We Are Champions of Diversity:

A Reward and Recognition Program

at UC Riverside

Submitted for the Capstone Project Requirement of

Making Excellence Inclusive: A UC Riverside Diversity Certificate Program (2010)

Project Team Members:

Christy Brown Anderson •Frances Fernandes •Brandy Quarles •Lisa Warren

Executive Summary

Our purpose is to develop a reward and recognition program that will promote Champions of Diversity who help the campus community in building a spirit of inclusiveness while it meets its diversity goals.

UC Riverside is already a diverse campus as stated in previous campus reports. The question is, How to construct a program that helps this community be more inclusive?

We decided we needed a twofold process:

  1. Identify the status and planned activities of departments/colleges/ schools and individuals in furthering the diversity of its members in compliance with the campus’ Affirmative Action Plan;
  1. Analyze and evaluate efforts that promote and foster inclusiveness within the units and within UC Riverside's richly diverse population.

Risks to this new program are the time commitment and complete participation by all levels of personnel.

The benefit to the campus is this program would be an additional tool in furthering the Affirmative Action Plan and allowing input by all levels of personnel to create opportunities of inclusion.

Success of the program may be measured by the increase in department compliance, staff retention, and campus climate satisfaction, as well as a reduction in complaints and hate crimes. Communicating the administration’s support of this program will provide some of the impetus to ensuring on-going success, and, more importantly, increasing networking and mutual understanding and appreciation on campus.

Introduction

UC Riverside is nationally recognized as one of the most diverse campuses in the country. In 2009, U.S. News and World Report placed UC Riverside as the fifth most diverse campus in the nation. Members of the faculty, students and staff hail from all parts of the globe and represent a multitude of ethnicities, cultures, and socio-economic levels. The richness of UC Riverside’s diversity is a bounty that benefits the entire campus community as we move into an increasingly more global and multicultural 21st century world.

In the April 2008 UC Report of the Staff Diversity Council, the Council called for the formation of systems to recognize leaders who establish effective programs that model ethical values and support the growth and placement of a diverse leadership pipeline by:

  • Providing UC administrators with information on promising practices across the UC system and elsewhere that encourage, value and support diversity.
  • Promoting the involvement in workforce diversity strategies of both non-academic and academic employees who manage and supervise staff.
  • Encouraging and publicizing career success stories across the system.

UC Riverside values and promotes the diversity of its campus community. At a time when the Chancellor is requesting a unified approach to promoting and sustaining a welcoming environment of diversity on campus, the Reward and Recognition Work Group of the 2010 class in the Making Excellence Inclusive: A UCR Diversity Certificate Program have taken the opportunity to investigate and evaluate such efforts at other universities.

Many universities did have annual diversity award programs of limited scope. Those programs may not yet be as effective in changing their campus culture into one of inclusion. A few universities, however, attempted a more holistic approach that encompassed all segments of the campus community. Thus the working group concluded that UC Riverside should take a two-level approach to promoting and rewarding diversity:

1.Create a framework for each organizational unit on campus to facilitate:

  • reflecting on and envisioning their own needs for creating diversity and a welcoming inclusive environment;
  • providing a management structure for evaluating units' progress in this area and rewarding those whose performance is exemplary.

2.Organizing an annual campus-wide recognition event to acknowledge the efforts of organizational structures as well as outstandingindividuals.

Problem Definition

Although a few individual campus units have taken the initiative to declare diversity a primary valueor institute in-house awards (e.g. Computing & Communications' Commitment to Diversity), no campus-wide program recognizes and rewards these efforts and gains made by departments, colleges, schools, and individuals in this area.

A successful program would be proactive in creating opportunities to be inclusive and would not leave the campus climate changes up to chance.

Not positively pursuing a uniformly welcoming and inclusive environment on this campus, or any work/study environment, may affect UC Riverside in a number of critical ways, especially in difficult economic times:

  1. It will not enhance the campus’ ability or put the University in the best position to recruit the best and the brightest – be they students, faculty or staff – at a time when UC Riverside is aiming to elevate its status among academic institutions.
  2. It does not fully tap into UC Riverside's diversity, one of the campus’ most valuable assets.
  1. It lessens the campus’ ability to provide students with a 21st century educational experience that takes into account such issues as

advances in knowledge from a global perspective, and broad disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning that looks at issues from the point of view of a wide range of global stakeholders.

Conversely, having a uniform vision of what inclusiveness means on this campus – along with uniform structure within which units can develop their own vision of that inclusiveness and broadcast their successes campus- and community-wide – provides direction and impetus for campus units to join in the welcoming campus atmosphere that the university is seeking.

UC Riverside has a leadership and an upper management that actively and sincerely supports diversity and an inclusive and welcoming environment. Chancellor Timothy White said in his inauguration speech in April 2009:

“Living the promise means realizing the potential in each of us and in all of us … “

Although Chancellor White's vision and commitment to diversity provide a solid foundation for a campus-wide program, success will evade us unless campus units see their role as proactive rather than compliant.

Best Practices

The We Are Champions of Diversity Reward and RecognitionProgram was developed after examining approaches to diversity enhancement at a variety of institutions of higher education across the country and very specifically within the UC system.

Broadly speaking, programs fell into two categories:

1.Awards programs of varying degrees of sophistication that honored students, faculty and/or staff who demonstrated a commitment to diversity.

2.An annual diversity audit that evaluated organizational units' progress in planning for or improving numerical diversity and taking steps toward creating a more inclusive and welcoming operating environment.

However, those who study inclusiveness seem to take the process a step further. According to Carlos Cortés, a national expert in diversity training and multiculturalism, author and emeritus professor of history at UC Riverside, a major shift in consciousness is required before people can make the transition from ethnocentrism to inclusiveness and multicultural awareness.

In his article "Implementing a Multicultural Vision," Cortés notes that groups that engage in "envisioning" diversity will constantly improve in contributing to a constructive multicultural future. Together they will learn to address current and future challenges and discover new diversity-related opportunities. He sees three core criteria for successful envisioning of diversity in an organization:

1.Continuity – constantly recreating one's organizational vision.

2.Enrichment – continuously expanding the goals of becoming a more diversity-responsive organization (rather than fixed targets).

3.Action – stimulating action in response to the ever-evolving vision.

Cortés believes that, if envisioning diversity becomes a continuous part of an organization's way of life, the members of the unit can transcend many of the restraints that prevent them from participating in a multicultural world with empathy. Envisioning and transcending provides a more effective and far-reaching approach, according to Cortés, because it views diversity not as a problem to be solved, but as a strengthto be grasped and built upon.

Diversity provides a new and more effective way of seeing and enables an organization to operate with greater potential. Many organizations and certainly all UC campuses have successfully begun developing a comprehensive approach to diversity – guarding against discrimination and ensuring fairness. However, the focus has been on recruiting fairly and issues of retention, advancement, and compliance.

Thus, a program at UC Riverside should seek to encompass the elements that enable an organizational unit to:

  • Foster aculturally inclusive climate. Unit members should determine actions that foster a more inclusive climate, make everyone feel welcome, draw upon their culturally based experience to contribute fully to greater efficiency and an expanded vision.
  • Create an expectation ofequity and cultural accommodation. Rather than treating everyone alike, units and the people that comprise them need to create equity in context and a genuine atmosphere of inclusiveness.
  • Maintain structural integrity.Because change should be constant and on-going, all members must be confident that they are integral to the envisioning of their unit, not merely peripheral to the mandates of their leaders.

To be a successful campus-wide endeavor, the program will succeed in promoting inclusiveness when it is adopted by management, and their support for the benefits to their departments and the campus is positively disseminated throughout the units. Staff, faculty, and students will be more inclined to participate when they are assured that their efforts and actions will be supported.

A formal campus-wide Reward and RecognitionProgram that recognizes the efforts gives credence to the verbal assurances that the work involved is of value to the mission of the university. A reward component provides a tangible acknowledgement and reinforcement of an individual’s exemplary involvement.

Steps to accomplishing this goal:

1.Assessment of the current situation. Taking stock of the here-and-now allows for the envisioning of future benchmarks.

2.Laying out the overall plan. What are the mechanics, the timeline and the rationale for the program? What kinds of events or activities will facilitate progress towards that vision?

3.Planning the steps toward execution.

  • Test run of the "audit" on a couple of departments.
  • Discussion and modification at Chancellor and Provost level.
  • Launch the program.
  • Send out initial material for goal-setting.
  • Set deadline for material return.
  • Set criteria and timeline for first (and subsequent) year evaluation and individual awards.

4.First-year evaluation of reports by Chancellor’s Diversity Advisory Committee. In addition to their evaluations, the committee should provide feedback and possible suggestions for improvement especially during the first year.

5.Celebration of unit and individual success

6.Evaluation and modification of the program – an annual occurrence. An annual process of feedback and evaluation is necessary because it is vital that the process remain proactive rather than reactive so that the envisioning remains fluid.

Non-monetary rewards generally have a longer lasting impact on the recipient than do monetary rewards. Receiving a cash reward, even a gift card, provides a short-lived effect once the reward is spent.

In fact, research shows that non-monetary honors in the form of public recognition by the leader of the organization and dissemination of that approval throughout the community, has long-lasting effects on the individuals and their associates. (Hyer)

In addition, tokens such as lapel pins, or a personalized mug or plaque, allow the recipient to retain their reward for a substantially longer period of time as well as being able to display it to co-workers, family, or friends. (US Office of Personnel Management, 1995).

Thus a program at UC Riverside should look to rewards that provide public and community-wide recognition (such as an annual reception with the Chancellor), information about which would be disseminated in a variety of different ways.

Solution Details

In order for this program to work, especially in quarters where acknowledging diversity may be currently seen as a duty rather than a delight, one unified vision about diversity needs to be disseminated: that diversity and inclusiveness at UC Riverside involve creating a welcoming environment in an increasingly more global world.

The annual diversity feedback process is a way for this community to work together and goes beyond the simple counting of the numbers of people who reflect the rich diversity of the campus. As such numbers are only one indicator of an organizational unit's progress. These are not punitive audits.

We believe it is absolutely essential that each organizational unit draw up its own annual diversity goals, which may include such things as staffing ratios more reflective of the State’s overall diversity ratios (as budgets and funding allow) and holding events which facilitate inclusiveness between its members (staff, students, faculty). However, units should be provided with basic tools such as state, regional, and campus population breakdowns for comparison so that there is a benchmark for goal setting.

Such metrics will be essential when the unit makes its annual report to the Chancellor’s Diversity Advisory Committee.

Note:

We would like to stress promoting the concept of inclusiveness, both within the unit, and between the unit and the administration. A number of guidelines need to be in place:

  1. The focus of this annual exercise is to be a joint, community effort, striving toward a common goal together, rather than the more punitive implications of an audit.
  2. The message thatevery person and their contribution counts should be reinforced by such methods as listing the unit's current staff from the lowest-paid to the highest, rather than the reverse, and each department might send out an electronic survey with an area for ideas and comments.
  3. Theprocess needs to remain transparent. In order to avoid a few individuals dominating the process, having an opportunity for full participation and input by the entire unit during the goal setting phase and to comment on the final plan must be ensured.

Suggested content for the annual feedback format:

Annual Feedback on DepartmentEnvironment

"It's a Vision Thing"

We invite the ______department to consider two principal areas of promoting a diverse and inclusive campus environment. You will have one month to assemble all the members of your unit to set your goals for the year. In 12 months, we will ask you to submit a progress report that shows in concrete and measurable ways how far you have progressed toward your goals.

  1. How successfully is your department moving toward creating a richly varied workforce that embodies as fully as possible the perspectives of the multicultural society and the global environment for which we are educating our students?
  • List current employees by job title and measurable areas of diversity.
  • Note open positions or expected openings.
  • Identify plans for recruitment by general job classification if and when positions open.
  1. How successfully is your department working as a group to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for your current unit "family?" Full staff input is vital to ensure each department employs appropriate measures to develop a welcoming and inclusive environment. Some examples:
  • Trainingfor supervisors in such areas as recognizing and responding to issues of sexual harassment, hostile work environment, diversity-related legal issues and their costs to the university
  • Diversity related courses attended by faculty and staff
  • Culture days instituted
  • Mini-discussion sessions
  • In-house blogs or listserv

3.Nominate staff members within your unit for an Individual Champion of Diversity award.

THE DEPARTMENT AWARD

Departments that have completed the campus’ Affirmative Action requirements and can show at least 80% progress toward their goals of inclusion will be selected by the Chancellor’s Diversity Advisory Committee and will be honored by the Chancellor. These departments which have been chosen will have their name inscribed on a We Are Champions of Diversity plaque. The plaque will be displayed in the Chancellor’s Office where all visitors can view the continually growing list of departments who are succeeding at creating an inclusive, welcoming 21st century environment at UC Riverside.

THE INDIVIDUAL AWARD

Individuals deserving of notice because of their outstanding accomplishments or leadership in helping create a more inclusive and welcoming environment on the UC Riverside campus will be selected by the Chancellor’s Diversity Advisory Committee on the basis of recommendations from the organizational units as well as individual nominations from members of the campus community. A person may also submit a self-recommendation directly to the Chancellor’s Diversity Advisory Committee.

THE CHANCELLOR’S DIVERSITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The Chancellor’s Diversity Advisory Committee will review the annual feedback reports and make written recommendations to the Office of Faculty and Staff Affirmative Action. These reports will encompass a critique of the year's performance, suggestions for greater inclusiveness, and recommendations for units to be honored as UC Riverside Champions of Diversity. The Chancellor’s Diversity Advisory Committee will also select from these reports and from the individual nominations, members of the campus for individual UC Riverside Champion of Diversity awards.

The We Are Champions of Diversity Reward and Recognition Program looks to recognize and reward the units and individuals at the annual reception for graduates of the Making Excellence Inclusive program.

  • Individual honorees will receive a “UCR Diversity Champion” lapel pin.
  • Organizational units will have their name on a metal plate affixed to the UC Riverside We Are Champions of Diversity plaque, which will be on continuous and prominent display in the Chancellor’s Office.
  • All people and units will have photographs taken with the Chancellor that will be framed for public display in their offices.
  • The Office of Strategic Communications will write articles about the honorees to disseminate to the local press, UCR Insider, UCR Magazine, the Highlander, and other student media as appropriate.
  • Organizational units will also be provided access to the We Are Champions of Diversity logo for use on their websites.

Risks