Foster Dialogue

Key Highlights and Opportunities

Highlights:  

• DI&A topics continue to be organically and intentionally integrated into meetings, events, classrooms and informal conversations across campus amongst both students and employees.  
• The Celebration of DI&A at Mines event continues to grow each year, offering more opportunities for discussion and learning around DI&A topics.  
• Students’ response to the DI&A presentation during fall 2021 welcome weekend was met with excitement and enthusiasm for Mines’ DI&A goals.  

Opportunities: 

• Find new ways to engage more Orediggers to participate in the #OrediggersForEquity campaign. 
• Increase dialogue and succession planning with Council members as units and departments rotate their DI&A representatives each year. 
• Continue to grow the number of “Fostering Dialogue” activities across campus. 

Create and implement a communication plan that informs the community of DI&A resources and fosters dialogue

There are several communication efforts to elevate topics around DI&A at Mines. Here are some ways that folks can engage in dialogue with respect to DI&A at Mines:  

#OrediggersForEquity
Every Monday we ask campus to set aside 30 minutes to learn more about racial equity in STEM. Help the Mines community continue to learn and take action regarding DI&A and racism on campus. We’d love to hear your thoughts and what you’ve been working on so we can share with the Mines campus and encourage others to take these necessary steps as we climb together.  Tell us about a resource you’ve found insightful, or share a story about how your team, class, department or organization is discussing and addressing issues related to DI&A or racism. Share what you’re learning on social media by using  #OrediggersForEquity so we can feature your efforts on our resources webpage. 

• Share your #OrediggersForEquity initiative  
• Check out what others are doing across campus for #OrediggersForEquity

DI&A Digest
Sign up to receive a monthly update about all things DI&A! During the academic year, the DI&A Digest is sent to Orediggers’ inboxes highlighting what’s happening in the DI&A space across campus and from the Mines DI&A team. To read past Digests, navigate to the main Diversity at Mines website and scroll down to “News” at the bottom. To receive the DI&A Digest, sign up here for the listserv by emailing the Mines DI&A team.  

The President’s Council on DI&A
In order to address current and emerging national and global challenges, it is important to learn with and from people who have different backgrounds, thoughts and experiences. The council was introduced in spring 2017; the purpose was to engage representatives from the Mines community in developing a Strategic Plan for DI&A. Now that the Strategic Plan has been published and we’re working towards our goals, the Council participates in monthly meetings to stay informed on what’s happening with regard to DI&A at Mines. The purpose of these monthly meetings is to engage all departments and campus units in guiding the Mines DI&A team, supporting their unit DI&A diversity efforts, to share best practices with each other and facilitate communication between the campus community and leadership. Each of the 40+ units have one representative present at each meeting. Learn more about the history of the council on the DI&A strategic planning webpage. 

Real Talk
Since March 2020, community members in the CLASS division of Student Life have been hosting an initiative called, “Real Talk.” It’s where colleagues come to learn about and discuss diversity, equity and inclusion topics through active dialogue each week. The Real Talk committee has written and shared Real Talk Weekly Email Discussions nearly every week of the year and those email discussions have contributed to regular conversations of equity-focused topics and current events. Real Talk offered numerous Dialogue and Skill-Building Events for all of campus and the committee also presented at the DI&A Annual Symposium. In Spring 2021, the Real Talk committee launched, “Listen & Learn Clubs,” focused on dialogue and skill building around topics of race, gender and/or ability. 

Community Conversations
The Arthur Lakes Library started hosting “Community Conversations” about DI&A topics. One focused on the concept of privilege, which was hosted by Maribel Colome & Betsy Chanthapaseuth, two social workers that lead discussions about privilege. The purpose of this event was to create a safe space for all participants to engage in a courageous conversation about privilege. Both facilitators approached this topic in a space of education, self-identification and with a non-judgmental stance while leading with our hearts through a multicultural lens. By joining this conversation, we hoped attendees will be able to identify their individual privilege and the intersectionality’s to use as a pledge to create equity.

Information and Technology Solutions (ITS)
Starting in 2021, ITS started publishing DI&A highlights in their internal newsletter, which is sent to nearly 100 employees. Highlights included DI&A workshop opportunities and summaries of articles that have relevant diversity, equity and inclusion topics such as managing imposter syndrome, inclusive classroom learning community and the ITS Roundtable efforts.  

Petroleum Engineering “DI&A Minute”
PE started an initiative to share facilitation of DI&A topics of unique importance to each person at the weekly department meetings. Modeled after “safety minute” in industry, these topics range broadly and have opened dialogue and conversation among the departmental teams and department as a whole. This will be an ongoing part of PE’s DI&A strategy. Topics covered include anti-racism, female experiences in the oil and gas industry, personal perspectives of race and religion in the US (led by people with immigrant identities), intersectionality, code switching, structural racism, DI&A in government, DI&A and global poverty, among others. 

Mines DI&A Symposium: “Celebration of DI&A”
Each year in the spring semester, the Mines DI&A team hosts a day-long learning and development event, complete with workshops, guest speakers, lunch and flash talks. This is a great opportunity for Mines community members to learn about new DI&A topics that can increase inclusion and belonging, practice bystander intervention skills for fostering a welcoming campus environment and to learn about what amazing work is being done all across campus and how to get formally engaged. Check out the webpage for the Celebration of DI&A to learn more.   

DI&A Keynote during Fall Welcome Weekend
To launch the fall 2021 semester, Mines hosted Dr. Amy Landis, Presidential Faculty Fellow for Access, Attainment & Diversity. Dr. Landis delivered an inspirational keynote speech for all new incoming students about the importance of DI&A at Mines during the Fall Welcome Weekend festivities. She discussed some of Mines demographic data, goals found in our Strategic Plan for DI&A and how we work to create an inclusive and welcoming environment for all students. Dr. Landis’ talk was met with excitement and a warm welcome from students.  

DI&A breakout session during Campus Conference
Dr. Amy Landis, Presidential Faculty Fellow for Access, Attainment & Diversity, hosted an interactive workshop during Mines’ 2021 Campus Conference titled, “The Next Steps for DI&A at Mines.” The workshop was about where Mines has come from and where we still need to go to achieve our DI&A goals for MINES@150. Participants learned about opportunities to engage with DI&A-related work at Mines, with the Mines DI&A team and engaged in discussion to help guide DI&A activities for the future. 

Mines DI&A at “Making the Connection”
The Halliburton Making the Connection event is a recruitment program for women high school students who have already been accepted into Mines. These students and their families come to campus to make a connection to current women at Mines including students, faculty, staff and alumnae as well as other prospective women students.  The program encourages a sense of community, helps prospective students learn about the engineering process and working in teams and introduces them to sponsor Halliburton and their commitment to women in STEM. Each year, the Mines DI&A team attends the event and provides information and resources to participants who want to learn more about DI&A efforts on campus.  

MCAs host Professional Development for Employees
The Black, Latinx, LGBTQ and Women Mines Community Alliances (MCAs) hosted a morning of professional development workshops and connection with peers in fall 2021. The in-person event and its content, were designed with Mines employees as the primary audience. The event hosted a keynote address by Dr. Janiece Mackey, Race-Grounded Ways to Move Beyond Interest Convergence. After the keynote speech, employees chose to attend breakout sessions on Excel, WordPress, a panel discussion on dressing professionally and a presentation on why language and word choice matters. The majority of attendees who provided feedback were satisfied with their experiences during the event. All attendees who provided feedback reported they learned something about inclusivity and most are likely to recommend this type of event to a colleague.  

Mines DI&A Inclusion Icebreakers
Are you looking for a way to jump-start your next meeting? Explore these five-minute exercises to break the ice. These activities center on a relevant diversity, inclusion and access topic. Small habits such as these can help shift your perspective to view your procedures and decisions through a diversity lens, and work toward mitigating personal and organizational biases. Try out the Inclusion Icebreakers on the Mines DI&A page!

Institute a campus hub that serves as an interconnected, physical space to welcome engagement, interaction and support diverse students, faculty and staff

After the release of the Strategic Plan in February 2019, two DI&A working groups made up of students, faculty and staff evaluated different models for sustaining and monitoring progress toward our goals. After review and iterations with executive leadership and the Mines Dl&A Council, the best approach forward was a shared-services, consultancy model, which was presented to campus in early spring 2020. This model emphasizes shared responsibility for campus to collectively undertake the responsibility of promoting Dl&A. This approach was catalyzed by the Strategic Planning process where it was determined that Mines does not want to use a “centralized office” for all of these efforts, rather distribute the opportunity to be Dl&A allies, advocates and champions among all Mines community members.

There are many aspect s important to the institution that must continue to be supported by a central team of DI&A expert s who report directly to the president. These include campus-wide learning and development, support for unit implementation plans, pursue institutional external funding and provide detailed data analyses for campus reporting. This shared-services, consultancy model encourages and nurtures learning, offers support services and leads specific Dl&A initiatives central to our Strategic Plan goals. Mines DI&A is led by the presidential faculty fellow for access, attainment and diversity, which is a rotating leadership position.

This component of a shared responsibility replaces the original idea and intent behind “instituting a campus hub” so DI&A is evenly distributed among all departments and units across campus. This model is similar to the shared services approach utilized by Mines Administrative and Processing Services (MAPS). Mines DI&A staff and web pages are a point-source for information, support and services. Mines DI&A leverages the shared consultancy model and, depending on the nature of requests received, staff engage with other groups on campus to help meet needs for information and services.