The Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity released the draft of its Five-Year Diversity Plan in a “Community Conversation” on Monday. The initiative, also referred to as the Diversity Action Plan, is a set of recommendations intended to diversify the cultural climate in and around the University.
The most recent version of the 21-page plan incorporates six points: developing cultural competency, building critical mass, expanding and filling the pipeline, developing community linkages, developing and reinforcing diversity infrastructure and improving campus climate. The plan comes as a result of frequent meetings of the 24-member Diversity Work Group.
“The University of Oregon aspires to be a place where quality education is enhanced and enriched by a diverse campus community and all community members benefit from multicultural experiences throughout the institution,” the plan reads. “The campus environment will be welcoming and all people will feel respected. Institutional barriers historically facing people of color and other groups and individuals will be addressed and efforts made to eliminate such barriers.”
Greg Vincent, vice provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity and chair of the
workgroup, and Carla Gary, assistant vice provost, presented the plan four times throughout the day.
Vincent said the plan’s foundation is the University’s own institutional goal: to become
“a community of scholars dedicated to the
highest standards of academic inquiry, learning and service.”
“In developing this plan, we know that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” Vincent said.
Junior John Joo was one of the fewer than 10 students who attended the sessions.
“It looks beautiful on paper, but I would like it to move,” Joo said. “I know that because this is a step-by-step, bureaucratic process, that this is going to take time, but for people to just shrug it off and say, ‘OK, well they’re doing the work so we don’t need to do it’ – I don’t buy that.”
“If we continue to talk to the same people about the same things in the same way, then we’re going to miss a great deal of what the world has to offer,” said Gary.
Gary said it will be difficult for the University to benefit from the plan unless people buy into it.
“It’s the ability of the larger group to say ‘we want this to happen,’” Gary said. “I don’t want you to tell me that you value (diversity), I want to see that you do by what you do, who you bring in and how you
support them.”
The plan’s first point, developing cultural competency, incorporates the University’s Center on Diversity and Community to institutionalize cultural competency, which CoDaC defines as “an active process and ongoing pursuit of self-reflection, learning, skill development, and adaptation, practiced at individual and systems levels, in order to effectively engage a culturally diverse population.”
The plan also includes recommendations to revise the University’s multicultural undergraduate requirement to include “Developing Cultural Competency/Proficiency” and revise third-year, tenure and post-tenure
evaluation criteria to “assess ongoing skill building and demonstrable
commitment to cultural competency.”
The second point, building critical mass, focuses on recruitment and retention of students, staff, faculty and administration. Major components of the point included the implementation of “cluster hires,” the hiring of several faculty members simultaneously
under a single theme related to diversity. Adding diversity-building scholarships was included in the plan as a way to increase student recruitment and retention.
The third point, expanding and filling the pipeline, addresses the flow of prospective students from minority groups considered to be “underrepresented.” The University’s plan would use programs like Oregon Young Scholars and Saturday Scholar’s Academy to increase the interest and academic skills of “historically underrepresented students.”
The fourth point, developing and strengthening community linkage, attempts to expand the University’s participation in community-wide diversity issues by creating a community relations committee. The plan encourages the University to become involved in community initiatives and “hold all offices, programs and departments accountable
for strengthening appropriate
community linkages.”
“We need to do a better job in all aspects,” Vincent said. “We need to be seen as real and active partners. Other than football and sports, we don’t have that portal.”
The fifth point, developing and reinforcing diversity infrastructure, uses the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity as a central hub for diversity issues on campus to improve communication and coordination within the University.
The sixth point, improving campus climate, helps ensure a safe and welcoming environment for minority members of the University community and continued evaluation of that environment. The campus climate point is the newest part of the plan and is still being reviewed.
“Once the president and the provost sign off on this, they will
be accountable (for upholding it),” Gary said.
Students, faculty, staff and other community members are invited to the next sessions of community conversations Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Gerlinger Lounge and
Monday from noon to 8 p.m. in the EMU’s Ben Linder Room.

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