Dear UW-Green Bay Students, Faculty, and Staff,
Martin Luther King Jr. stated, “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” We must follow Dr. King’s words.
As I reflect on events in Atlanta, Boulder, Minneapolis, Knoxville, and countless others, I think back to an email that I sent to the university community last year with David Jones, Chief of Police at UW-Green Bay. We have committed to do better by making UW-Green Bay an inclusive and safe place for all of our students to study and live. To me, there is nothing more important than this commitment and the actions we take along our journey to use education to make our region a more equitable place.
I know many of you are struggling. While I feel helpless to prevent violence in our society, know that you have the collective strength of your university behind you to keep moving forward. Attached you will find just a few of the things that UW-Green Bay has done to get better this year. We are committed to the journey. Every day we must try to fly. We do so by supporting each other, challenging ourselves to be better human beings, learning from each other, and giving back. I urge you again to seek support if you need it and persist. Education and continual personal growth empowers you and makes communities stronger.
Our journey must continue.
Warmly,
Michael Alexander
Chancellor
UW-Green Bay Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Update
Corey A. King
Vice Chancellor for University Inclusivity and Student Affairs
- Engaged all university faculty and staff in a EDI competency awareness training.
- Revised and launched six institutional strategic goals and relevant objectives through the UW-Green Bay’s Council for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.
- Collaborated with the YWCA to engage the University leadership including deans, department chairs in IDI Competency Development Program.
- Selected as a First-Gen Forward Institution by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA). UW-Green Bay is the first UW-System institution to receive this designation.
- Launched the Institute for Woman Leadership—committed to eliminating the barriers that narrow professional opportunities for women, pioneering programs and events, to benefit women with access to experts and supportive networks.
- Implementing the Summer Bridge Program focused on open access and reducing the achievement gap for students.
- Forged the UW-Green Bay Libraries Inclusive Reads & Conversations Program. Monthly dialogue with guest speakers on brief reading based diversity, equity, and inclusion topics.
- Launched a website #WhyUWGB Faculty & Staff Testimonials to creating an environment that recognizes, values and respects the differences we all bring to the workplace, allowing everyone to do their best work.
- Identified, for all new students, an ABC’s to EDI awareness training module through AliveTek. This module entitled “Brave & Bold Dialogues: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” will be implemented in Fall 2021 through the First Year Seminar.
- Identified a local barbershop to provide on campus services.
- Reimagined the Office of Disability Services to the Office of Student Accessibility Services with a greater emphasis for student access.
- Implemented BIPOC R.I.S.E. (Reaching Intersectional Strengths through Engagement) to provide BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and multicultural students) with academic, emotional, psychosocial, relational and professional support.
- Expanding the Pride Center to location campuses.
- UW-Green Bay has recently dedicated $1.5 million dollars to advance innovative and strategic initiatives across the institution, many of which are related to inclusivity and equity.
- UW-Green Bay has five Employee Resource Groups that are available to provide support to employees and provide a link between the faculty/staff community and institutional inclusivity efforts.
- Developed recruitment procedures (including language in our postings and required inclusive interview questions) to ensure that our institutional commitment to diversity, inclusivity, and equity is exemplified in our hiring process.
- Moving forward with inclusion of inclusivity and equity organizational competencies in position descriptions and staff performance evaluations in the near future.