When administrators at Portland State University (PSU) recently embarked on its ambitious four-year strategic plan, they decided to implement an innovative component called the Equity Lens, an intentional effort aimed at analyzing the plan through the lens of race and ethnicity and through the prism of the lived experiences of marginalized communities.
While it’s routine for colleges and universities to consider inclusion and diversity as factors in their overall strategic plan every few years or so, PSU — under the leadership of its president, Dr. Wim Wiewel — made it the central part of its ongoing planning process, creating Equity Lens panels and a Diversity Action Council made up of faculty, students and staff. They were tasked with raising questions and finding solutions about a range of initiatives included in the plan strictly from the vantage point of equity, inclusion and diversity.
“We commit to equity as a foundation of PSU’s excellence. We define equity as ensuring everyone has access to opportunities necessary to satisfy essential needs, advance their well-being, and achieve their full potential. Our aim is to address the roots of inequities, including but not limited to racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, classism, and the intersections of these inequalities,” according to the strategic plan document that took effect this year and will expire in 2020.
“We commit to inclusion of historically marginalized communities and those underrepresented in higher education. We commit to ensuring that equity is integral to all elements of this plan — in its design, substance, implementation and the metrics used to measure progress. Equity considerations are included with each strategic goal to guide implementation.”
The issue of diversity was also considered essential in how the plan was even rolled out to the college community and its stakeholders, says Dr. Sona Karentz Andrews, provost and vice president for academic affairs at PSU.
“[Diversity] is not an afterthought,” says Andrews, who has served as the chief academic officer at PSU since 2012. “From the beginning, this has permeated the entire university in a way none of us dreamed would be happening. We now make decisions using the equity lens model.”
The Equity Lens was part of a broader and much more comprehensive effort by PSU officials to address diversity in a bold and proactive way.
