Spokane Falls Community College’s Equity Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan for 2022-2024 was anchored in three primary strategic goals. The first two of these goals, were essentially mandates from the state legislature and were as follows:
Goal #1 To increase equity of service to students of historically and racially marginalized/minoritized populations with strategic emphases via the implementation of a culturally appropriate outreach program and culturally appropriate services to students.
Goal #2 To increase equity of outcomes/professional opportunity/development for faculty/staff from historically and racially marginalized/minoritized populations through the implementation of an employee diversity program which will be designed to meet the specialized needs of faculty, staff and administrators.
The third goal was a proposal included by the newly hired (May of 2022) Dean of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion to help to position SFCC to begin being guided by the voices of the community that we are ostensibly positioning ourselves to more successfully serve. As we deepen relationships, we position ourselves to invite them to the table on a more consistent and sustained basis to help to hold us more regularly accountable and to benefit from their insights and experiences informing our practices.
Goal #3 To create a self-sustaining climate of continually improving inclusive practices informed by deepening relationships in community
Each of these primary goals required the development of both tactics and strategies, as well as metrics to critically assess our own progress or lack thereof. The design of the plan was informed by a combination of contributions from the DEGA governance group (Diversity, Equity and Global Awareness) and the coalescing insight of the new Dean for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, hired specifically to both design and guide the implementation of this strategic plan.
Hired in May of 2022, as this Dean, I began reviewing both the contributions from DEGA and assessing the climate, the status of ongoing and/or historic efforts and considering the nature of both the climate and the resources necessary to undertake these efforts. As with any plan, one must be prepared to adapt as necessary as the implementation of the efforts begins to reveal relevant information in the way that the adaptation from theory to reality always does.
This narrative will summarize the status of these efforts and tell the story of how they have evolved from their initial conception and will help to position this work so that, in the development of the next Strategic Plan for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, we are able to benefit from both the positive and negative experiences that the implementation to date has produced. This exercise should result in a more refined and effective iteration of not only strategies and tactics related to the goals we will be adhering to, but to the evolution of the relevant metrics as well. Not only do we expect our plan to evolve into another iteration, but we have already seen that our initial plan has evolved as it was implemented. This narrative captures the nature of this evolution.