OUTCOMES

TARGET COMPLE-TION DATE

WHO WILL MONITOR

STRATEGIES

RESULTS

Revised Goals and Objectives

II-KSW-1a

Unit will increase diversity among faculty, administrators and staff with a specific emphasis on African Americans and women.

Outcome: There will be an increase in the number of minorities at the Kent School, with specific focus on African Americans.

·     The percentage of African American faculty and staff will meet or exceed the AA population of the greater metro area.

2005

·         Dean’s Cabinet

·         Dean

·         Dean (Faculty and Staff)

·         Associate Dean for Student Services (Students)

·         Chair, Diversity Committee

·         Ensure that minorities are in the applicant pools via networking, approaching minority graduates and advertising in minority associations. Keep track of minority applicants for each search.

·         Hire qualified minorities. Keep track of minority hires.

·         Retain minorities via satisfaction and problem identification assessment strategies and mentoring.

·         Gather input from identified groups and develop plans of action to remedy any problems

·         Assess success of completing action plans and retention

One national search for a new faculty hire developed a pool of four women, including one minority person, although she did not emerge as the top choice.

The Dean meets every year with all faculty, including minority faculty to discuss satisfaction within the Department as well as career goals.

Focus groups were held with all minority students to identify problems and issues. The recruitment of minority faculty was discussed during the focus groups.

Committee meets on a regular basis to assess success.

Outcome will continue in effect.

OUTCOMES

TARGET COMPLETION DATE

WHO WILL MONITOR

STRATEGIES

Outcome: The School will maintain or exceed the percentage of women in faculty and staff positions to meet utilization targets of the University.

2005

·         Dean (Principal responsibility)

·         Principal Investigators

·         Search Committees

·         Dean’s Cabinet

·         Hire qualified women

·           Retain women via satisfaction and problem identification assessment strategies and mentoring

In 2005 we planned for a visiting professor from Mexico City who is bilingual (Spanish and English) and credentialed in Marriage and Family Therapy. She will be here in Fall 2006, supervising students who will be working with Hispanic families in Spanish. She will also be a guest speaker in a variety of social work classes.

See above regarding faculty hire.

Two research faculty were hired this year, one a male and one a female.

The School met its utilization target.

Outcome will continue in effect.

II-KSW-2a

Unit will continue its emphasis on curricular and programmatic diversity.

Outcome: The Kent School will maintain Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) accreditation.

2008

·         Deans Cabinet

·         Chair, Curriculum Committee

·         Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

·         Director, Practicum Education

·         Faculty

·         Follow the standards and mandates for inclusion of information about the working with diverse populations in the curriculum.

·         Continue to offer discrete courses in diversity

·         Continue to offer a variety of field practicum placements that provide experiences with diverse populations

·           Continue to invite minority alumni and colleagues to speak in classes

As specified by the Council on Social Work Education, Kent school continues to follow the standards and mandates for inclusion of information about working with diverse populations in our curriculum. Diversity content is both infused in our curriculum and offered as a required course that must be taken by all our students in the 60-hour program.

Kent School offers a dual Masters degree with Pan African Studies that allows students with 66 hours of study to get two masters degrees, one in Social Work and one in Pan African Studies. All students in this dual degree program do a field practicum placement with an agency in the community specifically dealing with African American clients. As a result of this, the Director of Field has recruited many new agencies throughout Kentucky related to AA’s where we can place students for their field practicum. Students in our regular program can also apply for their field practicum at these agencies.

Our first dual degree student will graduate in May 2006.

Outcome will continue in effect.

II-KSW-3a

Unit will increase diversity among graduate students, particularly African Americans

Outcome: There will be an increase in the number of minority students at the Kent School, with specific focus on African Americans.

·     The percentage of African American students will meet or exceed the AA population of the greater metro area.

2004

·         Associate Dean for Student Services

·         Chair, Recruitment Committee

·         Coordinator, Admissions

·         Associate Dean for Student Services

·         Chair, Scholarship Committee

·         Associate Dean for Student Services

·         Chair, Admissions Committee

·         Coordinator, Admissions

·         Dean’s Cabinet

·         Develop a minority recruitment plan that emphasizes African Americans

·   Increase the number of scholarships awarded to African American students

·         Increase communication with Historically Black Colleges and Universities

·      Continue attendance at recruitment activities aimed at minority students

·          Develop partnerships with agencies that serve diverse populations

Kent School appointed a Recruitment Officer in April 2003 with one of her specific job duties, the recruitment of African American students. As a result of this appointment, a minority recruitment plan was developed and our number of recruitment activities specifically targeted at the African American student population has increased each year. Examples of some of the recruitment and outreach activities are: 1) Addition of bi-monthly Prospective Student Sessions in 2005 held at the Kent School, of which 19.7% of the students in attendance were African American, 2) Minority Recruiting Events on UofL’s campus including Visitation Day (students from HBCUs come to campus), UofL Career Fairs, Charter Ceremony for the Louisville Charter of the National Association for Black Social Workers (NABSW), and the Neighborhood House Annual Meeting; 3) Other UofL campus activities including: sent postcards to undergraduate Pan African Student seniors with 3.0 GPA; visited Porter Scholars meeting to make presentations; distributed information about Kent and Prospective Student Session to Black fraternities and sororities; contacted black fraternities and sororities to make presentations; talked with Pan African Studies about bringing a Prospective Student Session to them or being included at an event that is fairly exclusive to Pan African Studies’ students; offered prospective students the opportunity to talk to a student of similar background, gender, and age; and contacted all African American applicants to encourage them to apply for scholarship; 4) Visited classrooms at Kentucky State with a current Kent African American student, who is alumni and former quarterback of Kentucky State, plus made visit to Berea College; and 5) Outreach activities in the community included announcements in Canaan Campus News, Canaan Baptist Church; advertisements in Communique (social services newsletter); and we worked with NIA Center on sharing Kent’s application materials at various times/events. Additionally, we use our scholarship money to recruit and maintain a diverse student body. In 2005-2006 academic year, the total amount we awarded was $224,267. The total number of African Americans receiving scholarship monies was 34, up from 25 the prior year. Our African American students were awarded $138,344, which accounts for about 62% of the awards. All African American student requesting financial support received support. Lastly, Graduate School also awarded an Ethnic Minority Scholarship/Graduate Assistantship to one of our African American students. The focus of the assistantship was on African American student recruitment and retention; and 8) The percentage of African American students admitted to Kent School in 2005-2006 was 13.3% of all of the admitted students. African American students accounted for 15% of the incoming class (admitted and came to Kent). In the previous year, 12.9 % of our students admitted to Kent School were African American and 14.3% of the incoming class (admitted and came to Kent) was African American.

Outcome will continue in effect.

II-KSW-4a

Unit will improve satisfaction, retention and graduation rates of African American Students and students from other under-represented groups

Outcomes: The School will establish a baseline of student satisfaction, so as to establish specific goals for improvement over time

2004

·         Associate Dean, Academic Affairs

·         Dean’s Cabinet

·         Chair, Diversity Committee

·         Include race and gender in DEY satisfaction surveys and analyze by those variables

·         Continue to use Dean’s Forums to identify problems and create solutions

·         Develop action plans for addressing problems so as to increase satisfaction, and retention

Race and gender analysis of DEY satisfaction surveys will be concluded in Summer 2006.

Dean’s Forums are held once a semester where students share their concerns with the Dean’s Cabinet. We also have an online Dean’s Forum every semester to ensure participation from as many students as possible.

This year we also held a focus group just for AA students, to discuss problems and concerns they may have. The results of these focus groups are currently being analyzed and strategies are designed to attend to any issues. Our student who was on a Minority Assistantship, helped with a literature review on retention. Certain strategies were documented and an implementation plan will be designed during the Summer to help AA students to feel more connected to the Kent School student body.

As part of the focus that Kent School places on Diversity, our KSSA student body took upon itself the organization of a Racial Profiling Seminar. The event was well attended and addressed issues of racial profiling on campus.

Outcome will continue in effect..

Outcomes: The School will establish a baseline of minority student retention so as to establish specific goals for improvement over time

2004

·         Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

·         Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

·         Associate Dean Group

·         Associate Dean, Academic Affairs

·         Chair, Diversity Committee

·         Track students across time to calculate retention rate

·         Develop a comprehensive advisement system that includes assessing students as they enter the program, connecting them with supports to help them succeed, tracking progress and solving problems through the Academic Review process and other mechanisms

·         Conduct focus groups to ascertain problems in recruiting and retaining students

·         Work closely with KSSA on these issues

·         Discuss diversity issues at faculty meetings as a part of the overall strategic plan.

A doctoral student is currently analyzing the retention rate of all Kent Student since 2000. The analysis will also be done by race and gender.

Kent School has an academic review process in place that previously acted retroactively to academic problems. The focus now is on proactively identifying potential problems that are followed up with an academic review and an action plan for the student to help him/her to be successful before major problems occur. This strategy involves the full participation of all faculty and advisors to help with early identification of problems, the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs to help faculty with the set up of academic reviews and guidance in how to create action plans for these students. Analysis by race recently indicated that AA students are over represented in academic reviews. The main reason for this is the higher volume of problems experienced by AA students. Our procedures are actively seeking solutions before it is too late. Our number of expulsions from School does not show the same over representation. This shows clearly that our pro-active strategies are working.

As already indicated, focus groups were held with AA students, to identify problems and to investigate possible solutions.

Diversity teas were held this year where faculty gather socially to discuss diversity issues.

Outcome will continue in effect.

Outcomes: The School will establish a baseline of minority student graduation so as to establish specific goals for improvement over time

2004

·         Associate Dean for Student Services

·         Track students across time to calculate graduation rates

15% of our graduates were African American students.

Retention and graduation analysis still ongoing.

Outcome will continue in effect.

II-KSW-5a

Unit will provide on-going diversity education for administrators, faculty and staff

Outcomes: The Kent School will ensure that all faculty and staff attend diversity training each year

Annually

·         Dean’s Cabinet

·         Chair, Diversity Committee

·         Dean’s Cabinet

·         Conduct a diversity audit to determine training needs

·         Continue to provide content related to diversity at school retreats, faculty meetings and staff meetings

·         Rotate membership on the Diversity Committee on an annual basis to ensure that all faculty and staff have an opportunity to take ownership of it

For 2005-2006 the Diversity Committee planned and carried out a series of “Diversiteas” to bring together people from across campus to socialize and become familiar with one another. The Diversiteas are held monthly with invitations sent to a different group of people each time.

Additionally, to keep thoughts about diversity at the forefront, the diversity committee sends out to the entire faculty and staff quotations and stories regarding oppression and racism on a bi-weekly basis.

The Kent School will ensure that all faculty and staff are involved in diversity activities each year.