Focus Group Listening Sessions

The COS DEJI WG met during October 2020 – June 2021 to engage in a deliberative process utilizing the Office of Institutional Diversity’s Adaptive Strategic Planning for Inclusive Excellence. This framework included shared group learning, deliberation of foundational questions and the collection of vision input from stakeholders through three general focus group listening sessions open to all community members in the college, four special sessions comprising college leadership, staff, undergraduate and graduate students and a Qualtrics survey open to all community members. The COS DEJI Working Group deliberated a set of foundational questions that arose through our shared group learning. To answer these questions, our group reviewed the literature and debated the adoption of evidence-based strategies for the proposed actions in this DAP. These foundational questions were posed to the entire college community at our focus group listening sessions. We describe these activities briefly to this DAP. The visioning and deliberation by members of the COS DEJI WG and stakeholders informed the actions associated with each of the five goals in the DAP.

Below are outlined the different sessions and the numbers of participants in each. Sessions with more than 10 participants were further divided into several groups of up to 10 participants and were moderated by a member of the COS DEJI Working Group. In addition, a note-taker either from the working group or college staff was assigned to take notes. Finally, an anonymous Qualtrics survey feedback option was provided to the entire college community.

Focus Group Listening Session Details

These sessions were organized in February 2021 with a total of 82 participants in person (via Zoom) and 25 participants online. Facilitators include moderators and note-takers.

Composition of the in-person and Qualtrics survey participants

• 40 undergraduate students participated (34 in person and 6 online)
• 23 graduate students, postdocs, and research assistants participated (12 in person and 11 online)
• 1 classified staff member participated (in person)
• 9 professional faculty participated (in person)
• 26 instructional, fixed term, and tenure-track faculty participated (18 in person and 8 online)
• 8 administrators participated (in person)
• 107 total participants (82 in person and 25 online)

For all the sessions that were conducted in-person, the participants were provided with advance material that included conversational guidelines and a set of foundational questions put together by the COS DEJI WG, for deliberation at a 90-minute focus group listening session. Our facilitators moderated these discussions and note-takers took notes of each session. These notes were compiled by the working group and broad themes and issues that emerged were summarized and collected to form part of the basis of this diversity action plan. Below we include the communication that was sent to the College of Science community including the conversation guidelines and the foundational questions. The foundational questions were modified in length to fit some of the sessions that were 60-minutes long and modified in content for the session involving college leadership to include a focus on leadership.

Review of draft DAP by internal and external stakeholders

A semi-final version of the DAP was circulated on May 5, 2021, with stakeholders internal and external to the College of Science. The invitation to the stakeholder group asked them to review the DAP and provide feedback via a Stakeholder Qualtrics Survey (see section B.1) by May 19, 2021. Extensive feedback from this second set of vision collection informed the final version of Embedding Equity, Access and Inclusion. The COS-DEJI committee collectively reviewed and analyzed the feedback that was received, incorporated the feedback into the DAP and presented a final DAP with recommendations to Dean Haggerty. Below, we present information about the stakeholders invited to give feedback in this process. We note that, to keep all the feedback on an equal footing, the only information collected from stakeholders who responded to our Qualtrics Survey (see the requesting letter in Section B.1) was whether the stakeholder was internal or external to COS. Thus, we do not have further classifying information on who responded to our survey.

Stakeholders Invited to Review the DAP

Internal Stakeholders Invited

Out of 33 internal stakeholders invited to participate, 13 provided feedback.

• 9 undergraduate students (including Ecampus)
• 5 graduate students, post docs, and research assistants
• 2 professional faculty
• 8 faculty (instructional, fixed term, tenure-track)
• 9 executives/administrators
• 33 total (invited)
• 13 total (received feedback)

External Stakeholders Invited

Out of 28 external stakeholders invited to participate, 14 provided feedback.

• 13 professional faculty
• 3 faculty (instructional, fixed term, tenure-track)
• 12 executives/administrators
• 28 total (invited)
• 14 total (received Feedback)

B.1: Stakeholders Qualtrics Survey

The following information was sent to selected stakeholders via a Qualtrics Survey to collect feedback on a semi-final version of the DAP.