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Diversity Plan:
2003 - 2005
OVERVIEW: This 2003-2006 Diversity Plan
represents a turning point for the College of Education and
Human Development. A new, bold, and clearly focused initiative
is at the heart of this plan. CEHD has long been aware of
the changing demographics in Southern Maine, and the growing
influx of immigrant and refugee populations from all regions
of the world. An example is Portland Public Schools, which
currently has 22% students of linguistic and cultural diversity.
It is apparent that not only are Maine's social, economic,
and cultural patterns noticeably diversifying, but that our
educational institutions, teachers, staff, and students must
respond to these changes.
For over ten years, the emphasis of the College's Libra Committee
has been to bring scholars of national recognition to campus
that can contribute to our diversity initiatives and provide
guidance in planning our own efforts in this area. During
this time, we have supported 11 visiting faculty who have
specifically served this function of assisting our diversity
efforts. A direct result of discussions with our Spring 2001
Libra Visiting Professor, Teresa LaFromboise, about action
steps CEHD could take, has been the establishment of a permanent
unit within the College to develop and direct its ongoing
efforts toward diversity.
The Multicultural Learning Collaborative
was inaugurated Spring, 2002, with the mission of collaborating
with members of all Maine's diverse communities to better
prepare educators and human development professionals for
ethical and effective practice in an increasingly multicultural
world. It envisioned becoming recognized in Maine within three
years as a model of excellence for developing the cultural
competence of educators and human development professionals
working with both children and adults, and for making significant
and meaningful contributions to diverse communities. It will
achieve this through building working partnerships and promoting
cultural competence in its service, research, and teaching
and learning activities. The MLC is a critical force in promoting
innovation and creating structures that allow diverse groups
in the community to make meaningful connections and establish
collaborations with CEHD. Part of its conceptual document
was a broad and inclusive definition of diversity that matches
the currently adopted definition by USM for the 2003-2006
plan.
The MLC functions as CEHD's primary coordinating and contributing
unit for its diversity initiatives. It is led by a steering
committee made up of College faculty, staff, and students,
as well as community members. In addition, as a result of
an MLC proposal, CEHD created the position of Diversity Scholar,
with a two-year term, for a faculty member to provide scholarly
and research leadership in helping address the diversity goals
of the MLC and the College.
While the MLC and the Libra Committee's efforts place primary
emphasis on diversity initiatives, the College's three academic
departments contribute to and are enhanced in the diversity
area by six other units:
The Center for Workplace Learning, providing
outreach educational opportunities in many locations in Maine,
focuses its wide-ranging activities on refugee and immigrant
worksite and community programs, including English for Speakers
of Other Languages (ESOL), Culture of the American Workplace,
and cross-cultural communication training. CWL also implements
CEHD's two-year post-baccalaureate Newcomer Extended Teacher
Education Program targeting Refugee and Immigrant populations,
and offers direct service learning opportunities with multicultural
populations in real-life settings.
The Southern Maine Partnership, a collaborative
that represents over one-third of the public school students
and teachers in the state and a regional university, carries
out many activities designed to develop skillful and caring
teachers, organizational structures and processes, and quality
leaders that promote equity for all learners.
ALLTech, a nationally recognized center,
and a collaboration with Spurwink Institute, provides technical
assistance, training, and consultation to educators, parents,
and persons with disabilities in the use of hardware and software
designed for persons with disabilities.
The Professional Development Center, an
educational outreach program offering in-service training
to practicing educators and human development professionals,
includes in all it's course offerings diversity objectives
designed to increase the cultural competence of its learners.
The Center for the Study of Lives, designed
to celebrate, acknowledge, and learn from the lives of individuals
of all generations and cultures, has over the past fourteen
years built an archive of life stories representing over forty
ethnic backgrounds. It also has a collection of immigrant
and refugee life stories.
Upward Bound assists high school students
from economically disadvantaged and culturally diverse backgrounds
to improve their academic skills and prepare to enter and
succeed in college by attending residential programs on the
Gorham campus.
With these units firmly in place, and already impacting our
faculty, staff, students, and community constituents, CEHD
will move ahead in the coming years, regardless of budget
restraints, and continue to train educators and human development
professionals to best meet the crucial needs of a multicultural
community. We will deepen our diversity work, and make it
more responsive to cultural imperatives, focusing on what
most needs to be accomplished as indicated in the action steps
in the next section. Most importantly, we will explore and
develop learning opportunities for members of southern Maine's
diverse communities. We will sponsor, co-sponsor, and collaborate
on multiple series of ongoing forums, dialogues, discussions,
and educational interactions to achieve each of the following
goals.
ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION: CEHD is committed
to a regular review, assessment, and evaluation process of
its diversity plan. All departments and units will engage
in ongoing conversations on the following goals and issues
at least once a semester to monitor our efforts over the next
three years. On the Dean's level, the Executive Council will
also regularly review and assess the plan once a semester,
to prompt discussion and to add to, change, or revise the
plan as needed on the college level. The plan is considered
a living, working document, designed to focus and stimulate
conversation as well as action toward achieving the four major
goals of the plan. Success in accomplishing these goals will
be measured by: our regular attention to the plan; the degree
and quality of ongoing activities and initiatives that emerge
from the plan; surveys of student perception of campus climate
and academic changes; and, the reflections of faculty and
staff on the value of culturally responsive education and
practice, as well as the implementation of the action steps
themselves.
CEHD DIVERSITY PLAN, 2003-2006
GOAL I: Climate
USM continuously strives to make the campus a welcoming climate,
inclusive in its understanding and integration across multiple
dimensions of diversity, including, but not limited to, diversity
based on race and ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation,
age, gender expression and identity, religion, and class.
CEHD has as a priority to create a welcoming, nurturing, and
supportive climate for all faculty, staff, and students in
all its programs and courses. It will implement the strategies
and goals developed by the MLC and its other units and departments,
including the Admissions and Retention Committee, to establish
CEHD as an inviting climate within which the multicultural
community can work, learn, and collaborate.
CEHD Action Steps
- Create and schedule specific opportunities, such as dialogues,
discussions, forums, and seminars, in which faculty, students,
and staff can in engage in reflection, inquiry, and experiential
learning as a means of building an atmosphere conducive
to unity in diversity;
- Offer services to the multicultural communities, through
collaborative efforts, in which members of the refugee,
immigrant, and other diverse groups benefit from student,
faculty, and staff involvement, and learn directly that
USM is committed to building a supportive climate;
- Evaluate, assess, and implement curriculum innovations
and revisions that address diversity issues, establish a
level of cultural competence, and make it evident that CEHD
is responsive to, and building a supportive environment
for, the full range of diversity within our region;
- Create a range of learning experiences in which CEHD
students may gain knowledge, skills, and dispositions for
more effectively working with individuals from diverse cultures
and backgrounds, through field placements and service learning
options, that would assist community constituents while
affirming a nurturing environment at USM.
GOAL II: Academic Experience
The USM academic experience, which includes both curricular
and co-curricular activities, increasingly reflects the multiplicity
and diversity of communities and cultures locally, nationally,
and globally.
Through all of its courses, programs, departments, and various
units, CEHD has as a priority to develop and deliver a culturally
responsive education to all of its future professionals; to
approach teaching and learning as a transformative process,
and a moral and ethical undertaking, founded upon equity and
justice; to encourage critical reflection from all curricular
and co-curricular activities; and, to seek a worldminded perspective
as an outcome from its overall academic experience.
CEHD Action Steps
- Create and maintain formal partnerships, as well as meaningful,
productive, and lasting relationships, with Maine's diverse
groups to enrich the entire learning experience of our students;
- Identify possible sources of, and seek support for, the
diversity scholarship of faculty and students, as well as
professional development opportunities, such as diversity
workshops, while creating an inventory of scholarship around
diversity;
- Infuse curriculum with diversity perspectives, placing
primary importance on projects and assignments that are
inclusive, that involve on-site multicultural service learning
and field experiences in which students may gain knowledge,
skills, and dispositions for more effectively working with
individuals from diverse cultures and backgrounds, that
consider the learning needs of diverse groups, and that
are linked to diversity initiatives in the community.
GOAL III: Student Recruitment and Retention
USM strives to increase the diversity of its student body through
active outreach and recruitment. USM increasingly works to develop
structures and mechanisms that support the retention of all
students of color and other underrepresented populations.
CEHD is committed not only to increasing the diversity of its
student body, but to strive toward recruiting and retaining
a student body, in programs for which it admits its own students,
that approaches the level of diversity currently found in the
Portland Public Schools, even though this will be a great challenge
on the graduate level. This effort will be coordinated by the
MLC and CEHD's Admissions Office.
CEHD Action Steps
- Prioritize recruiting efforts to focus on identifying,
attracting, and admitting underrepresented student populations,
especially targeting Portland middle and high school students
of diversity who might be interested in becoming educators
and counselors;
- Provide and increase support services, including mentoring,
advising, scholarships, and assistantships, that help retain
students of diversity;
- Identify and seek external funding to admit, support,
and retain such students;
- Ensure that the physical environment supports the needs
of all students;
- Ecourage current students to invite and assist diverse
students to apply, especially to the Newcomer ETEP program.
GOAL IV: Faculty and Staff Recruitment and Retention
USM strives to increase the diversity of faculty and staff,
particularly faculty and staff of color, but inclusive of other
underrepresented populations as defined in Goal I.
CEHD is committed to continuing to be a leader in bringing diverse
faculty to campus, in attracting diverse scholars to become
USM faculty, and in being creative in accomplishing this goal
during a time of budget restrictions. It is also a long-term
goal to have CEHD faculty reflect the same percentage of diversity
as our student body will eventually.
CEHD Action Steps
- Utilize Libra Visiting Professor funds to attract diverse
faculty to teach at USM for a full semester;
- Prioritize identifying and recruiting in advance diverse
faculty to fill current faculty lines being held or frozen;
- Provide opportunities for current faculty to have experiences
of immersion into cultures other than their own for a period
of time, as well as to pursue research projects in diversity
areas;
- Dialogue about and encourage current faculty to seek
out and interest diverse faculty in coming to USM, especially
at conferences;
- Seek external funding for filling diverse faculty positions,
especially federally sponsored programs, or others such
as the "Opportunity Hires" program or the McNair Project,
that enable recruiting diverse doctoral students for faculty
positions.
Many other specific activities and projects will be carried
out by the programs and units of the College to accomplish these
goals. Each of the goals and action steps will be monitored
at all levels by all departments, programs, and units to assess
our progress and ensure the achievement of the goals of this
most important plan.
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