Two-Year College Programs

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Respect

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Respect (DEIR)
Section 12

DEIR Experience & Training
Section 12.1

Essential Components

  • Faculty and staff involved with teaching, academic advising, and mentoring are experienced or trained in making their practices inclusive, equitable, and accessible to persons with diverse backgrounds and identities.

Successful Practices

  • Training opportunities and support are provided for students interested in developing DEIR competencies.
  • DEIR training is part of the evaluation criteria for personnel involved in teaching, academic, advising, or mentoring. 
  • Require DEIR training for anyone serving on admissions and/or search committees.

Aspirational Goals

  • All constituents (faculty, staff, students)
    • Understand elements of DEIR.
    • Know how these elements are operationalized within the department or program.
    • Know how violations of these elements are acknowledged and addressed.
  • The department or program promotes student, faculty, and staff engagement in DEIR activities by using rewards and performance evaluations.

[MISSING SECTION 12.2??] Recruitment and Retention
Section 12.3

Essential Components

  • The program or department has a long-term strategy for recruitment and retention of faculty, staff, and students from diverse backgrounds and underrepresented groups

Successful Practices

The program or department supports

  • Professional development on culturally responsive and inclusive pedagogies and practices for faculty and staff who engage in searching, recruiting, and retaining individuals (faculty, staff, students) from underrepresented groups.
  • Faculty, staff, and student engagement with affinity organizations (e.g. NOBCChE, SACNAS, oSTEM, etc.) and interdisciplinary programs that prioritize topics related to DEIR and access.
  • Faculty and staff interested in participation in a broader array of conferences and workshops that foster the success of students from underrepresented groups.

Learning environments are inclusive for students, including

  • Minimizing stereotype threat and social stigma.
  • Recognizing and valuing contributions from all students, including those from underrepresented groups.
  • Welcoming and providing access for students with different abilities.

Aspirational Goals

  • Evidence-based practices are used to define strategies for recruitment of faculty, staff, and students from diverse backgrounds.
  • Working and learning environments are inclusive and accessible for faculty, staff, and students.

Retention - Chemistry Students
Section 12.4

Essential Components

  • Mechanisms are established for supporting learning and retention of chemistry students from diverse backgrounds and underrepresented groups.

Successful Practices

  • Aspects of DEIR are included in pedagogies used to train chemistry students. 
  • Achievements and contributions of scientists from underrepresented groups and diverse backgrounds are highlighted in the curriculum.
  • The formation of student led groups that engage with DEIR activities is encouraged.

Aspirational Goals

  • Mechanisms are established for supporting learning and retention of chemistry students from diverse backgrounds and underrepresented groups.

Policies and Procedures
Section 12.5

Essential Components

Institutional or departmental policies exist to investigate and address issues of: 

  • Discrimination
  • Bias
  • (Micro)aggression
  • Prejudice
  • Harassment

Successful Practices

  • Procedures and tools for observing and documenting inclusive classroom practices have been established.
  • Criteria for personnel whose evaluation includes DEIR criteria are communicated and clearly articulated.
  • Department demographics (faculty, staff, students) are tracked.
  • Departmental and institutional climate surveys are conducted.

Aspirational Goals

  • Curricular goals related to DEIR, including both the evaluation and revision of curriculum, are available on a public forum. 
  • Metrics are established for the evaluation of policies used to address issues of discrimination bias, (micro)aggressions, prejudice, and harassment in the working and learning environments.
  • Effective practices in faculty, staff, and student recruitment and retention are communicated. 
  • A strategic plan that communicates about and advances access to learning environments, including laboratories, for students with different abilities is present.

Review, Revise, and Communicate Policies
Section 12.6

Successful Practices

  • Programs periodically review, revise, and communicate policies
  • Constituents perceive that the elements of DEIR have been operationalized in earnest and without patronage. 

Aspirational Goals

  • The program has a standing committee that includes faculty, staff, and students dedicated to DEIR issues, including accessibility.
  • There is regular evaluation of the program’s ability to achieve uniform and effective DEIR practices.
  • There is a mechanism to receive student anonymous feedback on DEIR practices and accessibility.

DEIR Glossary

  • Ability and Ableism: Ability refers to one's physical and cognitive capabilities whereas ableism is a system that places value on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, favoring those with abilities and resulting prejudice or discrimination against people with disabilities.
  • ABIOP:  Analytical, Biochemistry, Inorganic, Organic, Physical Chemistry
  • Access and accessibility: Access refers to the conditions that enable people with permanent or temporal disabilities to participate equitably in all societal activities whereas accessibility describes the degree to which one has access to all rights, benefits, and responsibilities in the living, working, and learning environments. 
  • Affinity group/organizations: A group or organization formed based on the shared ideas, interests, and goals of the individuals.
  • Bias: Disproportionately favoring or not favoring a person, group, entity, or idea in a way that is unfair, prejudice, or discriminatory.
  • Counter spaces: A system of support structures and resources, formal or informal, that support the psychological health of individuals from marginalized, minoritized, and disadvantaged groups.
  • Culturally responsive and inclusive pedagogies: Culturally responsive pedagogies incorporate students’ identities and cultural references into the curriculum whereas inclusive pedagogies address students’ learning styles, abilities, and background.
  • DEIR: Diversity, equity, inclusion, and respect.
  • Discrimination: The mistreatment of individuals or groups of individuals based on their identity (e.g., race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic background)
  • Diversity: Representing individuals having a range of identities (e.g., race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic background, body size)
  • Equity: Ensuring that everyone in each environment has the same resources, opportunities, treatment, and experience
  • Evidence-based practices: Strategies having a demonstrated efficacy and outcomes backed by empirical data
  • Harassment: To inflict hostile, prejudice, or intimidating behaviors on another individual
  • Inclusion: Ensuring that all individuals have access to a space or opportunity.
  • Micro-aggression: subtle verbal, behavioral, or environmental instances that are directly or indirectly intended to be degrading, dismissive, intimidating, belittling, or contemptuous towards an individual or group, particularly those from a marginalized or disadvantaged group.
  • Prejudice: A judgment or opinion about an individual or group that seeks to marginalize or cast aspersions on that individual or group based on their identity or other characteristics (e.g., academic pedigree or marital status).
  • Respect: A positive or esteemed disposition towards another individual.
  • Stereotype threat: An individual’s fear of confirming a negative belief about their identity regardless of if the belief is founded. Such fear often manifests through low performance, despite the person’s ability, and isolating behaviors. 
  • Underrepresented groups: A subset of the population whose presence or participation in a space is significantly smaller than the whole.

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