The Inclusive Excellence Strategic Plan at Elizabethtown College is designed to “integrate diversity and quality efforts,” according to the official plan statement. The official plan statement, revised for 2018-2020, highlights goals, objectives, needs and directions for how Etown will grow as a diverse institution.
The plan is divided into three goals, each with varying objectives and strategies going along with it. The first goal is to affirm the commitment to and provide resources for implementing diversity at the College. The second goal is to incorporate diversity and inclusion into Etown’s identity as an institution. Lastly, the third goal is to create a more diverse and inclusive environment at the College.
This Inclusive Excellence Plan, while it has been revised for 2018-2020, has existed at the College before.
“The difference, I think, is that there has been a bit of a focus on it, but there’s been a plan that has always accompanied the strategic plan,” Director of Diversity, Inclusion and Title IX Dr. Armenta Early Hinton said.
According to Hinton, this plan is meant to apply concepts of diversity and inclusion into Etown’s identity and narrative.
“We need to be the best narrators of who it is we want to be, and who it is we’re striving to be,” Hinton said. Working in this narrative, the plan can explain diversity’s significance to students and their education according to Hinton.
However, while there is the plan and its numerous objectives, there will not necessarily be programs promoting the Inclusive Excellence Plan.
“That’s not what this is about. It’s about infusing this into the fabric of who we are,” Hinton said. The plan and its implementation, rather, will be done more subtly in a “seamless process” when applied to the curriculum and other parts of campus.
Since this plan is more subtle and is not program-heavy, its implementation comes with a lot of challenges. One of those challenges is that it has to be an institutional effort pushing its implementation, instead of just the Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Title IX or a small collection of offices advancing it.
“We haven’t necessarily found the right formula as an institution on how to make it a seamless process,” Hinton said. “That’s what we’re working on.”
The Office of Diversity plans to overcome that challenge by continuing to work with other parts of campus, such as with the institution, students, faculty and staff in order to not make it a “them versus us” issue, and to have everyone on board in moving forward.
Associate professor of education and diversity faculty fellow Dr. Shannon Haley-Mize spoke about her role in integrating the Inclusive Excellence Plan.
“My project is looking at doing focus groups with students, interviews with different offices across campus, trying to see what policies and practices we’re using that are in line with our plan,” Haley-Mize said. “Hopefully that will inform what we do moving forward.”
Since the Office of Diversity is looking to integrate diversity in a subtle, natural manner, they are doing so by collaborating with other departments and offices on campus. In these collaborations, the Office of Diversity can include diverse themes and promote inclusion across campus in various different curricula.
Members of the Etown community might recognize the Inclusive Excellence Plan from it being mentioned in the recent email sent out by the Office of the President, which gives a recap of the Board of Trustees meeting held in Philadelphia. According to Hinton, the plan was well-received by the Board of Trustees members.
The 2018-2020 revision to the Inclusive Excellence Plan serves as an example of how the Office of Diversity is reflecting on the plan and its success as time goes on. According to Haley-Mize, one of the reasons why they have this plan is to “keep going back to it as we work on who we’re presenting ourselves as an institution.”
In comparison, other colleges have inclusion and diversity strategic plans similar to the one here at Etown. Bucknell University and Gettysburg College are two examples of colleges with good strategic diversity plans, and Hinton said she hoped that Etown can reach a similar level as theirs someday.
“It’s not easy,” Hinton said. “It’s almost like reinventing who you are: getting up every day, deciding you’re going to do something different, to be something different.” Though she also said where Etown is currently is not a bad thing; however, there is still some work to be done at Etown on embracing more and making the diversity and differences at Etown a bigger part of the College’s every day identity.
More information on the Inclusive Excellence Plan, as well as on the Office of Diversity, can be found on the College’s website at www.etown.edu/offices/diversity.
