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Faculty Success Services

The Faculty Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (FCDI) is committed to providing educational opportunities for students of varied cultural, religious, educational, and economic backgrounds.  It values the diversity on our campus and works toward understanding and promoting such diversity. They align their work with university-wide goals, with a particular focus on having a diverse faculty who helps students broaden both their national and international perspectives and enhance the possibilities for personal and institutional growth such diversity provides. 

The FCDI welcomes all faculty, including non-tenure-track full-time, contingent faculty and staff members who wish to volunteer to serve. 

Committee Vision

Create and sustain a civil and robust dialogue about the value of diversity and inclusivity within the faculty and staff community.

Relevance to ���ϲʿ�’s University

Per the ���ϲʿ�’s University mission, we are committed to providing educational opportunities for students of varied cultural, religious, educational, and economic backgrounds. Further, as stated in our Operating Principles, we value the diversity on our campus and commit to understanding and promoting such diversity. One particularly salient consideration in meeting these university-wide goals is to have a diverse faculty who helps students broaden both their national and international perspectives and enhance the possibilities for personal and institutional growth such diversity provides. 

Professional Development Workshops

Workshops are offered throughout the academic year.  Below are the workshops available to faculty from all Schools and Departments.  

• Developing a Framework for Understanding Social Identities
• Reflecting on our identities and their impact on those around us
• Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation: Increasing our Understanding
• Racial Microaggressions: Reflecting on Our Identities and Actions
• Exploring Immigrant Identities: Ways to Support Our Community Member
• Culturally Responsive Pedagogies: An Asset-Based Approach

Consultations

Consultations are available to individual faculty, faculty committees, and colleagues within Academic Affairs on a variety of topics including bias, search committee processes, and faculty recruitment and retention initiatives, among others. 

Professional Development Training

An Implicit Bias Training is offered to Faculty Search Committees as part of the current hiring process.  The training walks the search committee through the entire hiring process, with an emphasis on decreasing implicit bias. The training guides them to utilize best practices in their outreach, recruitment and advertising strategies to attract underrepresented candidates and expand the diversity of the pool. It also provides clarification and guidance on how to develop rubrics and matrices used to conduct an equitable search process. 

Implicit Bias Training includes:

• Creating Job Ad
• Implicit Bias Search Committee Training
• Posting the Position
• Development and Use of Rubrics
• Review and Selection of Applicants
• Preparing and Conducting Semi-finalists and
• Finalists Interviews

Faculty Committee on Diversity and Inclusion

Ways to get involved

• Email FCDI Co-Chairs: nbeck2@stedwards.edu or 
  ebernate@stedwards.edu 
• Join the Committee
• Seek mentorship
• Promote attention to diversity and inclusion in your coursework and at the departmental, school, and university levels.
• Suggest diversity and inclusion topics for professional development opportunities.

Definitions

Diversity

A diverse faculty and staff community refers to colleagues of varied social identities, abilities, and experiences, with an explicit focus on representing identities that have been historically underrepresented in academia and oppressed by systems of power and privilege.

Inclusion

Inclusion is defined as active, intentional, and ongoing engagement with, and empowerment of, individuals of diverse identities and backgrounds within university processes, activities, and decision-making. Inclusion is a practice of valuing and seeking diversity.

Sub-Committees

Proposal(s) for Faculty Senate- all members

Mentorship - Kerrie Taylor, Kisha Barrett, Jeannetta Williams, Jennifer Jefferson, Monique Jiménez-Herrera

Inclusive Memory Building Practices on Campus - Stephen King, Kisha Barrett, Jennifer Jefferson

Parental Leave Policy - Kate Lopez, Kim Garza, Natalie Beck Aguilera

FCDI Leadership

Co-chairpersons

Natalie Beck Aguilera (Social Work, School of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education) nbeck2@stewdards.edu 

Emily Bernate (Languages, Literatures and Cultures, School of Arts and Humanities) ebernate@stedwards.edu

Faculty Mentoring Program

Community Learning in Mentorship and Beyond- CLiMB

Mentorship promotes collegiality, community, professional development, significantly impacts faculty retention, and is central to our University’s mission. Mentorship on the university, school, and departmental level can benefit incoming faculty in learning the culture, current practices, resources, organizational flow, and networking; while improving teaching and learning excellence, research, and service.   

CLiMB Program Goals

1. Promote and provide formal and informal mentoring to faculty across the university.
2. Support faculty retention initiatives and promote belonging.  
3. Connect incoming and current faculty to the greater university community.
4. Provide consultation and collaboration opportunities for faculty to:
   1. Engage in scholarly activities.
   2. Plan career and professional development opportunities.
   3. Identify support for research, technical and grant writing, and publication.
   4. Apply and implement innovative pedagogical approaches.