Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Plan

Download a PDF of the Arts and Letters Diversity Plan

MISSION STATEMENT

The College of Arts and Letter leads Liberal Arts education and research at the University of Toledo. Its rich array of general education courses comprises an essential part of the curriculum for all students at the university. Through its numerous majors and professional programs, the College prepares undergraduate and graduate students to engage with complex challenges as adaptable, creative, and active global citizens. Respecting tradition and fostering innovation, the College promotes diversity and inclusion, academic freedom, and collaborative work with the University and with community.

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION STATEMENT

The College of Arts and Letters strives to promote greater diversity, equity, inclusion, and accountability at every level of campus life. This includes intentionally increasing compositional diversity and creating dynamic learning environments that embody acceptance and respect in which students, faculty and staff of all backgrounds can thrive; and ensuring that faculty and staff are fully engaged in this initiative so that all students achieve their educational potential.

DEFINING DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION

Diversity

Diversity is a core value of The University of Toledo. As a scholarly community that encourages diversity of thought as reflected in our broad array of disciplines, we embrace the many things in life that makes us different. The University welcomes people of all racial, ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, national and international backgrounds. We embrace diversity of pedagogy, religion, age, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, and political affiliation. Diversity is essential to our ability to survive and thrive. Every individual is a necessary asset, and we demonstrate this every day in our policies, practices, and operating procedures.

Inclusion

An inclusive environment provides opportunity for full participation in the life of the University by each of its members. The inclusive university embraces differences and fosters a sense of belonging among all its members, including faculty, staff, students, and the community.

Underrepresented Minorities (URM)

We include persons who identify as Native American, Alaskan Natives, Hispanic/Latino, and African Americans, in our data analysis of URMS as those are the categories recognized by NIH, NSF, and other state and federal bureaucracies. Two aspects of this deserve our attention. First, this is self - identification and not subject to any kind of verification. Second, the number of people identifying as members of more than one race are not included in this analysis although the number of people identifying as such is increasing every year. This demonstrates the flexible and fluid nature of race as a category.

Statement from the Dean

The College of Arts and Letters is deeply committed to the pursuit of excellence. In order to achieve excellence and national prominence it is essential that we take full advantage of the diversity of talents found in every group of individuals regardless of race, ethnicity, age, religion, gender, sexual orientation or nationality. We are committed to embracing and celebrating the rich diversity that defines our communities and our nation. This plan provides an initial roadmap for building a diverse and inclusive learning community. We recognize that as we go forward, we will continue to see the conversations on diversity evolve and transform. Our promise as a community is that we will be staunch advocates for the mosaic of excellence that defines the very best of who we are and who we aspire to be. We are committed to ongoing education on diversity, incorporating diversity as a value in all aspects of our educational endeavors and embracing our obligation to make concrete and specific progress on our goals related to diversity and inclusiveness. Together, we will grow and excel as we pursue our mission to prepare our students for a complex and diverse world.

Statement from the College Inclusion Officer

The College of Arts and Letters understands that including persons whose diverse perspectives grow out of richly varied experiences, identities, traditions, and affiliations in all of our efforts to realize our mission is not just the right thing to do in a democratic society. It is a way of being that yields better decisions, reveals creative solutions to recalcitrant problems, and, in short, makes us all smarter. The College of Arts and Letters pursues inclusion of diversity as the means to realize our core values of integrity, innovation, engagement, diversity, and excellence.

PLAN SUMMARY

GOALS

#1: Increase student, faculty, and staff experiences of inclusiveness, equity, and respect incrementally each year, over the next five years.

#2: Based on Fall 2015 head-counts, incrementally increase the recruitment of minority students, persons with disabilities and other underrepresented students until the enrollment of these students reflects the community in Ohio served by the University of Toledo.

#3: Based on Fall 2016 to Fall 2017 retention rates, increase the rate of retention of underrepresented students by 7 percent within five years through targeted programming for groups with retention rates below the institutional average. Incrementally increase the 6-year graduation rate for the same cohorts.

#4: Increase and retain the numbers of faculty and college administrators who are minorities, women, and people with disabilities over the next five years.

#5: Cultivate mutually beneficial community-university partnerships that further the mission of the College of Arts and Letters and the University to serve Toledo, with an emphasis on historically and currently underserved communities.

Goal #1 - STRATEGIES

Goal #1: Increase student, faculty, and staff experiences of inclusiveness, equity, and respect incrementally each year, over the next five years.

Strategy #1-A: Disseminate CAL results from the 2017 UT Climate Survey and then provide a diversity training workshop to all chairs, program directors, and staff.

Strategy #1-B: Identify, create, sustain, enhance, and highlight diversity programming and initiatives in CAL.

Strategy #1-C: Add questions about experiences of inclusiveness, equity, and respect to student evaluations of teaching.

Strategy #1-D: Develop and use evaluation forms to track participation and experience of programs and events.

Goal #1 BENCHMARKS

Improve ratings from 47 percent response of included or very included (6,7) on CAL faculty data from the UT Climate Survey to 57 percent response of included or very included.
Improve ratings from 40 percent response of included or very included (6,7) on CAL staff data from the UT Climate Survey to 50 percent response of included or very included.
Improve ratings from 40 percent response of included or very included on CAL student data from the UT Climate Survey to 50 percent response of included or very included.

Goal #2-STRATEGIES

Strategy #2-A: Actively recruit students form the schools that serve higher percentages of underrepresented minorities within the recruitment triangle identified by the Admissions Office.

Strategy #2-B: Provide bridging strategies for enrollment.

Goal #2 BENCHMARKS

Improve enrollment of African American Students from 10.2 to 20 percent in the next five years.
Improve the enrollment of Latinx students from 4.8 percent to 6.9 percent.

Goal #3-STRATEGIES

Strategy #3-A: Research reasons for attrition among these populations by disaggregating the data.

Strategy #3-B: Identify, sustain and enhance existing programs that have demonstrated efficacy in retention.

Strategy #3-C: Provide course releases, funding, and other support for faculty engaged in research and implementation of retention programs.

Strategy #3-D: Develop and use evaluation forms to track participation and experience of programs and events.

Goal #3 BENCHMARKS

Increase the retention of African American students by 5 percent in the next five years from 59.4 percent to 64.4 percent.
Increase the retention of men in our college in every category over the next five years. At present, retention of men is 69 percent compared to 74 percent for women in our college.
Work with IR to disaggregate the data on retention by gender and race to get more granular data on retention of men by racial category.

Goal #4-STRATEGIES

#4: Increase and retain the numbers of faculty and college administrators who are minorities, women, and people with disabilities over the next five years.

Strategy #4-A: Operationalize College hiring plan that prioritizes college values related to diversity and inclusion.

Strategy #4-B: Make hiring incentive money available to the college to improve minority hiring.

Strategy #4-C: Provide mentorship and intentional communities for underrepresented faculty and staff.

Strategy #4-D: Balance the ratio of gender by category. At present, women are pooled in the lower paying job categories and men or over-represented at the higher pay rates and ranks.

Goal #4 BENCHMARKS

Benchmark: ratio by category
- Staff: 73.5 percent women to 26.5 percent men
- Lecturers: 58 percent women to 42 percent men
- Tenure track faculty: 41 percent women; 59 percent men
- Full professors: 42 percent are women; 58 percent are men
Review results of climate survey for progress.

Goal #5-STRATEGIES

Strategy #5-A: Connect University initiatives with the religious and cultural centers from which our students come.

Strategy #5-B: Use their communicative networks to disseminate information useful to their communities and to young people from these communities.

Strategy #5-C: Support expanded service learning opportunities in the community with financial incentives for initiating faculty.

Goal #5 BENCHMARKS

Work with admissions to identify the religious, cultural, and educational homes of incoming students.
Identify existing relationships between college entities and those centers.
Identify and track existing service learning courses offered by the college.

CAL DATA CHARTS

CAL Employee Class by Ethnicity 2017

CAL employee class by gender 2017

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The College of Arts and Letters employees show a much greater number of female employees compared to men. Women, however, are employed in far greater numbers in the lowest wage groups—staff and student employees.
Faculty ranks also reveal gender disparities. Women make up 51 percent of the faculty in the college, but again they are pooled at the lower ranks. 58 percent of the lecturing faculty are women; 42 percent are men.

Of all faculty in the college, 44 percent are tenure-track. 18 percent of faculty are tenure-track women; 25 percent are men. Of all tenure track faculty in the college, 41 percent are women; 59 percent are men. Of all full professors in the college, 42 percent are women; 58 percent are men. Because there are more men at the assistant and associate tenure tracks, the trend toward a greater number of male full professors is likely to continue.

Enrollment Trends by Gender Entire University

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Enrollment Trends by Gender for College of Arts and Letters

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While enrollment at the University is almost evenly balanced between men and women, the College of Arts and Letters enrolls a much higher percentage of women. Tenure track faculty, alternately, includes a much higher percentage of men.

Yearly Enrollment Trend for Ethnicity for UT

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The University of Toledo student enrollment includes 66.6 percent of people identifying as white, compared to US Census Bureau reports for Lucas County that identifies 69.2 percent of people as white. It includes 10.2 percent of people identifying as African American compared to US Census Bureau reports for Lucas County that identifies 20 percent of people as African American. It includes 4.8 percent of people identifying as Hispanic/Latino compared to US Census Bureau reports for Lucas County that identifies 6.9 percent of people as Hispanic/Latino. The University enrolls 3 percent of students who identify as multiracial, 2.4 as Asian, and 8.7 percent as non-resident aliens. The US Census Bureau does not capture race or ethnicity statistics for non-resident aliens.

Yearly Enrollment Trend for Ethnicity for CAL

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The College of Arts and Letters enrolls a lower percentage of white students compared to Lucas County demographics, as well as lower percentages of African American and Hispanic/Latino students. Compared to the overall student enrollment at UT, the College of Arts and Letters, however, is most closely aligned with local demographics.

Retention Rate for First-time, Full-time DHS for UT by College

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Retention by Gender for CAL

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The College of Arts and Letters not only enrolls more women; it retains them better than it retains men. That retention gap, however, appears to be closing.

Retention by Ethnicity for CAL

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The College of Arts and Letters has more than a 10 percent gap between the retention of white students and African American students. A close look at the actual count shows that the lowest retention rate in the college and at the University is among African American men. For the current year, the highest retention rate is for multiracial students, but that actual number count for the college is quite low, which has a marked effect on the significance of the percentage.

4 Year Graduation Rates by Gender at UT

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4 Year Graduation Rates by Gender for CAL

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The College of Arts and Letters has approximately the same 4 year completion gap between men and women as the rest of the University.

4-Year Graduation Rate by Ethnicity for the University

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4-Year Graduation Rate by Ethnicity for CAL

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The College of Arts and Letters has a significant gap between the 4 year graduation rates of white students and the four year graduation rates for all URMS. CAL has a significantly better 4 year graduation rate for URMS than the University as a whole. Still, it is a gap that must be addressed.

College Diversity Committee

Ammon Allred, PhD., Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy
Debra A. Davis, MFA, Director, School of Visual and Performing Arts, Professor, Department of Art
Monita Mungo, PhD., Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Barbara Schneider, PhD., Senior Associate Dean, College Inclusion Officer, Associate Professor, Department of English
Angela Siner, MA, Instructor and Director, Director of Africana Studies Program, Department of Sociology and Anthropology