Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Education and Training Resources

The university will continue to develop central DEI education and training resources designed to enhance our campus climate. We will expand the diversity, equity and inclusion training program topics and our volunteer network of facilitators, the Facilitator Engagement Program (FEP). We will provide train-the-trainer development opportunities for all FEP members on existing and new training programs. We will continue to develop a web presence for our programs and resources.

Year Four Progress

In Year Four, Organizational Learning (OL) used its DEI Lifelong Learning Model to design educational resources for numerous stakeholder groups and diversity committees across campus and at Michigan Medicine. With the help of our expanded Facilitator Engagement Program and with input from our Education and Learning Advisory Group (ELAG), we added new instructor-led courses and webinars to support the initial two phases of our three-stage approach to learning: awareness, practice and modeling. Topics ranged from “Growing Your Cultural Intelligence” and “Disability Awareness and Etiquette” to “Inclusive Leadership.” By the end of June, 2020, 4,195 faculty and staff had attended 158 sessions. Since the campuswide DEI launch in October 2016, OL and through June, 2020 Michigan Medicine have together offered 1,049 instructor-led sessions serving 30,878 participants, engaging all units that submitted a DEI plan..

During the first eight months of Year Four, we continued to build capacity by growing our Facilitator Engagement Program (FEP) to include 52 facilitators. Together, these dedicated volunteers extended the reach of OL’s impact by leading 11 unit-specific custom programs for 152 attendees and facilitating 13 sessions with 921 attendees in their local departments.

When the pandemic struck in March 2020, we introduced Healing Circles webinar sessions to support our FEP cohorts emotionally during this challenging time. We also created a webinar series titled “Sheltering in Love” focused on self-care and change management relevant to the current pandemic, which reached 588 participants. Soon after the Black Lives Matter protests began, we launched the “Anti-Racism Primer: What Can I Do?” which currently has over 1,000 subscribers.

In Year Four, OL also partnered with the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching to provide a day-long workshop for deans and other university leaders focused on cultivating climates resistant to sexual harassment. In all, 382 academic leaders and their teams attended six workshop sessions, with a seventh session cancelled due to the COVID-19 crisis.

In June 2020, we released the Unconscious Bias in Recruiting and Hiring online module and collaborated with seven other units to provide education and training targeted to the university healthcare system. One of those new offerings was “Stepping In: Responding to Disrespectful and Biased Behaviors in Healthcare,” a workshop developed by University of Virginia Health. Intended to provide healthcare workers with skills and resources for addressing bigotry, prejudice, and disrespectful or biased behavior, the workshop can also be customized for non-academic units. Additionally, we created DEI learning collections on the LinkedIn Learning site focused on DEI foundational principles, COVID-19, and race equity.

Responsibility: Office of Organizational Learning