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DEIB Strategic Plan

Vision

Creating a culturally responsible community and environment for an increasingly complex world.

Mission

​​To create and lead a widely diverse student, faculty, and staff community in fostering a culture that is welcoming, supportive, and representative of the population we serve.

Objective

Promote diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice through our teaching, research, and clinical care. Our four priorities are recruitment, belonging & climate, education & curriculum, and community building & engagement.

Strategic Priorities

Recruitment & Retention: We are committed to increasing recruitment and retention specifically for historically excluded, marginalized, and/or underrepresented groups in optometry and vision science. The goal is for all programs within the school to reflect the diverse local, regional, state, and national communities we serve. Additionally, the school strives to create supportive structures, protocols, and governance in our efforts to recruit and retain diverse students, faculty, and staff.

Belonging & Climate: We are committed to creating an inclusive and welcoming environment. Our school seeks to improve the quality of interpersonal, academic, and professional interactions, which is grounded in respect for others, nurtured by open dialogue between those of differing perspectives, and evidenced by a consistent pattern of authentic interactions among community members.

Education & Curriculum: We are committed to creating an educational environment that will explicitly address health inequities, health disparities, racism, disability, homophobia and other oppressive acts in health care. Our goal is to create a curriculum for our students that will ensure they graduate as competent clinicians and researchers with demonstrable cultural humility.

Community Building & Engagement: We are committed to strengthening relationships and building partnerships with internal, university-level, and external community members in order to advance equity, inclusion, and belonging. To achieve this goal, we plan to use both professional and non-transactional interactions to help establish trust and create authentic and lasting relationships within our communities.

Strategic Aims

  1. Recruit and retain diverse students, staff, and faculty through inclusive and equitable practices that enable individuals and cohorts to thrive as demonstrated by successful completion of their degree granting program, professional development and advancement, or promotion.
  2. Ensure all aspects of diversity, including, but not limited to, socioeconomic, cultural, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, and racial and ethnic backgrounds are embraced in our community are essential to our School’s core values and guiding principles.
  3. Provide safe and brave spaces to promote a sense of belonging and improved campus climate for students, faculty, and staff.
  4. Provide health equity, health disparity, anti-racism, anti-homophobia, anti-oppressive, and culturally humble education for students, staff, faculty, and alumni.
  5. Strengthen relationships and build partnerships with internal, university-level, and external communities in order to advance equity, inclusion, and belonging.