Leadership Team Discusses Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Recently ACUI’s Leadership Team met, and among the strategic projects discussed, the following decisions were made:
- The Council for Diversity and Inclusion, an advisory group that has been in place for three years, will be concluding its work in September. From there, the Board of Trustees will manage the direction of ACUI’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, adding a board committee parallel to its existing ones for finance, governance, and strategic oversight.
- To enhance social justice education for ACUI members, a new volunteer-led program team has been created. Applications for that team will be available in the next month.
- The Central Office is exploring increased staffing for diversity, equity, and inclusion, with Elizabeth Beltramini remaining the Association’s senior diversity professional.
- Potential volunteers will also be encouraged to apply for a new short-term working group, focused on ACUI’s strategic guidepost of active dialogue. Resources and models for active dialogue are also being collected at the regional level.
- The communities of practice structure will remain the same, and leaders are exploring opportunities for addressing community needs at the regional level.
- Funds for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives will be considered as part of the Association’s 2020 fiscal year budgeting process.
- The Board of Trustees approved a new supplier diversity policy for the Association and is working on a social responsibility policy.
The full Leadership Team, including the staff, also participated in a training session that provided an overview of topics relating to cultural competence and unconscious bias as well as a session about the need to increase representation of marginalized identities in higher education administration.
Questions and inquiries about how to get involved can be sent to acui@acui.org.
