Diversity, Education, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee

The DEI Committee addresses and supports diversity, equity, and inclusion within the School of Nursing & Health Innovations.

Purpose Statement: 

Create and foster a just culture of belonging that eliminates barriers to diversity, equity, and inclusion within the UPSONHI.

2024-25 Committee Chair: Dr. Toyin Olukotun

Subcommittees:

• Education
  
  • This subcommittee helps in the preparation of faculty, staff and students to create and sustain a culture of equity and inclusion. There is an ongoing Social Justice Study Group (created by Dr. Ruha Benjamin) through weekly meetings, connecting current events to historical processes and individual experiences to institutional policies, exercising a sociological imagination to not only analyze but transform ourselves and the world around them.
• Curriculum 
  • This subcommittee leads the evaluation and implementation of DEI initiatives throughout the curriculum. The subcommittee has performed a literature search focusing on how diversity and inclusion are actualized within nursing curricula and is working to identify a tool to review courses for best practices in diversity and inclusion.
• Student
  
  • This subcommittee aims to prepare students to create and sustain a culture of equity and inclusion. To build the members' own foundation of knowledge, the DEI Student Subcommittee offers student town halls and workshops throughout the academic year to help transform themselves and the world around them.

Goals for the 2024-25 Academic Year:

All School of Nursing & Health Innovations committees will support the implementation of the DEI Action Plan for Change. The DEI Committee will focus specifically on: (1) enhancing commitment to meeting our School's DEI goals for students, faculty, and staff with shared accountability with the university, (2) engaging in radical listening to raise the voices of those who are often silenced and unheard, (3) providing mandatory foundational learning opportunities for SONHI faculty and staff grounded in racial and social justice that will create an anti-racist culture of equity and inclusivity, and (4) broadly sharing the work of the DEI Committee. In particular, the DEI Committee will lead the review and revision of the SONHI's DEI Action Plan for Change.

Past Event Highlights:

• 2021-Present: DEI Student Subcommittee hosts student events, such as townhalls on burnout and imposter syndrome, as well as a community prom
• 2020-Present: Ongoing SONHI Social Justice Study Group following the work of Dr. Ruha Benjamin
• 2023-24:
  • Faculty/staff professional development sessions: Relationship Centered Pedagogy: A Trauma-Informed Approach and Trauma-Informed Education
  • UP Faculty Development Day presentation on holistic advising
• 2022-23:
  • Faculty/staff professional development sessions: Creating an LGBTQIA+ Inclusive Learning Environment, Development of the Curriculum Evaluation Tool for DEI, Compassionate Communication and Faculty-Staff Exchange
• 2021-22:
  • Faculty/staff professional development sessions: Inclusive Strategies for Learning Communities, Decolonize Your Syllabus, 8 Tools to Mitigate Implicate Bias, and Bystander Intervention on College Campuses
• 2020-21:
  • Faculty/staff professional development sessions: Interculturally Skilled Instruction Across Barriers, Social Justice and Ethics, Avoiding Racial Trauma in the Classroom, Understanding Inclusive Excellence, and Mass Incarceration
• 2020:
  • Diversity Dialogues: Racial Bias in the Healthcare System discussion panel
  • Trans Dudes with Lady Cancer film and discussion panel
  • Trauma Informed Care workshop led by Dr. Mandy Davis
  • Cultural Humility workshop with faculty, staff, and students led by Dr. Jann Murray-Garcia
  • Hard Conversations professional development session facilitated by Patti Digh and Victor Lee Lewis 

We invite you to send your thoughts, recommendations, and experiences to EquityInNursing@up.edu. This email account is monitored only by a limited number of BIPOC staff of the School of Nursing & Health Innovations who will bring your thoughts forward to leadership. We want to amplify your voices because they will be listened to and have power at UP. We will work even harder to advocate for our students; to ensure that they are heard and represented on our campus and to ensure the School of Nursing & Health Innovations is a safe and welcoming place for every student.