Strategic Plan for Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion 2016-21

SUNY Brockport’s five-year Strategic Plan for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion outlines the College’s targeted goals for the next five years in regards to reducing barriers to access, inquiry, engagement, and completion for all students as well as increasing social equity for all members of the campus community. The plan aligns with the College's core values: Community, Engagement, Excellence, and Transformation, which are part of the College’s Strategic Plan, “Building a Better Brockport.” 

EDI Strategic Plan Goals

SUNY Brockport has long held a commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Below are the goals of our current EDI Strategic Plan (2016-2021). Some progress has been made, but not as swiftly as any of us would like. The College remains comitted to these goals and will enhance our efforts to achieve them.

Goal 1

Achieve a balance of representation in faculty and staff in line with student population, and national, state, and regional demographics; and maintain a commitment to retention and promotion of minority and underrepresented faculty and staff.

Goal 2

Achieve a balance of representation in student body population in line with state demographics; and maintain a commitment to retention, completion, and academic success of minority and underrepresented students.

Goal 3

Ensure that curriculum, programming, and/or trainings educate all incoming students, faculty, and staff and are available to current students, faculty, and staff in issues of social equity and the ability to speak to each other across differences as part of the College’s commitment to inclusive community, diverse engagement, academic excellence, and self-transformation.

Goal 4

Continue to build and maintain an inclusive and positive campus climate for every member in which to foster internal and external community building on the campus, local, regional, and international levels in which diversity is valued and inclusion and equity are shared.

Progress Toward Goals: 2018-19

Action Items

In response to concerns from members of our campus community, President Macpherson has committed to a series of action items designed to strengthen our campus climate. She has committed to structural changes in campus policies and practices. Those changes include, but are limited to, the following: 

Action 1: External Support

In partnership with SUNY, Dr. Rodmon King, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at SUNY Oswego, joined our campus March 4 and will offer support throughout the spring 2020 semester. He will serve on President’s Cabinet to help rethink the structure and strategic plan for the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in addition to providing guidance, direction and support for the College.

Action 1 Progress Update

Action 2: Revamping Bias Reporting Mechanism

The re-launch of the bias reporting mechanism website launched in January was confusing to many. The former bias reporting mechanism has been reinstated while a new and improved mechanism is developed. If you have a concern and wish to report it, please go to the Issue Reporting Center and click on “Report an Incident” under the Bias Related Incident Reporting System.

Action 2 Progress Update

Action 3: New Trainings

A comprehensive plan is being developed by the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and Human Resources which will include online and face-to-face training in implicit bias, institutional racism and structural inequality. This training is mandatory for college leadership.

Action 3 Progress Update

Action 4: Demographic Review

A thorough review is underway of the demographics and diversity representation of each of the 87 campus departments to identify which units have little racial/ethnic diversity, and devise a plan to eliminate these “diversity deserts.”

Action 4 Progress Update

Action 5: Additional Community Conversations

We are committed to holding additional community conversations to hear issues and concerns that need to be resolved and to rebuild trust in our community. President Macpherson is actively engaged in these conversations.

Action 5 Progress Update

Read the full EDI Strategic Plan:  

EDI Strategic Plan 2016-2021 (pdf)
Enrollment by Race and Ethnicity (pdf)
Adult Student Enrollment Trends (pdf)
International Student Enrollment (pdf)
Enrollment by Gender (pdf)

Divisional Progress Updates

• Academic Affairs
  • The leadership team has had multiple discussions on how to lead for change. Ultimately, each dean will be asked to create a plan for their school, and each department, when we recommence in the fall, will be tasked with addressing EDI explicitly within their training, meetings, operational practices, and procedures. A review of Appointment, Promotion and Tenure requirements will be asked for from each department.
  • Launched an OpEd project, “Write to Change the World,” in collaboration with SUNY Geneseo. The mission of the OpEd project is to change “who” writes history, diversify knowledge in the public domain, and accelerate solutions to society’s greatest challenges. The intended outcome was to provide an opportunity for diverse faculty to use their public “voice” through writing op-ed pieces in the media. Participants have access to national coaches for one year after the event. Responses from participants said it was an intense, rewarding, and helpful experience. Brockport has had two op-ed pieces published as a direct result of the training.
  • Broadened the scope and context of the PRODiG Steering Committee to include not only PRODiG support, but review of all support structures, ensuring more accountability, including review of data, placing and language of ads, hiring practices, mentoring, support of early career faculty, support of faculty promoting for full, developing new opportunities for all faculty, and ensuring a supportive atmosphere on campus.
  • With the advice and encouragement of the chair of the Faculty and Staff of Color Group and our CDO, we have contracted with the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity for whole campus access, with a soft launch in spring and planning for more of a “hard launch” for all faculty in fall 2020. 
• Advancement
  • Two members of the team lead EDI committees for campus, the EDI Awards Committee, and the Recruitment and Retention Committee of the PCDI.
  • Fundraising activities lead to more than $1 million in support in the form of scholarships, prizes, and undergraduate research awards; our underrepresented students are over-represented in terms of scholarship receipt. Some of the funds of the Foundation have been explicitly geared towards our EOP students, with an additional $35,000 in support raised to support their needs over the last two years.
  • Advancement set up the Golden Eagle Opportunity Fund (GEOF) to help students in financial need during the COVID-19 crisis.
  • Advancement and Admissions work together each spring and summer as the incoming class of first year students decide on Brockport as their school of choice. Admissions seeks a diverse group of alumni in cities across the state to join accepted students and their families at these receptions.
  • Created a new Coordinator of Advancement Diversity Initiatives position, repurposing a vacant line to do so. This position will be split between our Offices of Alumni Engagement and Annual Fund (The Fund for Brockport) and focus on activities and fundraising around our diversity efforts. This is a first-of-its-kind position within the SUNY Comprehensive Colleges. 
• Administration and Finance
  Initially focused on making changes to our HR practices to take into account EDI opportunities, including the following:

  • Actively recruiting for a Diversity Recruitment and Retention Specialist. We have significantly revised the job description and are seeking an individual with past HR recruitment background and experience with a focus on EDI.
  • Restructuring the existing HR Recruitment team and moving from passive to active recruitment with an emphasis on diversifying our applicant pools.
  • Affirmative Action Officer is working with Dr. King to identify nationwide partnerships that our recruitment team develop specifically around faculty recruitment. She is also working with Dr. King and Institutional Research on gathering data to inform our outreach plans once the Diversity Recruiter is hired.
  • HR has implemented a Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) feature in our applicant tracking system allowing the recruitment team to connect with potential applicants.
  • The CRM will allow us to stay connected with interested parties and build a pipeline of qualified candidates.
  • Everyone in the recruitment team has attended EDI training sessions and webinars, and one member of the team attended the CUPA Greater NY Chapter Recruitment Workshop that focused on EDI recruitment tools, best practices, and the PRODiG initiative.
  • The Affirmative Action Officer participated in OFCCP meetings and will continue to partner with their offices as they announced they will be providing employers additional support and resources around diversity, veterans, and disabled individuals.
  • Started the development of “HR101” training for new supervisors and managers, which includes EDI awareness.
  • Ongoing analysis of employee turnover to identify root cause for attrition.

  Administration and Finance will continue to work on the other areas of the division, including facilities and planning, budget and management, and health and safety to develop similar intensive EDI initiatives to transform the operations of our non-student-facing activities. 

• College Communications 
  • Discussions around EDI have become part of weekly meetings between the VP and directors.
  • In the process of redeveloping the website’s main navigation to ensure that a link to our diversity work is prominent on each of our hundreds of thousands of web pages.
  • Building intentionality into its use of social media. For example, 5.5 of the 11 Instagram takeovers thus far in 2020 have been by students of color.
  • A member of the College Communications leadership team is assigned to support OEDI’s marketing/communication needs — including event promotion, website support, video/photography, and more.
  • The interim CDO and the VP for University Relations have been discussing a plan to thread more EDI imagery throughout the website, not just in ensuring that our photographs represent our diverse student body, but also in thinking through how to ensure that clubs, organizations, and activities that disproportionately attract students of color get more visibility on the website and in our PR stories, such as our McNair Program, our EOP program, and our cultural club activities. 
• Enrollment Management and Student Affairs (EMSA) 
  In Spring 2019, all EMSA units completed the Council for Advancement of Standards in Higher Education Part 7 Self-Assessment focused on Equity, Inclusion, and Access. This has become incorporated into the annual reporting process and informed departmental annual goals, which are measured on an annual basis through the assessment process. Specific initiatives undertaken in 2020 include the following:

  • Golden Eagle Orientation Academy: An extended orientation for low income, first generation and/or students of color. This is intended to provide additional transitional support, mentoring, and academic skills. This was planned to be offered in summer 2020; we are now looking at offering it in conjunction with an extended Welcome Week.
  • Transition and Success Coordinator: This position was realigned from Career Services. The new Transition and Success Coordinator position is part of the state-of-the-art Academic Success Center (ASC), which opened in 2018 in the center of campus. Working with a team of dedicated, student-centered professionals in the ASC, the Transition and Success Coordinator will develop and implement comprehensive programs and interventions to support the transition and ongoing academic and personal success of historically underrepresented groups. Specific priority populations for this position will be historically underrepresented students, emerging scholars, and military/veteran students.
  • The Student Transition and Inclusion Steering Committee is charged with the following:
    • Review, augment and/or recommend enhancements to the existing program proposal, approved by President’s Cabinet in January 2020.
    • Operationalize the strategies within the Program Proposal for implementation in summer 2020, fall 2020, and beyond.
    • Provide support and advisement to the ASC Transition and Success Coordinator.
    • Review assessment data on an ongoing basis to determine program effectiveness; identify opportunities to improve programs and services.
    • Based on the retention data analysis and findings, provide recommendations to the Enrollment Management Committee to be integrated into the Strategic Plan for
    • Undergraduate Retention, as well as other divisional goals/plans.

  Admissions progress:

  • We recognized a lack of diversity within our recent searches for new Admissions Advisors so we piloted an internship program that created both a graduate and undergraduate internship within the office. This program has been highly successful as we were able to offer two internships this spring.
  • We have refined our efforts to strengthen working relationships with school counseling staff in high schools that have very diverse populations (by using NYSED data). Completed events include College information sessions, EOP counseling trips (jointly conducted by UG Admissions, Financial Aid, and EOP), Financial Aid literacy presentations, and school counselor events. Prospective and admitted student bus trips were unfortunately cancelled this spring, due to COVID-19.
  • We have developed an action plan that provides opportunities for admissions advisors to reach out to community leaders or non-profit organizations in areas of the state that have a large minority population. Our platform of partners include OneGoal, CACNY, GearUp, and the College Bound Initiative.
  • We have reviewed admissions and enrollment processes by examining the following:
    • Compare percentage of EOP applicants to funded EOP seats to inform advocacy efforts.
    • Review and continue to offer acceptance to EOP applicants who meet regular admissions standards.
    • Continue to review and coordinate transitional programming for first year and transfer students.
    • Aspire to hire more professional staff with multi-lingual capabilities in the areas of recruitment, enrollment, and advisement to increase the likelihood of being able to communicate well with parents or guardians who are speakers of other languages.

Last Updated 9/4/20