Research, Teaching, Public Service, and Training

RESEARCH, TEACHING, PUBLIC SERVICE, AND TRAINING

UC Davis Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Vision

GOAL 4: Promote diversity and inclusion in research, teaching, public service, and training across campus and in neighboring communities.

This plan challenges UC Davis to embed diversity and inclusion into the heart of its fundamental mission of research, teaching, and public service: “the right to rise” in the words of those who established the land grant vision of an institution that provides for the advancement of all. Campus growth, new initiatives, emerging research, and high-profile funding opportunities have created increasing opportunities for UC Davis to embed diversity and inclusion into its daily work; approaches to teaching, learning, and the curriculum; and public service. 

Lion exam at Sacramento zooA diverse and inclusive campus has the power to improve the problem-definition and problem-solving work that is integral to the intellectual life of the campus. For example, building on its ADVANCE program founded in 2012, UC Davis is committed to promoting a multiplicity of perspectives derived from both gender and cultural diversity to increase research innovation and to enhance its ability to solve complex problems that transcend disciplinary boundaries. When UC Davis incentivizes the discoveries, innovations, and technological breakthroughs that contribute to the public good—locally, nationally, and globally—our work will have a profound and enduring impact. UC Davis has expressed its commitment to identifying role models among our scholars, students, and staff and to promoting the work of centers and research groups that are focused on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Many departments across campus have and will continue to support diverse communities of patients, students, staff, and faculty. Acknowledging and valuing their work is essential in an increasingly global and diverse economy that will demand greater cultural competency skills, as well as the transformative thinking, unique perspectives, interdisciplinary approaches, and leadership that thrive in an inclusive environment.

OBJECTIVES 
A. Embed cultural competency in all academic and training programs, administrative units/programs, and workplaces to support diversity and inclusion goals.

WHAT WE HEARD

  • Service to students is under-prioritized in evaluations of faculty. Faculty of color and women are sought out more often by students as mentors and are in high demand as participants on search committees and other groups.
  • Current funding structures punish rather than reward those colleges and departments that admit diverse students and provide a diverse array of majors, courses, and graduate seminars.
  • Demand for the annual intensive staff diversity training outpaces its current capacity.
  • Instructors can and should do more to use concepts, images, and language in lectures and assignments that demonstrate the significance of diversity in terms of race and ethnicity, sex, gender and gender expression, sexual orientation, disability, religion, etc.
  • Emphasis on student evaluations in faculty merit and promotion reviews remains problematic given the apparent bias against women and minority faculty.
  • Students seek more opportunities to be involved in community service, experiential learning, and mentoring, particularly in health-related curriculum.
  • Recognize that staff, in addition to faculty, can and do contribute to diversity and inclusion-related research.
  1. Create an advisory group to help embed diversity and inclusion research, service, teaching, and training across all divisions, colleges, schools, and departments.
  2. Engage students and instructors in a comprehensive review of general education requirements around cultural literacy for greater emphasis on domestic diversity literacy and social justice. Offer innovation grants for faculty to develop new, responsive curriculum in undergraduate and graduate courses and seminars. Examples: Professionalism, Ethics and Cultural Enrichment (TEAM-PEACE), Partners in Transforming Community Health (PITCH)
  3. Involve students in more high-impact, high-quality, and applied learning activities that involve real-world problems, progressive issues, community-based research, and big questions. Provide all students and postdoctoral scholars with opportunities for hands-on, experiential learning in challenging environments, including leadership roles. Example: Summer Institute on Race and Health 
  4. Expand opportunities for formal and informal interactions between faculty and students, staff and students, faculty and staff, and student peers that promote high-level academic and social engagement while strengthening a sense of community and the learning environment.
  5. Promote and provide students and staff with formal diversity certification programs and professional development. Examples: The History Graduate Diversity Certificate Series, Diversity and Inclusion Certificate Program at UC Santa Cruz  
  6. Ensure that diversity and inclusion concepts are strongly embedded in mandatory trainings for those in supervisory roles and for new employees.
  7. Promote and expand new research and collaborative research opportunities related to diversity and inclusion for staff and faculty.
B. Return benefit to the communities that work with us.
  1. Develop an intentional outreach strategy that engages our community partners in an active and ongoing dialogue about local needs and areas of mutual concern and interest. 
  2. Increase opportunities, build partnerships, and remove barriers so that students, faculty and staff can have an impact in the community through service.
  3. Provide students with opportunities for service learning and community-based learning, in which students can potentially explore cultural contexts, life experiences, social justice and worldviews different from their own.
  4. Create a more transparent process for managing and reporting the university’s engagement with vendors and suppliers and incentivize business relationships with businesses owned by minorities, women, veterans and other disadvantaged persons, as well as small businesses in neighborhoods in disadvantaged or underutilized areas. 
  5. Provide incentives for individuals and teams to publish public scholarship on diversity-related topics. Example: UC Davis Annual Study of California Women Business Leaders.
C. Fulfill the promise of APM 210(d) by promoting and rewarding “contributions in all areas of … achievement that promote equal opportunity and diversity … including efforts to advance equitable access to education, public service that addresses the needs of California’s diverse population, or research … that highlights inequalities.” 
  1. Align merit and reward structures for faculty with APM 210(d) and calibrate rewards across departments. 
  2. Institutionalize the role of the Affirmative Action and Diversity Committee of the Academic Senate and Academic Federation in implementing APM 210(d).
  3. Implement recent recommendations from the ADVANCE Policies and Practices Review Initiative Committee and the UC Davis Faculty Salary Equity Analyses Report.
  4. Create new competitive opportunities and promote existing systemwide and national initiatives that fund diversity and inclusion research, teaching, service and training. Example: NSF INCLUDES
  5. Allocate resources for a research center focusing on African American faculty research interests.

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You can download a PDF version of the plan here.