In early June, the Indiana University Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs launched a university-wide diversity assessment. To ensure an objective and comprehensive valuation, outside consultants Halualani and Associates are conducting the assessment of IU Bloomington, IUPUI, IU East, IU Kokomo, IU Southeast, IU South Bend, IU Northwest and the office itself.

The 18-month assessment involves mapping diversity and inclusion as well as retention-graduation efforts in the past five years; comparing IU Bloomington and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis to five of their external peers; creating a diverse faculty and student recruitment projection for IU; and performing an external assessment of the diversity office.

“The assessment will serve as a baseline measurement for IU and each campus in diversity achievement and progress, which will provide information to further our efforts for strategic planning university-wide,” said James Wimbush, vice president for diversity, equity and multicultural affairs.

The first phase of our work is on schedule, with diversity mapping efforts for each regional campus delivered at the end of April,” said Rona Halualani, managing principal and founder of Halualani and Associates. “Diversity mapping represents a valuable process of inquiry for any campus beginning to form or refine an institution-wide diversity strategy or master plan. This practice can provide a sense of where the institution has been, where it currently is and how it has operationalized diversity and inclusive excellence, in both intentional and unintentional ways.”

Halualani and Associates began “web-scraping” December 1, the first mode of data collection for campus mapping efforts. Next, they will examine diversity efforts submitted by campus and community members through an online survey, recognizing both formal and informal diversity efforts at the unit and department level.

Diversity efforts are taking place across IU campus communities that are not documented or formally recognized; therefore, it is important that campus and community members take the time to submit diversity efforts to inform the assessment results.

Upon completion of the data collection and examination, Halualani and Associates will map all efforts, identify actions necessary for change and improvement and provide IU East with a summary of key findings and recommendations.

IU East campus and community members can submit diversity efforts on the Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs website. The survey link for IU East will be open until January 12.