Investigating the New Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Program Level Outcome Requirements

Friday, October 1, 2021
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
CSU 254 or Zoom

The purpose of this study was to investigate the understanding and experiences that MSU-Mankato faculty have had with developing the recently mandated diversity, equity, and inclusion outcomes for new and revised program proposals. These outcomes are part of the Equity 2030 initiative and were implemented in the fall of 2020 without notice. Many faculty who were creators of curriculum proposals had already completed their proposals prior to being notified of this new requirement at which time a new section of the program proposal process was added: Identify the specific Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs) which address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion; Identify the specific course(s) and their specific course outcome(s) which address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Of particular interest for this study were the participants' experiences writing these outcomes, their understanding of what these outcomes entail, how they planned to integrate this content into their courses and assess these outcomes, and what professional development they could have benefitted from and/or would like to see to help them integrate and assess these program outcomes in the future. In this presentation, we will discuss how we evaluated faculty member’s current ability to write, teach, and assess DEI outcomes using mixed methods research (survey and interviews). We used text analysis tools to compare faculty definitions of equity, diversity, and inclusion to the definitions provided by the Association of American Colleges & Universities as well as to Manning Marbles’ articulations of the terms corporate multiculturalism, liberal multiculturalism, racial essentialism, and radical democratic multiculturalism. We will also discuss what types of professional development faculty would be willing to invest in as well as what areas of professional development are most effective in promoting EDI outcomes, based on extant research.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the understanding and experiences that MSU-Mankato faculty had with developing the recently mandated diversity, equity, and inclusion outcomes for new and revised program proposals. Of particular interest for this study were the participants' experiences writing these outcomes, their understanding of what these outcomes entail, how they planned to integrate and assess this content into their courses, and what professional development could be implemented in the future.