Racial climate survey
We will contract with an external consultant to advance an evaluation of the work climate of the college as it relates to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. The consultant will launch an anonymous climate survey by the end of January 2021. We are prepared to make changes to policies and practices that emerge from the feedback gathered from our faculty and staff through this confidential mechanism. We are prepared to invest in providing anti-racist training that can be implemented for all employees of Watts College, including our senior leadership team, which remains committed to modeling lifelong learning as it relates to eradicating systemic racism; this training will be informed by the feedback that emerges from the survey.
04/27/2021 UPDATE: With the help of our Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (CDI), we identified and advanced a contract with MGT Consulting Group in December 2020. An ad hoc committee of CDI was formed to work directly with MGT on two phases of this project. The first phase involved conducting interviews and focus groups with Watts employees (faculty, staff and student workers) to inform the develop of an equity and inclusion climate survey. Phase 1 was completed in March and a report with findings will be provided to us in May. An initial draft of the equity and inclusion survey instrument was developed by MGT and the CDI ad hoc committee that was informed by findings from the interviews and focus groups. The draft of the survey was submitted for university review in early April but revisions based on feedback could not be completed for distribution prior to the end of the spring semester. We will be working with the university this summer to revise such that survey will be administered in September of 2021.