Diversity Plan: 2003 - 2005

College of Nursing and Health Professions

In December 2002, USM's College of Nursing and Health Professions (CONHP) faculty met with the College's Diversity Committee for the purpose of a full discussion of the Revised 2002-2006 Diversity Plan. The questions provided helped to generate a lively and productive conversation. This report reflects that discussion and serves as an assessment of where the CONHP is at this point and the initiatives we hope to develop in the future. The CONHP faculty is fully committed to meeting the goals of this plan at the highest level possible.

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.

Following the inception of the 1998 USM Diversity Plan, the College of Nursing and Health Professions designated a college wide committee on diversity issues (Diversity Committee). This standing committee provides oversight and direction to the College on issues and activities that relate to USM's Diversity Plan 2003-2006.

The CONHP faculty and staff have participated in USM's Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence Anti-Bias Training and USM's Safe Zone training. In addition, all undergraduate and graduate students receive the anti-bias training from the Center's staff in a workshop format as part of a required course for their respective major.

This year, the Diversity Committee was awarded a 2002-2003 Community Building Grant from USM's Center for Teaching, which was used in November 2002 to conduct a faculty workshop led by Visiting Professor Okafor Chinyere regarding diversity issues in the classroom. This is the first in a planned, yearly series on diversity. The next workshop will address specific strategies in teaching students from other cultures as well as assisting faculty in understanding different learning styles influenced by culture. It is hoped that students from diverse backgrounds will participate in the planning and delivery of the workshop. Another important topic to be addressed is preparing diverse students for entry into the workforce. One interesting idea generated is to collaborate with Maine Medical Center as a resource. Faculty also requested a resource list of individuals in the University community as well as the greater Portland community who can provide expert advice in this area. Increased funding would greatly assist in carrying out these initiatives to the fullest.

The Diversity Committee continues to send faculty and staff representatives each year to the annual New England Regional Black Nurses Association meeting in order to provide visibility of our nursing programs to nurses and student nurses of color in an attempt to recruit faculty and students. The Committee requests advice and/or suggestions for other avenues to pursue.

With respect to the physical plant of USM's Masterton Hall, some helpful suggestions were put forth. These include adequate shoveling and ice removal of the ramp leading to the ground level entry (to facilitate access for students, faculty, and guests with mobility problems) and the creation of clearly marked unisex bathrooms (for the comfort of trans-gendered individuals). The Dean's office is following up on these recommendations.

Lastly, other suggestions for diversity awareness and education were advanced in this discussion. They included use of displays and bulletin boards in public spaces, pertinent articles in the biannual CONHP newsletter - CONNECTIONS, and diversity programming in student groups.

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.

The College of Nursing and Health Professions faculty utilize a variety of strategies, both theoretical and practical, to educate and inform students regarding issues related to diversity and underrepresented populations within their academic experiences. Through various classroom presentations and experiential activities the Departments of Nursing, Recreation and Leisure, and Sports Medicine attempt to prepare student for an ever-changing world.

Nursing - In NUR100 Introduction to Professional Nursing students are provided with an overview of the importance of providing cultural sensitive care to an ever-growing diverse population. Through this course faculty not only attempt to raise the awareness of students, they also seek to establish a conceptual foundation for diversity on which to build for all the other nursing courses. With this base, diversity and cultural sensitivity is interwoven throughout the nursing undergraduate and graduate curricula. Specific examples include NUR213 Nursing Arts and Sciences where faculty challenge students to look at their prejudices and stereotypes regarding specific cultures and ethic groups in the context of health care, NUR 224 Holism, Wellness, and Prevention Across the Lifespan which focuses on ways to develop effective education programs for diverse groups, and NUR315 Child Health Nursing and NUR323 Adult/Older Health in which students are asked to assess cultural practices and ethic/racial differences related to health care in the United States for these diverse groups. Additionally, in CON 401 Health Related Research students learn ways to include all groups in sampling for research studies and a major focus of NUR310 Health Assessment Lab for RNs is how to conduct assessments for diverse populations. Topics in other undergraduate nursing courses cover a broad spectrum, ranging from how culture is conceptualized to specific discussions on such areas as the sexual, reproductive and family issues of the gay and lesbian population or the health care needs of residents of the Dominican Republic.

At the graduate nursing level faculty address diversity in a number of courses. Specific examples include a critical examination of multiculturalism in nursing in NUR603 Nursing Theory and Knowledge Development and NUR604 Nursing Research and a focus on understanding human differences and how people's histories have created their values, beliefs and biases in NUR675 Advanced Mental Health II: Theory and Practice.

On a practical level, all Nursing faculty members are committed to working with students in the development of community partnership clinical sites. Clinical sites are located in very diverse communities ranging from the Casco Bay (Portland Area) fishing and island community, to an older adult community partnership in Portland. Students work closely with faculty to provide needed services to disenfranchised and marginalized populations in Portland's Sagamore Village, the Bayside community, and rural mountain villages in the Dominican Republic. Through participation in community partnerships, students experience a wide variety of diversity in the populations that they serve.

Therapeutic Recreation - The Recreation and Leisure Studies faculty weave diversity and multiculturalism throughout the therapeutic recreation curriculum. While courses mainly focus on people who have been marginalized due to disabling conditions faculty also present information on how to provide therapeutic recreation services for diverse groups. Specific examples include REC110 Introduction to Recreation and Leisure where students examine various ways recreation and leisure is conceptualized by underrepresented and marginalized populations. In REC224 Therapeutic Recreation and Community Integration students explore issues related to the inclusion of people with disabilities and other marginalized groups into community recreation programs. In other therapeutic courses students are introduced to recent research on multiculturalism as related to therapeutic recreation interventions and assessments.

Within the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies students in REC241 Recreation Leadership and REC382 Therapeutic Recreation Interventions and Protocols are required to complete volunteer experiences. Students complete these experiences with agencies or programs that serve populations who have been marginalized because of either disabling conditions or social/economic status. In REC225 Therapeutic Recreation Analysis and Technology students participate in a "disability stimulation" exercise in which they spend time in a wheelchair to assess the barriers that individuals who use wheelchairs might face.

Sports Medicine - In the Department of Sports Medicine faculty discuss cultural sensitivity and cultural appropriateness in all their classes. For example in Health Fitness classes faculty emphasize the need to individualize physical activity programs to take into consideration an individual's gender, age, health status, and fitness level. In addition, the Department of Sports Medicine secured a National Youth Sports Program grant to provide structured sport training programs for social/economical-disadvantaged youth from Southern Maine. The first program was offered the summer of 2002 and will be held again in 2003.

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, particularly students of color and other underrepresented populations.

The faculty of the College of Nursing and Health Professions are committed to creating a welcoming environment for students from a wide variety of backgrounds in our classrooms and other learning environments. The physical environment and curriculum strategies have been noted previously. In addition, the faculty work to convey by their actions and demeanor that students from diverse backgrounds are appreciated and valued.

At first glance, our student body may not appear very diverse. We have a scattering of students whose genetic origin is visibly representative of the peoples from Africa, Asia, and the Native peoples of North America; however the vast majority of students appear to be of European background. If we look a bit deeper our students represent significant diversity. While we have no formal statistics on this, anecdotal information from students indicate that we have individuals from more than a dozen countries. Few of these are formal international students, rather most of them immigrants to the United States who have chosen our programs for their advanced education.

We also have a fair amount of the diversity that is characteristic of Maine. We have students from rural northern communities as well as the highly urbanized southwestern area of the state. Further, many of our students speak French in their homes and come from communities that are predominantly of French-Canadian culture. We have a significant number of non-traditional students, especially in our various post-baccalaureate options or accelerated programs.

We recognize that our students come with varied financial resources. To augment the financial aid available through the university system, we have developed a resource notebook with scholarship opportunities that is available from the Dean's staff. This resource will be placed on the College's website during the coming year. We also have a scholarship that is aimed at recognizing and supporting students who have demonstrated a commitment to community service with underserved populations.

Our Community Partnerships within the nursing undergraduate curriculum may serve as a vehicle for the recruitment of diverse students in addition to their educational purpose. In these partnerships, our students are engaged with the residents of diverse communities in the area; the residents of those communities may see an opportunity for education that they had not previously considered. We have had residents from at least one of our partnership communities inquire about gaining an education through our programs.

We have been involved in some interactions with area high school students in the past and would like to expand this activity. The greater Portland area and the Lewiston/ Auburn area have the most diverse populations of high school students in the state. The members of the Diversity Committee will be meeting with a member of the USM Admissions Department to develop specific strategies to interact with students in these areas. We also have plans to attend a meeting of the Refugee Council. This group is aimed at coordinating services for the Refugee population and as with our Community Partnerships, we may be able to recruit students in addition to providing information and support.

As a part of our demonstration of support for diversity, two members of the Diversity Committee played an active part in the Race Against Racism event in Portland last year. One member served on the planning committee and another member coordinated participants from the students, staff, and faculty of CONHP. CONHP members wore a distinctive t-shirt (funded by the Dean's office) and 30 individuals participated in the event. The message on the t-shirt was "CONHP Stands Against Racism" and that is the view we desired to express. Through this activity we hoped to make a clear statement in support of diversity. We plan to become involved in the same manner this year.

This fall the Dean's office partnered with Maine's AHEC around an elementary school recruitment strategy. The Dean through her RWJ Executive Nurse Fellowship has purchased two sets (one for Portland and one for Lewiston-Auburn) of the "Great Hospital Adventure" which includes health care puppets from diverse backgrounds as well as a coloring book. In February 2003, three nursing faculty and one staff member from the nursing programs in Portland and Lewiston-Auburn will be trained in the use of this recruitment package. They will then identify local elementary schools, ideally with diverse student bodies, to partner with to present the "Great Hospital Adventure".

The nursing program at Lewiston-Auburn College, through the three year Department of Health and Human Services Bureau of Health Professions grant, has hired a part-time Linkage Coordinator. The Linkage Coordinator, who is both a nurse and teacher, is partnering with two high schools in Lewiston-Auburn, as well as elementary schools (as noted above), to recruit students in to the entry-level baccalaureate of nursing program at Lewiston-Auburn. Peer tutors are also available through this grant to provide academic support for nursing students. Similar strategies for recruiting and retaining students have written into a recently submitted Department of Health and Human Services Bureau of Health Professions grant for expansion of the Portland entry-level baccalaureate of nursing program.

While we have no formal goals for diversity, informally we are striving to represent the unique cultural and ethnic diversity of our state. The specific data we have on the actual diversity of our students is limited and perhaps we should consider the development of a survey to get a clearer picture of the range of diversity among our student population.

Our faculty and staff are genuinely concerned with providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all of our students. We recognize that intentions alone are not sufficient and we may be inadvertently making some students or others feel unwelcome. To address that issue, at the December meeting of the CONHP faculty we suggested that we should consider interviewing students in focus groups or developing another means to assess our strengths and areas for development in this area.

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.

The College's faculty are committed to the recruitment and retention of members from diverse backgrounds. To reach potential faculty from a varied background, our advertising for positions aims to cast as wide a net as possible. Faculty are requested to bring advertisements to professional meetings (especially those with a large number of attendees from across a broad geographic area). Job descriptions and faculty vacancies are mailed to universities that maintain graduate programs in our fields, especially those whose student populations (historically) are rich in underrepresented populations. The same information is posted on Internet sites that are aimed at diverse populations such as MinorityNurse.Com along with broader publications and sites that are aimed at the total population of potential faculty members, like the Chronicle of Higher Education and HigherEd.Com. The search committees work closely with the USM Coordinator of Employee and Community Outreach with Campus Diversity and Equity to solicit suggestions, concerns, or guidelines that might be helpful in faculty searches.

When faculty come to our campus for an interview, each candidate is asked specifically about how they create an openness for diversity in their classroom as well as how they infuse diversity in all of their teaching. Follow up questions are used to determine that the candidates share and are able to support the College's commitment to the diversity goals of the university.

We recognize that the membership of our faculty is not highly diverse, and to some degree we reflect the lack of diversity in our own professions. However, we are committed to developing and supporting as diverse a faculty population as we are able. Additional strategies that we would like to consider include the nurturing of our own current and future students who come from diverse backgrounds to encourage them to continue their education and become faculty members.