A Working Summary and Timeline of Recent Administrative Efforts on Diversity and Inclusion

Fall 2011 to present, Institutional
President Glassner, working with the trustees, increases diversity on the board by gender, race, religion, national origin, geographic region, and beyond. Similarly, President Glassner increases diversity on Executive Council.

Summer 2013, College of Arts and Sciences
The college introduces Five Days for Change, a weeklong cultural-competency training program. The training serves as the basis for Student Life’s Diversity Committee and Intergroup Dialogue Program.

Fall 2013, College of Arts and Sciences
The Office of Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement (IME) is established to educate the campus on issues of diversity, inclusion, and social justice, and to lead Lewis & Clark’s efforts towards its commitment to a diverse, inclusive, and multicultural campus community. IME engages students, faculty, staff, and community partners to promote an inclusive campus climate; provides academic, social, and programmatic support to students from underrepresented communities; and helps students develop a greater understanding of their global citizenship through the intercultural exchange of ideas and traditions. IME regularly hosts and promotes events and initiatives.

The office also leads Great Expectations, a program designed to support the transition of incoming first-generation college students into Lewis & Clark College.

Fall 2013, College of Arts and Sciences
The college establishes the Student Life Diversity Committee. The committee is charged with establishing training programs for staff on issues related to cultural competency, which includes exploring adding cultural competency expectations in performance evaluations.

Fall 2013, College of Arts and Sciences
President’s Strategic Initiative Fund projects for 2013-14:

• Funds for diversity-focused programs in CAS Admissions: the admitted student fly-in program, the collaborative recruiting program, student recruitment in Indonesia and China, and a new student-to-student phone call program

• Support for first-year, transfer, and international/Third Culture Kids as a means to facilitate cohort identity

• Scholarships to eliminate the financial gap for upperclassmen with multiple risk factors who are on target to graduate within four years

• Funds for the 2014 Davis Scholars Summit to mark the 10th anniversary of Lewis & Clark’s involvement in the Shelby Davis United World College Scholars program

2013, College of Arts and Sciences
The Search Committee recruits more diverse committee members and updates the Search Committee Procedures Manual to include guidelines for recruiting a diverse pool of applicants for tenure-track positions. All applicants are instructed to include in their materials a description of how their teaching or work in the campus community will contribute to a culture of inclusion and campus diversity.

January 2014, Institutional
President Glassner forms the Bias Policy Committee, chaired by Professor of Law Janet Steverson, to review and improve the college’s policies and procedures on hate/bias-motivated conduct.

February 2014, Institutional
President Glassner appoints new Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, tasked with reviewing and recommending initiatives across the institution to promote and improve diversity and inclusion in the college’s programs and practices. The members of this institution-wide group represent those who work on programs and initiatives relating to diversity and inclusion in all aspects of life at Lewis & Clark. The committee meets once a month for two hours. The committee has four subgroups that are tasked with the following: assessing the campus climate; preparing a diversity and inclusion microsite to house all diversity and inclusion-related events, initiatives, and resources; working to help increase diversity of faculty, staff, and students; and finding funding for diversity and inclusion-related initiatives. In addition, the committee as a whole has supported or presented a number of diversity and inclusion-related trainings and events.

Summer 2014, College of Arts and Sciences
The college establishes a working group on gender-inclusive practices with particular attention to transgender students.

Fall 2014, College of Arts and Sciences
Student Life establishes the Intergroup Dialogue Program. The group is expanded to include Financial Aid, Admissions, and Public Affairs and Communications.

The college increases staffing of International Students and Scholars by adding a graduate assistant working 20 hours a week. ISS offers a wide variety of support programs for the 200+ international students on campus. ISS is responsible for international student admissions, financial aid, orientation, and immigration services.  

Spring 2015, Institutional
The Bias Assessment and Response Team (BART) is established. They draft the new Discrimination, Harassment, and Hate- or Bias-Motivated Conduct Policy, which is adopted by the college.

Summer 2015, Institutional
Instituted simplified procedures for students to change their gender and name in campus databases.

Fall 2015, CAS, Graduate School, and Institutional
President’s Strategic Initiative Fund projects for 2014-15:

• Academic English Studies recruitment to maintain and diversify international student enrollment

• Support for Interventions for Undergraduate Student Success: Lewis & Clark becomes first liberal arts college member of consortium with Stanford University designed to increase incoming nontraditional and underserved undergraduates’ persistence and academic success

• CAS Admissions admitted student fly-in initiative to help increase enrollment for first-generation students and students of color

• Funds to host a group of international college admissions guidance counselors

• Funds to visit Waterford United World College to offer presentations and interviews to prospective students

• Funds for graduate faculty to work with the Portland African American Leadership Forum to create a new certificate and/or degree program in community leadership

• Intercultural Competency Training for faculty and staff

• Funds to develop a working group on gender-based violence—comprised of key staff, faculty, and diverse students from all three campuses

April 5, 2016

Over 83% of CAS faculty approve a faculty diversity proposal at their faculty meeting .

ONGOING, Law School
The law school has a long-standing Academic Enhancement Program that employs holistic and data-driven techniques to help students from all backgrounds, particularly those from underrepresented ethnic, socioeconomic, or cultural groups, successfully enter the legal profession.

In 2007, the law school established the Diversity Committee (formerly the Diversity Working Group) with a mission of fostering an environment that supports the success and inclusion of faculty, staff, and students from groups that have experienced systematic, societal discrimination. The committee directs its work toward fostering the law school’s goal of graduating students with the professional skills that are needed to successfully practice in a diverse world. Inspired by data gleaned from regular student surveys, the committee supports and sponsors events and sessions for students and faculty on relevant diversity-related issues, including the annual Martin Luther King Jr. event, the diversity colloquium for faculty, and spring forums on race. The committee also coordinates with diversity-related student groups to support their efforts; supports student, staff, and faculty diversity initiatives; takes action when urgent diversity-related issues arise at the law school; and provides information and advice to the faculty about integrating diversity into the law school’s pedagogy and governance.

ONGOING, Graduate School of Education and Counseling
The graduate school trains counselors and educators to function well in diverse communities. Every program at the grad school focuses on this in multiple ways.

• Coursework: Nearly every program has one or more courses directly focused on working effectively with diverse clients/students. These courses focus on both understanding structural inequality and developing strategies as professional counselors or educators for counteracting these oppressive systems in their direct work. Also, programs have these themes of working directly with diverse clients/students running through and integrated into virtually all of their classes.

• Field Placement: Programs work hard to have the students complete their clinical or educational field placements in professional settings with diverse populations. The college analyzed the field placements data of our education programs to determine what percentage of our students did their field work in settings where more than 30% of the K-12 students were from poverty or were students of color. In all nine of our programs, at least 75 percent of students were placed in such settings.

• Student Assessment: All programs ensure that all students demonstrate success at meeting national standards related to working effectively with diverse populations. For example, attention to diversity and social justice is integrated into all courses in the program and is a component of every dimension of clinical competence on the supervisee evaluation form.

• Overall Program Planning: The graduate school ensures the integration of diversity and equity goals across program elements. For example, one department sent faculty members to statewide professional development series during the year that resulted in an action plan with the following goals:

• • Leverage monthly faculty department meetings to improve communication, learning, and growth as culturally responsive educators

  • Invest in professional development for supervisors related to culturally responsive teaching

  • Improve communication with cooperating teachers/mentors related to culturally responsive teaching

• The Diversity Committee at the graduate school leads the faculty in hour-long discussions about issues of diversity and equity during the three to five faculty meetings every year. For example, the faculty has had structured discussions about how to address microaggressions that come up in class, how to address student resistance to addressing issues of diversity in classes, and how to strategically plan around diversity goals and culturally responsive practices.