Facing the Divides:
Diversity, Learning, and Pathways to Inclusive Excellence

Program of Events and Session Resources

Thursday, October 21, 2010

2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Pre-conference Workshops

Workshop 1:  Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive (pdf)
How are campuses modeling the values of diversity and inclusion in decision-making and administrative operations? How can campuses better facilitate the infusion of diversity-related content and more inclusive pedagogies and learning materials into the curriculum and co-curriculum? Participants in this workshop will learn effective strategies for fostering institutional capacity to make inclusion and engagement an integral component of educational excellence. They will also have the opportunity to discuss and develop steps for advancing these changes on their own campus.
Gail G. Evans, Dean for Undergraduate Studies—San Francisco State University; and Roland B. Smith, Jr., Associate Provost, Office of Diversity and Inclusion—Rice University

Workshop 2:  Closing the Achievement and College Readiness Gap
What practices, strategies, and cultural shifts are needed most at educational institutions to ensure that students reach and maintain academic success? What can school systems, colleges, and universities do to improve the preparation of and transition to college for lower-income students and underrepresented students? What are communities doing to address the achievement gap? How can communities and universities work together to increase equality and inclusiveness regarding access to and success in higher education? Participants in this workshop will get the facts and explore promising practices for addressing this growing problem.
Georgia Brown, Student Associate, Center for Public Deliberation, Windy Lawrence, Director, Center for Public Deliberation, and Gene Preuss, Assistant Professor of History and Co-Chair, Achieving the Dream Committee—all of the University of Houston-Downtown

Workshop 3:  Assessing Diversity in Context
Many institutions approach assessment as a means for collecting information to present to accreditors, instead of as a process that is integral to the quality of teaching and learning. In the case of diversity, this often translates into providing recruitment and retention numbers without understanding the quality of learning about and through diversity for all students, including those historically underserved by the academy. This workshop will address how assessment can be realigned so that it is valued by faculty as a rich source of information that enhances teaching and advances student achievement. How does diversity fit in with helping students to develop critical discourse skills? How can adding diversity as a course outcome enrich the content of what is taught? How can faculty assess if students are indeed gaining diversity-related knowledge and the skills to use it effectively? Participants will discuss and develop diversity outcomes in the context of their own fields of interest.
Catherine Wehlburg, Assistant Provost for Institutional Effectiveness—Texas Christian University; and Alma Clayton-Pedersen, Executive Vice President—Emeritus Consulting Group, LLC. and Senior Scholar—AAC&U

Workshop 4:  Diversity in the Classroom: Examining the Intersections of Faculty Development, Student Learning, and Inclusive Pedagogy
University missions often reflect the compelling need to help students engage across difference. How prepared are faculty to model democratic practices, inside and outside of the classroom? How equipped are faculty to handle microaggressions—situations of conflict, power, and confrontation that arise around issues of difference and intolerance? In this workshop, participants will learn about research-based theories, principles, and practices for faculty development that enhance inclusive teaching effectiveness. Specifically, they will learn to transform unscripted challenges of diversity into teachable moments and explore the impact of multiple and intersecting identities on many aspects of the classroom, including learning outcomes.
Kathleen Wong (Lau), Assistant Professor, School of Communication— Western Michigan University; and Jesús Treviño, Clinical Associate Professor, Morgridge College of Education —University of Denver

Workshop 5:  U.S. Diversity and Global Learning: Examining the Intersections for Teaching and Learning (ppt)
NAU Case Study (ppt)
This workshop will help participants re-frame the either/or limitations that too often pit U.S. diversity learning efforts against global learning efforts. Participants will examine the sources of these tensions, the differing historical contexts that spawned the two movements, and the institutional habits that can transcend or reinforce mutual suspicions. Participants will then work together to discover shared values among U.S. diversity and global learning outcomes and ways to approach designing programs, curricula, and collaborative structures that advance these values. Outcomes for the workshop include a framework for practitioners to recognize the connections and distinctions of these efforts in order to advance a more inclusive approach to diversity and prepare students for life and work in an interdependent world.
Harvey Charles, Vice Provost for International Affairs—Northern Arizona University; Kevin Hovland, Director for Global Learning and Curricular Change, and Caryn McTighe Musil, Senior Vice President, Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives—both of AAC&U

7:00 – 8:30 p.m.

Welcome
Caryn McTighe Musil, Senior Vice President, Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives—AAC&U

Student Performance
Students from the Department of Arts and Humanities at the University of Houston-Downtown will open the conference with a brief scene from The Laramie Project.

Keynote Address
podcast
Navigating the Landscape of Diversity: Dilemmas and Possibilities
Throughout our communities and in our own classrooms and administrative structures, deep divides hinder democratic aspirations of inclusion, equity, justice, and belonging. Dr. Gordon-Reed will offer her analysis of where American society is and should be headed in terms of our approach to diversity. Despite the momentous election of Barack Obama as the nation’s forty-fourth president, few believe this event has “fixed” layers of history and habits. As the conference focuses on pragmatic ways in which colleges and university leaders are fostering inclusive learning environments, Dr. Gordon-Reed’s address will provide a portrait of the contemporary landscape against which, and within which, current diversity dilemmas and possibilities are played out.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study—Harvard University

8:30– 9:30 p.m.
Reception and Poster Sessions

1 Framing Goals for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence
Poster 1:  Pathways to Inclusion:  International Students and Institutional Diversity Goals
International students are a valuable resource to U.S. higher education, providing opportunities for increased diversity and the achievement of educational outcomes such as intercultural learning and global competence—outcomes increasingly important in today’s interconnected world.  Institutional planning related to diversity, learning, and inclusive excellence needs to consider how international students can contribute to the achievement of diversity goals.  A first step is to understand the experiences of international students on U.S. campuses.  The next step is to get a sense of best practices related to the role international students can play in increasing intercultural competencies.  This poster will highlight findings from two studies at the same institution examining the experiences of international students who persisted and those who left the institution.  The poster will also include examples of international student programming related to diversity goals.  Participants will be able to consider implications, pathways, and strategies for inclusive excellence related to international students in their own institutional contexts.
Maureen Andrade, Associate Dean of University College—Utah Valley University

Liberal Education and America’s Promise Featured Session
2 Ensuring Access and Essential Learning
Poster 2:  Aim High and Make Excellence Inclusive: Program Strategies to Close the Achievement Gap
Recent studies have shown that African American and Latino students are not graduating at the same rate as their white counterparts. As the achievement gap continues, colleges and universities are ever more committed to retaining African American and Latino students and supporting them through graduation.This poster will: (a) highlight initiatives within colleges/universities and local high schools that foster academic success; (b) highlight initiatives that support students in specific disciplines, with particular focus on STEM fields; (c) recommend strategies to support student success; and (d) share student success stories. These programs include various high-impact practices such as: enrichment courses, community service, research presentations, and internship opportunities. The facilitators will also highlight how these activities are consistent with the LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes.
Michell Tollinchi-Michel, Dean of Academic Success and Enrichment Programs, Nikki Youngblood Giles, Director of the Higher Education Opportunity Program—both of Barnard College; and Renaldo D. Alba, Associate Director of the Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program and the Science and Technology Entry Program—Fordham University

2 Ensuring Access and Essential Learning
Poster 3:  Integrated, Data-Driven Support to Enhance Underserved Students’ Academic Success
As Connecticut’s only public liberal arts institution, Eastern Connecticut State University has embedded its efforts to support its growing population of students of color, low-income, and first generation college students within a framework of inclusive excellence.  A campus-wide community of practice determined that two strategies would best serve these students while also maximizing institutional resources: (a) early identification of students at risk of withdrawal and (b) targeted, centralized supports for student success.  These two strategies also provided an opportunity for faculty to re-define the ways in which they could participate in a newly conceived definition of student success and advising in all disciplinary areas, with a particular focus on introductory writing and math skills acquisition.  This poster will highlight how an integrated, data-driven, campus-wide approach to identifying students at risk of attrition and the implementation of academic support centers has led to a larger, campus-wide movement to acknowledge the assets of new populations of students on campus, as well as enhanced academic performance.
Carmen R. Cid, Dean of Arts and Sciences, and contributors, not attending: Marsha Davis, Chair of Mathematics and Computer Science and Hari Koirala, Professor of Education—all of Eastern Connecticut State University

2 Ensuring Access and Essential Learning
Poster 4:  Engaging Non-Traditional Students: Transitions Courses, Equity, and Lifelong Learning
First-year courses aimed at orienting traditional students to college life and college-level learning have become standard in general education curricula nationally. Only recently have such courses (called “transitions” courses) been developed to meet the needs of non-traditional students. These courses are not yet the norm and are rarely a required part of a general education program.  Moreover, little research has been conducted on the effectiveness of “first-year” courses for non-traditional students.  This poster will feature transitions courses for non-traditional students at two universities, one private and teaching-focused, the other public and research-focused.  Participants will have the opportunity to talk with facilitators about the learning goals of the transitions courses, research questions, and assessment strategies designed to impact practice and ensure access to learning for non-traditional students.
Anne B. Rapp, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Program Development, School for Professional and Continuing Education—Lewis University; M. Carolina Orgnero, Post Doctoral Fellow and Instructor, and Susan Nesbitt, Director of Continuing Studies—both of University of Connecticut

2 Ensuring Access and Essential Learning
Poster 5:  Primary Language Library Instruction
Miami University has experienced a marked increase in the international student population in the last five years, and university librarians have recognized the different needs of these students.  International students often have unique challenges in utilizing academic libraries, including a marked difference between library systems and services in the United States and students' home countries, as well as language and cultural differences.  This poster will present initiatives designed to make essential library information accessible to international students, including a redesigned orientation session and informational videos in students' native languages.  Attendees will examine the needs of international students in universities in the United States and will learn possible strategies for making essential information accessible to this population.
Katie Gibson, Information Services Librarian—Miami University

2 Ensuring Access and Essential Learning
Poster 6:  Crashing the Gate: Improving Student Learning in Introductory STEM Courses
Students’ success in introductory science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses often determines their progression along STEM pathways toward an undergraduate degree.  Given the disparities in STEM undergraduate degree completion between underrepresented racial minority students and their White and Asian American peers, the facilitators examined how campus structures, pedagogical strategies, and student experiences facilitate students’ learning in introductory STEM courses.  This poster will feature major findings, with specific attention to how these structures and experiences affect the scientific learning and development of underrepresented racial minority students.  The researchers analyzed data from nearly 90 classrooms across 15 institutions and identified alternative measures of student success that go beyond course grades as well as effective pedagogical strategies that support students’ learning in these courses.  Participants will have the opportunity to discuss how the findings from the study can be applied to introductory STEM courses at their institutions.
Kevin Eagan, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sylvia Hurtado, Professor and Director of the Higher Education Research Institute, and Felisha Herrera, Research Analyst—all of University of California-Los Angeles

3 Developing and Assessing Curricular and Co-curricular Programs
Poster 7: Assessing Courses in Cultural Diversity and Community: Student Perceptions of the Impact of a Curricular “Diversity” Requirement (ppt)
The poster will feature survey results of student perceptions of a new required course in “Cultural Diversity and Community” that is part of the general education core at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, a regional public institution.  The poster will include survey questions and will highlight directions for future improvement, assessment, and faculty development.
Thomas D. Burns, Associate Provost for Academic Administration, and Beverly Schneller, Coordinator of General Education; Professor and Chair of English—both of Millersville University of Pennsylvania

3 Developing and Assessing Curricular and Co-curricular Programs
Poster 8:  Diversity Within Community: A Student-Centered Approach
Higher education institutions across the country offer a myriad of courses that focus on diversity. Research indicates that students who take diversity-related courses benefit from those courses (e.g., through increased active thinking).  This poster will highlight a student-centered teaching approach that Penn State Schuylkill offers. The course helps students understand and value student compositional diversity through active learning.  During the Spring 2009 semester, eight students enrolled in a special topics course in which they learned about group dynamics and facilitation.  During the course of the semester, each of these students facilitated a one-hour focus group session in which other students discussed the climate for diversity.  As a capstone project, the eight students completed a research proposal that addressed issues that were discovered during the focus groups. 
Charlie L. Law, Assistant Professor of Psychology— Penn State Schuylkill

4 Fostering Identity, Civility, and Democratic Classrooms
Poster 9:  Difficult Dialogues in the Classroom:  Effective Approaches for Including All Voices
Although the ability to engage in difficult dialogues is at the heart of the university mission, few faculty are taught the skills to do so effectively.  Using a Ford Foundation grant, two Alaskan universities introduced faculty to a wide range of approaches for effectively introducing and conducting difficult dialogues in the classroom, and created a nationally-recognized, field-tested handbook of best practices for engaging in difficult dialogues in higher education.  Approaches range from traditional western strategies, such as debate and rhetorical analysis, to traditional indigenous approaches, such as talking circles and using objects to explore differing perspectives.  Using such techniques, faculty at these institutions have successfully tackled issues ranging from evolution to racism.  This poster presentation will demonstrate how to more effectively engage students in conversations about the most important issues of our times!  Complementary handbooks available while supplies last.
Libby Roderick, Associate Director, Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence and Project Director, Ford Foundation Difficult Dialogues Grants—University of Alaska Anchorage

5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
Poster 10:  Institutional Research: Paving Pathways to Inclusive Excellence
Institutional researchers at state colleges are increasingly being acknowledged as central collaborators in efforts to transform practices, policies, and culture to better support the success of students of color, students from low-income backgrounds, and students who are first in their families to attend college.  For institutional researchers, data is the cohering agent in creating a culture of evidence and inquiry supporting inclusive excellence. Successful practice calls for data to be strategically collected, thoughtfully analyzed, and skillfully shared within and among various stakeholders for change, both on and off campus.  As stewards of institutional data collection, institutional research offices at two state colleges have demonstrated their capacities to identify gaps in existing data collection strategies and develop instruments which are designed to fill these gaps.  By doing so, they have contributed to larger, campus-wide conversations about transformation in the service of an underserved student success agenda.  This poster will feature stories from both campuses.
Heather Bouchey, Director, Center for Rural Studies—Lyndon State College; Sabrina Gentlewarrior, Acting Director, Institutional Diversity, and contributor, not attending: Marlene Clapp, Research Analyst —both of Bridgewater State University

5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
Poster 11:  What Matters in STEM: Expanding and Diversifying College Graduates
As the European Union and China began to outpace the U.S. in the production of scientists, the federal government stepped up efforts to review and reinvest in programs and policies related to undergraduate education in fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).  Despite a plethora of STEM initiatives, no study has comprehensively examined the best practices for retaining and graduating undergraduate students in STEM.  This poster will feature the latest research to identify the institutional structures, policies, and programs that best serve undergraduates and underrepresented racial minority students specifically in their progression through the STEM pipeline.  Participants will discuss results and how they can best scale up or adapt effective programs to diversify and expand the pool of STEM degree recipients on their own campuses.
Kevin Eagan, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, and Sylvia Hurtado, Professor and Director of the Higher Education Research Institute—both of University of California-Los Angeles

Friday, October 22

7:45 – 9:00 a.m.
Facilitated Discussions and Continental Breakfast

CS1: Cancelled

2 Ensuring Access and Essential Learning
CS 2:  Statewide Change from the Inside: Pathways for Educational Access and Success (ppt)
This session will describe how four diverse institutions joined together and successfully initiated statewide improvements in educational access and success for Native American students.  The recent report Pathways for Native Students: A Report on Washington Colleges and Universities, describes what nearly all of the colleges and universities (two year and four year, private and public) in Washington State are doing to improve Native American student success and what changes are needed.  The session will describe the impetus for this effort and the way the work was organized and accomplished. It will outline the challenges faced and the steps partners are taking to strategically disseminate the report and turn findings into action.  Participants will learn about some of the major findings, including high-impact practices that appear to make a difference.  This collaborative approach could be profitably used in other states to increase access and success of Native American students and other students of color.
Barbara Leigh Smith, Co-Director, Enduring Legacies Project and Provost Emeritus—The Evergreen State College

Liberal Education and America’s Promise Featured Session
2 Ensuring Access and Essential Learning
CS 3:  Framing the Baccalaureate Degree: Implementing LEAP with First-Year Students
During the 2006-2007 academic year, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) underwent a comprehensive self-study of its first-year programs as part of the Foundations of Excellence© project.  The university took this opportunity to intentionally build an improved model of collaboration between academic affairs and student affairs, including multicultural affairs.  These steps allowed IPFW to develop strategies both to retain first-year students and introduce them to the life and career outcomes integral to an undergraduate liberal education, including a commitment to free and open inquiry and mutual respect across multiple cultures and perspectives.  In this session, the facilitators will highlight several of these strategies: (a) a new model of academic affairs/student affairs collaboration; (b) two intentional early warning tools; and (c) an innovative community hour in which IPFW learning community students discuss a framework for the baccalaureate degree, connecting students to their peers, their faculty, and the “architecture” of liberal learning.  Participants will reflect on: (a) strategies to help first-year students persist; (b) ways to incorporate a framework based on the LEAP essential learning outcomes into first-year courses without sacrificing existing class content; and (c) activities to help first-year students develop a shared vocabulary around essential learning and the motivation needed to prepare themselves for an era of greater expectations.
Bruce Busby, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Success, Kathleen L. O'Connell, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Kenneth C. Christmon, Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity & Multicultural Affairs, and Christopher D. Douse, Assistant Director of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs—all of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne

3 Developing and Assessing Curricular and Co-curricular Programs
CS 4:   Engaged Diversity: Institutional Transformation through Student Leadership
This session will focus on the role of student leadership in transforming campuses through engagement with diversity.  The facilitators are members of the Engaged Diversity Project, a five-institution collaboration exploring diversity as an organizing principle for enriching the education of all students.  They will describe the project, including the development of diversity competencies based on critical thinking, depth of understanding, and real-world correlations to classroom experience, and address implications of this work in terms of buy-in, capacity-building, and assessment.  Student leaders will discuss their journeys, lessons learned, and personal and institutional effects of this work.  Participants will emerge from the session with a blueprint of steps and strategies for preparing their institutions to undertake similar efforts.
Ramona M. Jean-Perkins, Coordinator of University Collaborations—Dillard University; Ronald L. Swain, Senior Advisor to the President for Strategic Planning and Assessment, and Charles Prince, Senior Student Representative on Engaged Diversity Project—both of Southwestern University

3 Developing and Assessing Curricular and Co-curricular Programs
CS 5:  The Aristotle Project: Digital Learning to Prepare Students for a Technologically Advanced, Global Society
In 1996, six western Kansas community colleges came together to discuss how they might use the Internet to better serve their students. The result was the creation of the EduKan Consortium, whose purpose was to provide effective online educational opportunities for their students.  Since that time, EduKan has advanced student access to and use of digitally-embedded content where textbooks once served as the traditional resource.  Students benefit from lower costs per credit hour while accessing effective interactive online learning products such as the Rosetta Stone for language learning. With access to learning world language skills in an individually based program, EduKan’s students are well prepared to succeed in a diverse global economy. The facilitator will review this initiative and the ways in which student learning is being enhanced through Rosetta Stone and other online activities.
Mark E. Sarver, Chief Executive Officer, EduKan and Former Adjunct Faculty in Accounting, International Business, and Management—Sterling College and McPherson College—Sponsored by Rosetta Stone

4 Fostering Identity, Civility, and Democratic Classrooms
CS 6:  Exploring Diversity in First-Year Seminars: Integrating Student and Academic Affairs
Inclusion, belonging, and justice too often remain aspirational values rather than lived realities because the differences that make individuals distinct can also divide and limit.  These “divides” can be acknowledged, explored, and bridged effectively in first-year seminars when all constituencies on campus collaborate.  Emory University’s Oxford College offers an integrated student affairs/academic affairs first-year seminar titled “Appreciating Our Differences,” which includes eight “chapters” addressing different aspects of diversity.  The course is team-taught by a sophomore student in the primary teaching role along with a professor and includes specific supports from student life staff for a range of events and activities.  Georgia Gwinnett College has several institutional-level learning outcomes related to diversity that are infused in a first-year seminar taught by both student affairs professionals and faculty.  The shared goal is to achieve these institutional-level learning outcomes by developing concrete, vivid illustrations of them in the context of different disciplines.  Participants will discuss these distinctive approaches to using first-year seminars to enhance students’ understanding of different perspectives and cultures as well as foster cooperation between student affairs and academic affairs. 
Jo K. Galle, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, Jim Fatzinger, Associate Vice President of Student Affairs—both of Georgia Gwinnett College; and Jeffery Galle, Director, Center for Academic Excellence—Oxford College, Emory University

5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
CS 7:  Developing Diverse Departments
Successful diversification of the faculty requires more than just hiring; it also involves shifts in campus culture.  Findings from a recent survey at North Carolina State University point to the departmental environment as an important factor affecting faculty desire to stay at the institution.  Research shows that unconscious bias affects evaluation of candidates in hiring and promotion decisions.  Finally, it is also well known that the composition of university, college, and department leadership has a profound effect on both the recruiting of women and minority faculty and the academic culture.  This session will share strategies being implemented at N.C. State to: (a) help department heads evaluate the climate in their own departments and initiate change; (b) educate a core group of tenured faculty about the effects of unconscious bias and prepare them to initiate discussions and projects related to faculty diversity; and (c) encourage women faculty and faculty of color to enter leadership roles.  The facilitators will describe how the strategies are being implemented, what they have learned, and how they have evaluated progress.  Participants will consider the impact of their own campus cultures on faculty diversity and learn how to translate promising practices to their own institutional contexts.
Mary Wyer, Interim Associate Dean for Research, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Margaret Daub, Chair, Department of Plant Biology, and Laura R. Severin, Professor of English—all of North Carolina State University

5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
CS 8:  Reimagining Equity and Diversity:  Implementing an Integrative Model of Transformation
This session will present a transformative model for re-imagining equity and diversity throughout the University of Minnesota system.  This research- and best practice-based model includes strategies to: (a) cultivate an institutional culture where administrative leaders embrace diversity as a core value; (b) enhance student services to support a diverse student body; (c) foster inclusive outreach to and engagement with diverse communities; (d) enhance the knowledge and skills of staff in all sectors of the institution; and (e) highlight the value of a diverse faculty in order to retain faculty of color and others invested in diversity and equity research.  The facilitators will share best practices, lessons learned, and challenges associated with implementation.  While the work is being done at a Research 1 university with five campuses, the methods used are tailored to support different academic and administrative environments with unique needs and at different stages of the work.  Similar tailoring can be done by participants for use in their own institutional contexts.
Kristin Nering Lockhart, Associate Vice President, Rickey Hall, Assistant Vice President, and Louis G. Mendoza, Associate Vice Provost and Chair of Chicano Studies—all of University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus

9:15 – 10:15 a.m.
Plenary  
podcast
Diversity as a Core Strategy for Institutional Transformation
Nelson Laird Presentation (pdf)
What diversity-related knowledge is important in preparing today’s students for a global, interconnected, yet stratified world? What kind of learning and development is spurred by thoughtful engagement with diversity in the curriculum and in the campus environment? Dr. Barceló will share her comprehensive vision for placing diversity at the very center of the institution’s civic and educational mission and address some of the internal institutional changes that must occur to help insure the academic and personal success of underserved students. Dr. Nelson Laird will examine how educators include diversity into their offerings, sharing recent results from the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement that illustrate how institutions can better understand diversity and its critical place in courses, programs, and student development.
Rusty Barceló, President—Northern New Mexico College; and Thomas F. Nelson Laird, Assistant Professor, Higher Education and Student Affairs Program—Indiana University

10:30 – 11:45 a.m.
Concurrent Sessions

1 Framing Goals for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence
CS 9:  Creating a Strategic Plan to Broaden and Deepen Diversity and Inclusive Excellence
This session will feature Wellesley College’s Initiative for Diversity and Inclusion for Students, which was designed to answer the question, “What would success look like if Wellesley College was a truly diverse and inclusive community?”  The goal of the initiative was to create a vision statement for diversity and inclusion for students, strategic directions for realizing that vision, and a strategic plan for implementing the vision.  Specific institutional challenges, as well as the intended outcomes, structured the initiative.  The session will use Wellesley’s experiences in implementing the strategic planning process as a case study for discussing ways in which institutional mission, history, resources, and constituencies influence the potential for change with regard to diversity and inclusive excellence.  Participants will be invited to critique the process and offer alternative strategies, particularly for schools that differ in size, composition, or other dimensions, and discuss the viability of similar initiatives in the current economic climate.
Debra K. DeMeis, Dean of Students, Michelle M. Lepore, Associate Dean of Students—both of Wellesley College; Edward H. Hudner, Consultant, and Jane Tuohy, Consultant—both of Cambridge Hill Partners

2 Ensuring Access and Essential Learning
CS 10:  Navigating Chasms in Student Engagement and Success
Situated in an increasingly culturally diverse metropolitan area, the University of Houston-Downtown (UH-D) serves many first-generation students, low-income students, and students with visible and invisible disabilities.  This session uses the overarching theme of Universal Design and individualized learning to frame several models at UH-D that are designed to close educational gaps by ensuring equal access to learning.  The facilitators will first discuss UH-D’s Academic Global Positioning System, which helps students navigate roadblocks to academic success.  Then, they will highlight steps taken by the University to address barriers experienced by students with visible and invisible disabilities, including those resulting from medications that make attending the university possible.  Finally, they will describe how UH-D is using service-learning, as a high-impact educational practice, to provide differentiated learning opportunities that are grounded in students’ experience as members of surrounding communities.  The facilitators will guide participants as they revise sample assignments and syllabi based on situations typically occurring in urban comprehensive universities and community colleges.
Jean M. DeWitt, Director of Community Engagement, Chris Birchak, Dean of University College, and Duraese Hall, Director of Disability Services—all of University of Houston-Downtown

2 Ensuring Access and Essential Learning
CS 11:  The Educational Crisis Facing Young Men of Color
There is a silent epidemic in the United States that very few leaders are talking about.  Males, and particularly males of color, are dropping out of the educational system in increasing numbers.  This may be described as a drop-out problem, a suspension problem, a remediation problem, an incarceration problem, or a life expectancy problem.  However we describe it, the fact is that young men of color are significantly at risk.  The College Board’s study and report The Educational Crisis Facing Young Men of Color, identifies the issues facing these young men and identifies a number of programs that are responding to the challenge.  This session will engage participants in problem-solving around this issue.  Questions will be designed to stimulate, not limit, thinking, and will touch on the role of single-gender institutions, the relevance of a group’s history and culture in constructing curricula, and whether different programmatic strategies are needed for different groups.
Ronald A. Williams, Vice President—The College Board; Victor Saenz, Assistant Professor, Higher Education Administration, and Edmund T. Gordon, Chair and Associate Professor, African and African Diaspora Studies—both of University of Texas at Austin; Robert Teranishi, Associate Professor of Higher Education—New York University; and LeManuel Lee Bitsoi, MAP Program Director, Department of Genetics—Harvard Medical School

4 Fostering Identity, Civility, and Democratic Classrooms
CS 12: Perspective-Taking, Learning, and Social Responsibility: What Research Reveals (ppt)
Educators have long understood that the ability to examine an issue from multiple perspectives is an important dimension of critical thinking and the diversity movement has understood diverse perspectives as a means to achieving excellence.  But how do such skills influence students’ ability to develop awareness of and commitment to social responsibility toward others?  This session will share the latest research from a campus climate survey designed for AAC&U’s initiative, Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility, coupled with additional research from AAC&U’s Research and Educational Change Collaborative.  The facilitators will offer examples of promising practices both within the curriculum and in campus and community life that foster engagement of diverse viewpoints.  Participants will be invited to share examples of diversity efforts and other programs from their institutions that have also linked perspective-taking and social responsibility.
Chad Anderson, Program Associate, Caryn McTighe Musil, Senior Vice President, and Nancy O’Neill, Director of Integrative Programs and the LEAP Campus Action Network—all of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives, AAC&U

4 Fostering Identity, Civility, and Democratic Classrooms
CS 13:  Using Ethnographic Films to Promote Dialogue about Difference
This workshop will showcase one effective strategy that the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has adopted to promote dialogue and understanding about difference—using short, student-produced ethnographic films in classrooms and co-curricular programs.  Ethnography is a social science research method in which community-based research or ‘fieldwork’ is conducted to learn about and represent a group of people or social phenomenon.  Ethnographic films are especially effective in promoting dialogue because visual images have a visceral direct impact and are the preferred medium for many of today’s students.  In the session, participants will view sample ethnographic films made by students, learn about curricular modules and co-curricular programs developed with two Ford-funded Difficult Dialogues grants, and engage in typical facilitated dialogues.  Once back on their own campuses, participants will be able to access and use the archived ethnographic films as prompts for meaningful dialogue about real people, real differences, and real (mis)perceptions that directly impact life in America today.
Marilyn Kurata, Director of Core Curriculum Enhancement, Thomas Alexander, Director of Student Programs, Student Leadership, and Diversity, and Michele Forman, Co-Director of Digital Community Studies—all of University of Alabama at Birmingham

4 Fostering Identity, Civility, and Democratic Classrooms
CS 14:  Comprehensive Faculty Development Focused on Inclusive Excellence: Three Examples
When an intentional institutional transformation process focuses on increasing the success of underserved students, a pervasive, thoughtful approach to faculty development is a critical priority.  What do “diversity” and “inclusive excellence” mean in relation to faculty work within and outside of the classroom?  In deciding what is taught as well as how it is taught, campuses and their faculty rely on various implicit interpretations of diversity and its meanings.  Creating organized opportunities for explicit exploration of the curriculum and pedagogy helps to surface areas of convergence and contradiction so they may be more readily addressed.  In this session, facilitators from Bridgewater State University, the University of Maine at Presque Isle, and Lyndon State College will discuss how each institution has enhanced its existing faculty development programs by focusing on cultural responsiveness and inclusive excellence.  Specifically, they will discuss the use of specialized research-focused initiatives, faculty mini-grants, disciplinary-based projects, campus-wide curriculum analysis, and strategic external consultants in these efforts.
Donna Dalton, Dean of Academic and Student Affairs—Lyndon State College; Sabrina Gentlewarrior, Acting Director, Institutional Diversity—Bridgewater State University; and Michael Sonntag, Vice President for Academic Affairs—University of Maine at Presque Isle

5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
CS 15:  Campus Climate, Effective Practices, and Student Outcomes in Diverse Learning Environments
This session will introduce participants to the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) Diverse Learning Environments survey, including its theoretical framework, content, and the constructs measured.  The survey allows institutions to better understand how their educational environments impact student achievement and retention, learning skills, and capacities to engage as multicultural citizens.  The facilitators will present new findings about campus climates at broad access institutions with very diverse student bodies, including data on practices that have rarely been studied.  Most importantly, they will share important data about how institutional climates and practices at such institutions combine to impact student outcomes. 
Sylvia Hurtado, Professor and Director of the Higher Education Research Institute, Marcela Cuellar, Research Analyst, and Cynthia Alvarez, Research Analyst—all of University of California-Los Angeles

1:15 – 2:15 p.m.
Plenary  
podcast
Ensuring Access, Resources, and Essential Learning for All Students (ppt)
Following steep economic decline, some campuses are seeking to consolidate or eliminate diversity programs even as the country undergoes rapid demographic shifts. Rising costs and cutbacks in financial aid threaten the economic diversity of our student populations at a time when a college education is becoming more critical for success in work and in life. President Natalicio will share her vision for creating educational opportunities for first-generation and non-traditional students that places their access and academic achievement at the heart of the academic enterprise.
Diana Natalicio, President, The University of Texas at El Paso

2:30 – 3:45 p.m.
Concurrent Sessions

1 Framing Goals for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence
CS 16: Diversity and Global Learning: Finding Common Ground in General Education Design
AAC&U’s Shared Futures initiative places questions of diversity, identity, citizenship, and responsible action at the heart of global learning. This approach challenges students to explore the relational nature of their identities—identities that are shaped by the currents of power and privilege, both within a multicultural U.S. democracy and within an interconnected and unequal world. In this session, participants will explore several global learning curricular models to identify ways in which educators can integrate multiple disciplinary perspectives and commitments to diversity, civic engagement, and social responsibility. As part of the session, participants will explore how using real-world global issues within their own curriculum might establish fertile common ground through which individuals representing different disciplines and divisions might collaborate to make attention to diversity a central and shared responsibility, whatever the issue being investigated.
Kevin Hovland, Director of Global Learning and Curricular Change, and Caryn McTighe Musil, Senior Vice President, Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives—both of AAC&U

2 Ensuring Access and Essential Learning
CS 17:  Listening to Low-Income Students: Strategies to Improve Campus Support Systems
Students from low-income backgrounds come to college with varying educational goals and needs.  Financial support or cookie-cutter approaches alone will not advance their academic success. This session will focus on the lessons that economically challenged but academically promising scholars are teaching one research university.  The program used to gather the data is designed to help academically capable but low-income Texas high school graduates attend the University of North Texas.  The program was started three years ago to expand access to higher education and facilitate on-time graduation by providing financial support, intrusive academic guidance, and multiple opportunities for involvement in campus activities. This session will center on stories students themselves have shared regarding what has worked—and not worked—so that participants can brainstorm ways to improve campus-wide support systems for low-income students.  Lessons particular to student affairs professionals, faculty, and academic administrators will be discussed.
Sarah Collins, Associate Director of Enrollment Management, and Paula I. Iaeger, Doctoral Candidate—both of University of North Texas

2 Ensuring Access and Essential Learning
CS 18:  Swirlers, Stayers, and Re-Enrollers: Understanding the Trajectory of College Student (pdf)
Too often the research on degree attainment focuses on students who are continuously enrolled at the same institution.  Though valuable, this research cannot help us understand degree attainment patterns of students who attend multiple institutions (often referred to as swirling) and/or have non-consecutive enrollment, groups that include higher numbers of non-traditional students.  Using data from the CIRP Freshman Survey and enrollment and completion data from the National Student Clearinghouse, the facilitators will present research on the degree attainment trajectories for all three groups—“swirlers,” “stayers,” and “re-enrollers.”  They will also share degree attainment models that campuses can use to predict retention for underrepresented racial minority students, in particular.  Two campuses that are using these models and data to improve their retention efforts will share their experiences and lessons learned, and discussion will center on developing policies and practices to ensure student success.
Linda DeAngelo, Assistant Director for Research at the Cooperative Institutional Research Program, Sylvia Hurtado, Professor and Director of the Higher Education Research Institute, Chelsea Guillermo Wann, Research Analyst—all of University of California, Los Angeles; Sutee Sujitparapitaya, Associate Vice President Office of Institutional Research—San Jose State University, and Aurora Kamimura, Associate Dean of Student Services—Santa Ana College

3 Developing and Assessing Curricular and Co-curricular Programs
CS 19:  A Collaborative Model to Assess Student Engagement with Diversity
This session will feature a three-year, collaborative diversity assessment program being undertaken by Goucher, McDaniel, Ursinus, Washington and Jefferson, and Washington Colleges.  Central to the assessment plan are three sets of visits by representatives of one campus to another.  The goal for the current year’s visits was to assess curricular and co-curricular programs and ascertain how well these programs work together to achieve specific student learning outcomes in diversity education.  While the collaborative shares common institutional descriptors (residential, liberal arts colleges), those involved have found that there is significant diversity among the members in the group.  While working to embrace this diversity in order to learn from the perspectives of others, project leaders are assessing their own institutions’ commitments, successes, and challenges with diversity education.  This session will describe these visits and offer an initial appraisal of the “campus visit” as a model for higher education assessment, particularly for diversity outcomes.
Gretchen K. McKay, Associate Professor of Art History—McDaniel College; James M. Sloat, Associate Dean for Assessment and New Initiatives—Washington and Jefferson College; Sheryl B. Goodman, Associate Professor of Media and Communication Studies—Ursinus College; Janet Hinson Shope, Professor of Sociology—Goucher College; and Christopher Ames, Provost and Dean of the College—Washington College

4 Fostering Identity, Civility, and Democratic Classrooms
CS 20:  Conceptualizing Religion in Student Intellectual and Social Life (pdf)
There is a common perception in academia that what is taught in the classroom will seamlessly blend into the social arena of college students.  However, there are sensitive classroom topics where students can intellectually absorb the content of a lecture but may have difficulty incorporating what is learned into their lives outside the classroom.  This session will focus on Union College’s cultural diversity programs in general and dialogues on religious diversity specifically.  Since 9/11, college campuses have been delicately working on civility and inclusivity of all cultures, religions, and faith groups, including atheists and agnostics. Although some campuses have included religion under the umbrella of diversity, many keep this department as a separate entity.  The facilitators will address the sensitive nature of dialogues around religion in student intellectual and social life and recommend strategies for developing intellectually stimulating dialogue around religious differences.  Participants will also explore strategies for, and challenges to, including religion under the auspices of diversity on college campuses.
Gretchel Hathaway, Senior Director of Campus Diversity and Affirmative Action, and Victoria Brooks, Director of Spiritual and Religious Life—both of Union College

4 Fostering Identity, Civility, and Democratic Classrooms
CS 21:  More Than Just Talk: Using Student-Facilitated Discussion Groups
How can institutions more directly involve low-income, first-generation, and underrepresented minority students in discussions and actions to promote their success?  The Dialogue-to-Action Circle (DTA Circle) is a learning and participation model created by Everyday Democracy and is considered a best practice in the field of public deliberation.  This hands-on session will be led by former University of Houston-Downtown (UH-D) students who were trained to facilitate the DTA Circles for UH-D’s Achieving the Dream initiative, part of a national effort to improve student success strategies directed at first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students of color.  Participants will learn to lead discussions as well as how to implement action groups so discussion does not end when the sessions are over.  Successful dialogue-to-action leads to greater buy-in, implementation of solutions to overcome campus-specific obstacles, and enhanced student success interventions.
Gene B. Preuss, Assistant Professor of History—University of Houston-Downtown, Yolanda Turner, Ben Gomez, and Damarcus Jones—all formerly of University of Houston-Downtown

5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
CS 22:  Making Excellence Inclusive: Infusing Diversity as a Core Campus Value
The University of California-Riverside has been working to develop educational and programmatic tools to hire and retain a workforce (faculty and staff) supporting academic excellence for the nation’s fourth most diverse undergraduate population.  A cross-section of campus constituents proposed to develop a united strategy to build institutional capacity to advance diversity, and they formed the Diversity Education and Leadership Initiative (DELI) to carry out the work.  Formally charged with this task by the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, the DELI steering committee looked to incorporate existing and new diversity initiatives into an overall plan for capacity-building.  A coalition of administrative and academic division leaders created the Making Excellence Inclusive educational series, which was adopted as the Chancellor’s Diversity Education Program.  In this session, the facilitators will discuss elements of the program and how these elements might translate to other institutional contexts.  Specifically, the facilitators will: (a) discuss how to foster leadership buy-in for diversity training; (b) provide training outlines and materials; (c) propose program funding strategies in bad economic times; (d) offer suggestions for campus partnering opportunities; and (e) provide a template for assessment and evaluation of these activities.
Gladys Brown, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Excellence, and Equity and Director of Faculty and Staff Affirmative Action, Sue Anderson, Education and Development Manager, Human Resources, and Brian Murphy, Equity Administrator, Office of Faculty and Staff Affirmative Action—all of University of California-Riverside

4:15 – 5:15 p.m.
Concurrent Sessions

3 Developing and Assessing Curricular and Co-curricular Programs
CS 23:  Developing a Faculty Summer Seminar for Diversifying the Curriculum
Many faculty members feel unprepared to transform courses around issues of diversity and social justice. This interactive session will feature three institutions—a large public research university, a mid-size comprehensive private university, and a small liberal arts university—that have developed summer faculty seminars that help teachers understand theories of oppression, apply those theories to the content of their courses, and learn about pedagogical strategies that best foster student learning of diversity.  One institution has a long-established general education diversity requirement; another has a very recent requirement; and the third has no requirement at all.  Participants will learn about the structure and processes of the three summer seminar models.  In small groups, they will discuss diversity requirements and work with facilitators to identify ways to create similar faculty seminars on their own campuses. Facilitators will provide examples of syllabi and content for faculty seminars as well as diversity courses.
Susan M. Shaw, Transitional Director, School of Language, Culture, and Society, Donna Champeau, Director of Women’s Advancement and Gender Equity—both of Oregon State University; Bob Amico, Professor of Philosophy—St. Bonaventure University; Arturo Ocampo, Assistant Provost for Diversity, Lisa Cooper, Assistant Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement, and Cynthia Dobbs, Assistant Dean, College of the Pacific—all of University of the Pacific

3 Developing and Assessing Curricular and Co-curricular Programs
CS 24:  Teaching LGBT Content in the Spirit of Inclusive Excellence
This discussion about teaching LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) content in college courses will be based on two precepts of Inclusive Excellence: (a) diversity is a precondition of, not an obstacle to, excellence, and (b) no category of diversity can be well understood in isolation from other diversity categories (gender, race, ethnicity, class, religion, etc.). With these ideas in mind, the facilitator will briefly present some insights and strategies regarding learning outcomes, classroom activities, out-of-classroom interactions, and assessment derived from his teaching of a course on Gay and Lesbian Literature.  The participants will then share their own experiences and insights as well as discuss the applicability of various strategies in different curricular and institutional contexts.  The discussion will allow the participants to expand their repertoire of strategies for teaching LGBT content in an inclusive manner that bridges the divides between LGBT and straight students and among major social identity groups.
Dejan Kuzmanovic, Associate Professor of English—University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

4 Fostering Identity, Civility, and Democratic Classrooms
CS 25:  Success Stories: How Social Identities Affect Students’ Education Trajectories in STEM (ppt)
This session will highlight a recent study that examined how students’ social identities can affect their persistence and educational trajectories in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.  Using an anti-deficit perspective (Harper 2007), the study sought to emphasize the experiences, support systems, and educational interventions that assist students in negotiating the interplay between their developing science identities and their social identities.  The facilitators will also highlight institutional efforts, such as the New Mexico Alliance for Minority Participation Bridge to the Doctorate Program, which is designed to support students’ navigation from bachelor's to Ph.D. programs.  Participants will also use an overview of the research findings and best practices to identify strategies to increase student persistence in STEM fields at their own institutions.
Felisha A. Herrera, Research Analyst, Josephine A. Gasiewski, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Minh Tran, Research Analyst, and Sylvia Hurtado, Professor and Director of the Higher Education Research Institute—all of University of California-Los Angeles; and Ricardo B. Jacquez, Dean of Engineering—New Mexico State University

4 Fostering Identity, Civility, and Democratic Classrooms
CS 26:  Instructor Persona, Social Identities, and Democratic Classrooms
What is the role of an instructor’s persona and intersecting social identities in creating an inclusive classroom environment?  How do the social identities of the instructor (e.g., race, gender, or sexual orientation) impact the achievement of civil but impassioned discussions?  The way instructors introduce themselves and dress, what students call them, and how they respond to dissent are often unexamined choices related to their teaching personae, but these choices can affect the dynamics of the classroom. And classroom discussions are an important way of achieving liberal education and diversity-related learning outcomes like critical thinking and taking seriously the viewpoints of others.  This interactive session will provide attendees a forum to reflect on these issues, beginning with a presentation of the facilitators’ highly contrasting approaches to questions of “democratic” discussion-leading.  Participants will then discuss their own strategies and struggles in breakout groups and share them in a larger, facilitated discussion.
Todd Onderdonk, Assistant Professor of University Programs, and Jennifer Dornan, Assistant Professor of University Programs—both of St. Edward's University

5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
CS 27:  Mistakes Were Made: Communicating Effectively in a Neo-Diversity Context
Any time the leader of a college or university speaks about a campus diversity matter, multiple communities are listening.  That’s because diversity conceived as Black/White no longer suffices.  On most campuses today, opportunities for interaction across myriad groups are everywhere and unavoidable, activating a new social uncertainty that can be called “neo-diversity.”  With constituents from many different racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, and gender groups converging, college or university messages may tell students that the campus accepts all kinds of people, but students may ask “What does that mean?”  The social uncertainty of neo-diversity makes it necessary for communications from college and university leaders to be well grounded.  In this session, participants will analyze two examples of leadership communications that followed two real campus neo-diversity conflicts.  As part of that analysis, participants will analyze the concept of grounded communication as a means for campus leaders to effectively engage with constituents within a neo-diversity context.
Rupert W. Nacoste, Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor—North Carolina State University

5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
CS 28:  Institutional Capacity for Inclusive Excellence: The Mission of a Catholic College (pdf)
Saint Mary's College of California has recently instituted a campus-wide committee on inclusive excellence and a workshop program for all faculty and staff, as well as programs for students to discuss difference and inclusion. In this session, the facilitators will: (a) discuss how the college created a committee composed of key decision-makers from across campus (academic and student affairs) to institute changes in policy and practice; (b) describe the process of developing a program for all faculty and staff, preliminary assessment of this program, and follow-up programming that addresses specific needs arising out of the baseline workshop; and (c) outline steps for student-focused programming to address similar issues around inclusive excellence.  The importance of support from top campus leaders will be discussed, as well as the challenges in designing and implementing such a broad program.
Mary E. McCall, Professor of Psychology,  Joan Iva Cube, Director of Delphine Intercultural Center, and Barry Chersky, Human Resources Specialist—all of Saint Mary's College of California

5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
CS 29:  The NCBAA's LDI: A Model of Inclusive Succession Planning for Community Colleges
This session will demonstrate how the National Council on Black American Affairs (NCBAA) Leadership Development Institute (LDI) serves as a model for carrying out succession plans that emphasize the inclusion of African American administrators, faculty, staff, and students.  Our claim is that organizations that focus on closing gaps between the number of white and minority leaders in community colleges—such as NCBAA—are essential to achieving inclusive excellence.  In this session, participants will learn about the NCBAA, its goals, and its impact on the leadership of Cincinnati State Technical and Community College.  The facilitators will also use turning point technology to engage participants in examining the LDI model, which involves quality professional training, mentoring within and across institutions, cross-institutional and community partnerships, development of student leaders, and engagement in scholarly activities as key factors in inclusive succession planning.
Chantae Recasner, Instructor of English and Literature and President of the Cincinnati State Chapter of NCBAA; Becky Burrell, Special Assistant for Strategic Planning and Vice President of Organizational Vitality for the Cincinnati State Chapter of NCBAA; and Kesha Williams, Grants Administrator/Project Director and Vice President of Programs for the Cincinnati State Chapter of NCBAA—all of Cincinnati State Technical and Community College

5:30 – 7:15 p.m.
Community Forum 

Free Speech and Civil Discourse on Campus
Colleges and universities strive to be civil venues for learning and the robust exchange of ideas on controversial—and frequently political—issues, where perspectives are shaped by individuals' social identities, ideologies, values, and life experiences. What happens when discourse turns personal or polemical? No campus wants to chill free speech or prevent dialogue, but is some speech too toxic for a learning environment? Join this community forum to address higher education's role in shaping the state of public discourse.
Case Studies (pdf)
Nancy L. Thomas, Director, The Democracy Imperative and Senior Associate, Everyday Democracy (formerly Study Circles Resource Center); and Libby Roderick, Associate Director, Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence and Director, Ford Foundation Difficult Dialogues Grants, University of Alaska-Anchorage

Saturday, October 23

7:45 – 9:00 a.m.
Facilitated Discussions

Discussion 1:  Recruiting and Retaining Faculty, Staff, and Students of Color
Patricia Lowrie, Director, Women’s Resource Center—Michigan State University

Discussion 2:  Infusing Diversity-Related Content and Pedagogies into the Curriculum and Co-Curriculum
Bruce Busby, Associate Vice Chancellorfor Academic Success—Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne; and Ande Diaz, Associate Dean of Students—Roger Williams University

Discussion 3:  Conducting Dialogues on Race and Ethnicity Among Faculty, Students, and Staff
Jesús Treviño, Clinical Associate Professor, Morgridge College of Education—University of Denver; and Georgia Brown, Student Associate, Center for Public Deliberation—University of Houston-Downtown

Discussion 4:  Fostering Institutional Capacity to Make Inclusion and Engagement an Integral Component of Educational Excellence
Alma Clayton-Pedersen, Executive Vice President—Emeritus Consulting Group, LLC. and Senior Scholar—AAC&U    

Discussion 5:   Assessing Diversity and Inclusive Excellence Outcomes and Efforts on Campus
Thomas F. Nelson Laird, Assistant Professor, Higher Education and Student Affairs Program—Indiana University  

Discussion 6:  Bridging the Divides Among Social Identity Groups with Special Attention to LBGTQ Students and Faculty
Rusty Barceló, President, Northern New Mexico College

9:15 – 10:45 a.m.
Concurrent Sessions

3 Developing and Assessing Curricular and Co-curricular Programs
CS 30:  Integrating Domestic and International Concerns In the Undergraduate Curriculum
This session will focus on the ways in which domestic diversity and internationalization can be integrated in undergraduate curricula.  Using Arcadia University’s new curriculum and the concept of “Global Connections” as starting points, the facilitators will engage participants in discussion by focusing on four questions: In presenting domestic diversity and internationalization as two sides of the same coin, are we doing justice to both sets of concerns or is one being privileged over the other?  What is gained by combining them and what gets lost?  Is it possible to help students understand these concepts in an integrative manner?  How do we know if students are actually achieving the integrative understandings that this approach offers?  Participants will be asked to share how they have grappled with these questions at their own institutions.
Jeff Shultz, Assistant Provost and Professor of Education, Norah Shultz, Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Ellen Skilton-Sylvester, Professor of Education and Director of Global Connections—all of Arcadia University

3 Developing and Assessing Curricular and Co-curricular Programs
CS 31:  An Integrated Approach to Diversity Education:  Intergroup Dialogues & CommonGround (ppt)
For over 20 years, the University of Michigan’s Program on Intergroup Relations (IGR) has run intergroup dialogues: safe spaces where students can talk across groups to identify areas of commonality and difference.  In 2006, IGR began offering CommonGround workshops to address campus conflict and to promote and enhance awareness about social identity development.  In this session, the facilitators will discuss the foundational theory and pedagogy behind both Intergroup Dialogues and CommonGround.  These two programs—one a course, the other co-curricular—support an integrated learning approach to diversity education.  The facilitators will provide an overview of the programs; highlight how research and assessment data inform design and practice; and discuss IGR’s unique structure as a joint program between the College of Literature, Science and the Arts and the Division of Student Affairs.  Participants will have the opportunity to consider the various factors related to implementing both curricular and co-curricular components of diversity education on their campuses.
Handout (pdf)
Kelly Maxwell, Co-Director, Program on Intergroup Relations and Lecturer, and Roger Fisher, Co-Associate Director, Program on Intergroup Relations—both of University of Michigan

4 Fostering Identity, Civility, and Democratic Classrooms
CS 32:  Transforming Ourselves, Transforming Others: Diversity Peer Education Teams
This interactive workshop will present a model of a team-taught course in which students both studied diversity and developed Diversity Peer Education Teams (DPETs).  Near the end of the course, they applied what they learned by conducting diversity workshops on campus and in the community.  Taught by the Director of the Black Cultural Center and the Director of Service-Learning, the class demonstrated the value of collaborative practices in promoting diversity and inclusion in the classroom.  In this session, participants will practice activities used in the DPET workshops and receive a packet with descriptions of the activities and a bibliography of resources.  They will also explore strategies for creating DPETs on their own campuses.  This session should particularly benefit educators who are committed to dialogue across differences, who want to learn more about the effectiveness of peer education, and who are dedicated to student empowerment in the area of diversity.
Meta Mendel-Reyes, Director of Center for Excellence in Learning Through Service and Associate Professor of General Studies, and Tashia Bradley, Director of the Black Cultural Center—both of Berea College

5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
CS 33:  Faculty-Student Interaction as a High-Impact Practice: A Focus on First-Generation Students
Lohfink and Paulsen (2005) have identified supportive relationships with faculty as one of the major determinants of persistence for first-generation college students.  However, studies have also established that these students are less likely to interact with faculty due to social discomfort and other factors (Longwell-Grice, 2008).  This session will focus on faculty–student interactions as a high-impact practice for retaining first-generation students, paying particular attention to the role that faculty who are first-generation college graduates can play in these efforts.  The facilitators will highlight several university-wide programs at the University of Houston-Downtown, including discipline-specific learning communities designed and implemented by highly visible faculty who are first-generation college graduates.  They will also outline strategies for recruiting “first-gen” faculty and other faculty to participate in these activities. Participants will examine the challenges of facilitating meaningful faculty–student interactions at their institutions and share strategies related to increasing the quality and quantity of such interactions to better support first-generation students.
Stacie DeFreitas, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Adam Ellwanger, Assistant Professor of English, Viola Garcia, Associate Professor of Urban Education, Wayne Schmadeka, Assistant Professor of English, and Tammis Thomas, Associate Professor of English—all of University of Houston-Downtown

Liberal Education and America’s Promise Featured Session
5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
CS 34:  Building a New Ecology of Engaged Learning, For All of Us
Strategic planning offers an opportunity to engage diverse communities, faculty, staff, and students in reaching for the highest for themselves and their communities, locally, nationally, and globally.  At Kapi'olani Community College, strategic planning has focused on building a “new ecology” of engaged learning and teaching that: (a) interlocks new technologies, faculty development, and student engagement in support of student success; (b) engages the College in meeting identified needs and building upon identified assets in Hawaii, Oceania, and the Pacific Rim; (c) aligns closely with AACU LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes, Principles of Excellence, and diversity and democracy emphases.  In this session, the facilitators will describe the plan; two campus-wide strategies leading to improved student learning, degree completion, and university transfer; and four innovations and high-impact practices (learning communities, service learning, intercultural learning, and undergraduate research).  They will then focus on the College’s process for sustaining and institutionalizing these innovations.  Participants will share promising practices and develop next steps in interlocking them into a new ecology that is adapted to their own campus–community contexts.
Robert W. Franco, Director, Institutional Effectiveness, and Charles Sasaki, Dean, Arts and Sciences—both of Kapi'olani Community College

5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
CS 35:  Three Cycles of Diversity Strategic Planning
Since 1998, Penn State has implemented diversity strategic planning, with planning cycles running from 1998 to 2003, 2004 to 2009, and now 2010 to 2015.  In this session, the facilitators will review Penn State’s past progress and, more importantly, look forward to new horizons and continuous improvement in the planning process.  In particular, session participants will learn about the major components of the 2010-2015 plan, which stresses a more streamlined and “strategic” approach to planning and a stronger emphasis on assessment and the use of performance indicators.  After opening remarks, participants will break into teams whose task will be to conduct diversity strategic planning under one of the seven challenges included in the Penn State framework (e.g., campus climate, recruiting and retaining a diverse student body).  Afterward, the larger group will debrief and develop a list of lessons learned for the purpose of improving comprehensive diversity efforts on participants’ home campuses.
Victoria Sanchez, Assistant Vice Provost for Educational Equity, and Michael H. Blanco, Senior Diversity Planning Analyst—both of The Pennsylvania State University

5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
CS 36:  Multi-Campus Institutional Transformation to Increase Underserved Student Success
Funded by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, the New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE)’s Project Compass is a multi-year initiative supporting public, four-year colleges engaged in institution-level change to expand and integrate rigorous, evidence-based efforts to retain more underserved students.  Three years into operation, Project Compass is creating models of systemic institutional change that increase the success of underserved students through a regional network of colleges.  Each of these campuses implements and sustains innovative programs, policies, and practices to retain more undeserved students. In this session, the facilitators will discuss: (a) the development of campus-based communities of practice comprising key stakeholders; (b) the development of dynamic logic models assuring measurable outcomes; (c) the formation of a cross-campus learning community; and (d) the engaged, collaborative partnership established between the Foundation’s intermediary and the funded campuses.  Formative findings tracking the institutional change process at each of the campuses will also be shared.
Glenn P. Gabbard, Director of Project Compass and Associate Director of NERCHE, and Thara Fuller, Coordinator, Project Compass—both of the University of Massachusetts Boston

5 Building Institutional Capacity to Make Excellence Inclusive
CS 37:  Facing the Divides among Allies in Multicultural Women’s Leadership
The current economic and political climate has raised the stakes for inclusive women’s leadership even as it has exacerbated existing tensions surrounding economic, political, academic hierarchical, and cultural divides. While heightened attention to global trends like immigration has intensified anxieties, it has also enabled new coalitions of diverse women to collaborate in defense of shared civil rights and social justice.  But such coalitions are seldom free of their own internal tensions, and successful alliances require honesty, respect, and skill in working across differences.  Using an interactive workshop format developed by Campus Women Lead, this session will identify ways to sustain women’s multicultural alliances that continue diversity work on personal and institutional levels.  Drawing on the tools that women, and particularly women of color, have developed to navigate systems and leverage power in support of change, participants will address questions including: How can we turn differences across space or vision into advantages that strengthen collaboration and coalition?  How can we draw from divergences to create new understandings and agreements, and how can we maintain individual group identity while working in alliance?  How can we identify our hesitancies around facing the divides and approach coalition with openness and authenticity?
Nancy “Rusty” Barceló, President—Northern New Mexico College; Pat Lowrie, Director, Women’s Resource Center—Michigan State University; and Caryn McTighe Musil, Senior Vice President, Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives—AAC&U

11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Closing Plenary 
podcast
Purposeful Work: Students Talk about Local and Global Responsibilities
Preparing students for life and work in our globally interdependent, information rich, and technologically advanced society means helping them to develop the ability to make connections across disciplines and cultures as they apply knowledge to solve complex problems. It also requires fostering an understanding of one’s place in the world and a sense of personal and social responsibility. Students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute will share the local and global experiences that enabled them to better understand the intersections of culture, science, engineering, and justice, and show how they drew on these connections to develop ethical solutions to real-life challenges.
Richard Vaz, Dean, Interdisciplinary and Global Studies, David Arnold and Evan Sawyer, students—all of Worcester Polytechnic Institute