Diversity Matters!
The Department of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota strives to mirror the diversity of the community at large and remain proactively committed to principles of social justice.
We seek to create a climate of inclusivity and equity to the benefit of all students, faculty, and staff.
We affirm the mission, policies, and practices articulated by the:
- Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Office
- Graduate School Diversity Office
- Office for Equity and Diversity
As scholars and educators, we voice our long-term commitment to advancing social justice through fostering understanding of and dismantling systems of power that result in the oppression of underrepresented people in our department, institutions, organizations, and communities. In an interest to forward equity in the department, we have a commitment to put the needs of those most harmed by these systems first. Through our desire to act meaningfully, with care and grace, we hold ourselves accountable to deliberately foster attentiveness to positionality, identity, and subjectivity within systems of power to develop a more equitable department. Moreover, as these issues are intimately connected with both historical injustices and the current socio-political moment, we are committed to regularly reviewing and recalibrating our actions as continuing efforts in proactively cultivating department and university communities based on equity and care.
As part of our reflection and responsiveness, we have engaged in the following actions (last updated summer, 2023):
| Strategic Action/Initiative | Metric | Responsible unit(s) | Timeframe |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expand diverse course offerings that center the voices, perspectives, artistic contributions, and scholarship of underrepresented communities and systemic oppression in the department, college, university, and field. | Friday Noon Research (FNR) workshops dedicated to BIPOC scholars and underrepresented scholarship. | Tenure Track Faculty | 2020-2021 |
| Paid Teaching Faculty/Independent scholars for their intellectual work for FNRs. | Tenure Track Faculty | ongoing | |
| Advance equitable pedagogies through attention to positionality, identity, and subjectivity to influence equity and access; diversity; structures of power embedded in organizational processes, research methodologies, and canonical scholarly work; histories of empire and colonization and injustice; and the power of words to foster belonging. To promote what Chávez called “opportunity to speak openly about differences” (“Doing Intersectionality” 29), we encourage work from disabilities studies, critical race theory, feminist studies, and queer theory within coursework. | Create and maintain a repository for BIPOC scholarly work | DEI Committee, Graduate Students | ongoing |
| Scholars in our department participating in ODEI CEI workshop sessions on campus each semester | All | 2021-present | |
| Department presentation on Courageous Conversations for an FNR presentation | Tenure Track Faculty | 2022 | |
| Department presentation on “Having Difficult Conversations” during orientation | Teaching Faculty | 2022 | |
| Advocate for and support in hiring and offering opportunities to underrepresented, critical scholars, instructors, graduate students, research assistants, teaching assistants, mentees, and speakers in the department and across UMN | Faculty applied for and received DEI research fellowships for incoming underrepresented students | Tenure Track Faculty | ongoing |
| Build structures of support, mentoring, and retention for underrepresented students, faculty, and staff, including community-building work by recentering discussions of positioning, storytelling, and dialogue that foster a sense of positionality, identity, and subjectivity. | Implemented programs like game night, social events, and writing workshops open to all department members | DEI Committee, CGSA, and Chair | |
| Chair developing funds to increase the Tim Behme professional development fund for teaching faculty, the only teaching award given to Teaching Faculty. | Chair | Fall 2022-present | |
| Advocate for resources addressing the protection, safety and well-being of our underrepresented members, using the DEI committee as a central agent in connecting the department. | Department members engaged in Implicit Bias Awareness Workshop with Dr. Bryan Marks | All | 2022 |
| Multiple department members have trained and are in training to be Mental Health Advocates, which focuses on the mental health of underrepresented people at the University | All | 2022-present | |
| Collaborate with campus and community-academic and cultural centers, including the Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender & Sexuality Studies, The Multicultural Center for Academic Excellence, The Aurora Center for Advocacy and Education, and the Disability Resource Center as well as departments working toward similar goals such as CSCL, GWSS, and others to foster support for and connections with marginalized communities. | Employed two graduate students (one BIPOC in and another a transnational feminist of color for a summer research assistantship) connected with the RIDGSS program. | Teaching Faculty | Summer 2022 |
| Foster mindfulness and reflexivity of demands on underrepresented scholars through what Sara Ahmed called an ethic of care for one another as we create a department centering healing and safe spaces to foster trust. | The department used post-it reflection, yoga, and mindfulness exercises to help develop an understanding of the impact of department members' communicative engagement with one another | Tenure Track Faculty | 2019-ongoing |
| Department members are engaging in mindfulness workshops with the Bakken Center to aid in self-reflection and developing calm spaces | All | ongoing | |
| Facilitate regular educational workshops and community building and healing activities for students, faculty, and staff to develop and deepen cultural competencies. | Faculty hosted yoga and a departmental reflexivity exercise as part of orientation. | Tenure Track Faculty | 2019, 2020 |
| Faculty presented during orientation week on Black feminism and social somatics, which advocated for collective and individual healing and cultural change | Tenure Track Faculty | Fall 2022 | |
| Advance equity-minded measures, such as DEI focused graduate level research fellowships and travel grants set up to help address constraints and agencies of positionality, identity, and subjectivity of mentorship, that propel our students to achieve success at UMN and beyond | In response to the sticker on campus by a white supremacist group, we forwarded awareness and action-based documents like the Resources to Ensure Academic Freedom and a Healthy, Anti-racist Community | Teaching Faculty, Tenure Track Faculty | Fall 2022 |
| Develop systems of “opaque decision-making processes and pressure” for departmental decision-making and posting policy on the degree procedure process for consistency of process. | The department created a DEI-specific committee. | All | Winter 2019 |
| The DEI committee is sending out annual reports on our progress. | Tenure Track Faculty | ongoing | |
| Provide a means to open conversations about relationships between tenure faculty, graduate students, teaching faculty, and administration when it comes to fostering safe work environments | DEI Committee | ongoing |
We believe these and other inclusive actions are a shared responsibility across disciplinary areas for all students, faculty and staff as we foster healthy and inclusive scholarly environments. Across our many programs, we are committed to empowering all community members as readers, speakers, researchers, writers, educators, and agents whose words and work can create a more just and equitable world.