Academic Affairs Racial Justice Initiatives

Our Commitment to Racial Justice

Building a culture that acknowledges and addresses racism within our culture, systems, and institutions, with honesty, humility, and courage.
Advancing and sustaining racial justice initiatives in our division with the recognition that this is an ongoing process.
Disaggregating our data by race, ethnicity, and other social identity categories and engaging in continuous quality improvement to reduce these inequities.
Continuing communication, learning, and dialogue to further our progress towards racial justice.
Changing our hiring practices, interrogating our climate, and listening to our faculty and staff of color to attract and retain a more diverse faculty and staff.
Infusing racial justice into our curriculum, including general education.
Engaging in professional development focused on racial justice with particular attention to pedagogy.
Incorporating racial justice into our action plans.
Creating student support initiatives to address racial justice.

While we recognize that there is much work yet to be done, we are moving in the right direction.

Incentivized the inclusion of the antiracism theme in Intersession 2021 courses.
Completed tagging of antiracist classes and made available to students.
During the 2020-21 academic year, supported 30 professional development opportunities related to antiracism through the Teaching and Learning Center.
Implemented our first Intergroup Dialogue class, Fall 2021.
Provided disaggregated data by race and ethnicity as a regular practice through Institutional Research.
Launched TRIO Student Support Services Programs.
Incorporated antiracism into the recently Senate-passed curricular framework, A Geneseo Education for a Connected World.
Developed a website to promote our antiracist efforts.

We are committed to continuing our journey to racial justice by taking the following actions:

Facilitating conversations with the Academic Council about best practices in diverse hiring.
Revising support materials for search committees to facilitate diverse hiring.
Empowering a Faculty Evaluation Think Tank to revise promotion and tenure guidelines with an equity lens.
Incorporating 2-3 racial justice professional development micro-discussions per semester during Academic Council led by chairs, deans, faculty, or staff.
Incorporating 2-3 racial justice professional development micro-discussions per semester during Director's Council led by directors and/or staff.
Providing formal mentorship programs for new faculty and staff.
Encouraging all directors, chairs, deans, and Provost Office staff to participate in an Advancing Cultural Competency Certificate Learning Community and become Safe Zone trained.
Creating and meeting regularly with a Provost's Student Advisory Group for Diversity and Equity.
Addressing recommendations from staff of color focus groups.
Implementing recommendations from the faculty of color focus group.
Assessing and developing strategies for increasing the diversity of honors and awards initiatives.
Conducting an audit of Academic Affairs administrative offices websites and documents to eliminate bias and outdated language.