In June of 2023, a Strategic Equity and Anti-Racism Roadmap for Change was launched to progress UBC’s equity and anti-racism priorities. Now, I am pleased to release a report on the progress of our efforts and to invite you to join me at an upcoming session where I will share highlights. Please note that we have scheduled five sessions – one open session and four additional dedicated sessions to specifically engage historically, persistently and systemically marginalized community members.
The report includes an update on institutional indicators of change, status of institutional strategic actions, an inventory of decentralized efforts and strategic learnings. Preliminary indicators inform our understanding of leadership and employee engagement, compositional diversity and community experiences of the climate. As of March 31, 2024, our assessment reveals that out of the 135 institutional strategic actions outlined in the roadmap, nearly three quarters are either completed, ongoing or in progress. This assessment also provides an opportunity to work with institutional leads to understand and address barriers to those actions reported as “not yet started.”
Highlights of institutional-level efforts include contributions to the Black excellence ecosystem, advancements in inclusive research, guidance and promotion of equitable hiring practices, securing spaces for networking and community-buildingamongst historically, persistently, systemically marginalized (HPSM) community members and enhancing campus EDI capacity building.
The report also uncovers a high level of decentralized engagement in activities that advance equity and anti-racism – particularly those that relate to equitable and inclusive curriculum, pedagogy, and hiring practices. It also identifies areas where efforts can be expanded, such as those related to unit-level conflict engagement capacity building and employee development and retention.
This progress report is based on a robust evaluation methodology focused on four sources of insight: (1) administrative and survey data; (2) self-reported information on the status of institutional strategic actions; (3) an inventory of academic and administrative units’ activities; and (4) strategic learnings from continuous assessment and reflection.
As we move forward with the roadmap implementation, we will continue to engage in regular reflection and dialogue with implementation partners to assess what we are learning about our efforts as they unfold. We will also make iterative adjustments to our implementation and evaluation approaches and reporting back to the community
Dr. Arig al Shaibah
Associate Vice-President, Equity and Inclusion