizing the critical role that academic advisors play in student success.
  • Inclusion of diverse knowledge systems and equity in CAS Courses: there was a strong desire to introduce indigenous teachings, DEIJ principles, environmental justice, and the social sciences into coursework.