In March, the board of directors of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) released a new mission statement focusing on achieving justice, equity, and inclusion at all institutions. That mission statement came with three strategies: calling for governing boards to apply equity to all their processes; for institutions to apply an equity lens to the entirety of their organization; and for institutions to contribute to the equity of their surrounding communities.
On Wednesday, the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE) hosted a webinar to discuss strategies to achieve this three-part goal. A panel of experts advised that diversity officers should be a part of every major conversation happening at an institution, and that changes made in an effort to improve equity should be made fully transparent to the public.
Dr. Babur B. Lateef, a member of the University of Virginia’s (UVA) Board of Visitors, said that achieving AGB’s first goal of having a fully supportive board committed to the idea of equity, is critical to the success of their new mission statement.
“In these polarized times, you can be faced with bad press about critical race theory or some nonsense,” he said. “But if the leadership is unanimously behind this effort, a lot of that press will float to the side. People give up when they know the leadership is behind it.”
Dr. Kevin McDonald, vice president for diversity, equity, inclusion, and community partnerships at UVA, said diversity officers are charged with creating strategic plans and implementing those into different areas of an organization. That task, he said, becomes easier when there is a shared responsibility for all to engage in intentional conversations around equity.
“We need a shared narrative,” McDonald added.
Applying equity across the whole of an institution, will look differently according to where institutions are in their own journey, said Lateef. But no matter what stage of that journey the institution is at, he said, “if [it] doesn’t have diversity, equity, and inclusion in its mission statement somewhere, it needs to get there.”
