OIED’s Strategic Planning Process

Process Timeline

In designing its Strategic Plan, OIED values the ideas and perspectives of all staff members in the unit. In order to thoughtfully craft a Strategic Plan that effectively captures strategy and resonates with OIED team members, input and feedback was invited from all staff members and incorporated into each successive draft throughout the process.

Target Constituencies

OIED’s primary focus is to enhance the experience of students, faculty, and staff. Secondarily, OIED strives to demonstrate NC State’s efforts to create and maintain a welcoming and respectful environment to prospective students and employees, NC State alumni, and members of the community. In addition, OIED’s work with DEIB extends to employers, global partners and collaborators, potential donors and funding organizations.

NC State Perceptions of DEIB

Numerous research and climate studies have demonstrated the basis and need for colleges and universities to prioritize There is a vast amount of climate data and research on the basis and need for prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. By doing so, individuals and institutions both realize transformational impacts. Several NC State-specific efforts outline experiences within our own community.

With regard to student perceptions, the Student Campus Climate Survey (2019) indicated that generally among students “overall” (aggregated data), results in most areas studied related to DEIB are trending in a positive direction. Students across all groups measured support prioritizing diversity and inclusion as critical for NC State specifically, and in the role of higher education overall. That said, in some areas, such as the success and impact of NC State’s efforts related to diversity, ratings from historically marginalized student groups have grown less favorable over time. Ultimately, persistent, notable and critical differences exist in the campus experiences and opinions of historically marginalized students³.

From a faculty perspective, data from the 2018 Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) data demonstrates that faculty overall give positive evaluations to support for and commitment to diversity and inclusion. Upon disaggregating the data, faculty who are members of an underrepresented minority group gave less favorable ratings than whites on several ratings, including: “Visible leadership support for diversity,” and “colleagues are committed to diversity and inclusion.” Women faculty also rated “colleagues are committed to diversity and inclusion” lower than men rated the same statement⁴.

In comparing data from NC State’s Employee Engagement Survey in 2020 and 2018, of the eight belief statements on the survey that connect specifically with diversity and inclusion-related topics, scores on six of the eight became less favorable over two years (aggregated data). The decrease was not substantial, but still notable and highlights areas to spend greater attention (e.g., sufficient emphasis of having diverse faculty administration and staff; effective procedures for dealing with discrimination, promotions based on ability). Additionally, in the 2020 survey, a new specific DEI question was added, asking respondents to rate their institution’s commitment to building a culture that actively promotes DEI. NC State’s positive response rate on this item was 73%. This is a positive reaction to this one question about the perception of NC State’s commitment, and upon one to continue to build⁵.

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³ Analysis provided by Dr. Nancy Whelchel, ISA; acknowledgments to Dr. Christy Byrd, Dr. Stephanie Helms Pickett
⁴Analysis provided by Dr. Nancy Whelchel, ISA
⁵ Analysis provided by Dr. Nancy Whelchel, ISA

OIED’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats

Consideration of OIED’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats — identified collaboratively by OIED staff — guided the direction of strategic objectives and implementation initiatives. A desire to broaden the impact of a talented division of committed professionals in the context of limited resources encouraged an emphasis on capacity-building.

• Strengths
  • OIED People — Expertise, motivation, commitment
  • Impact of OIED’s work and its broad reach
  • Assessment structure and framework in place
  • Vision and strategy for scaling DEI (internal and external)
• Weaknesses
  • Employee turnover and work overload/pay equity
  • Insufficient data analysis resources to turn climate data into actionable insights
  • Leadership buy-in across the university
  • Limited funding and resources
• Opportunities
  • DEIB is a named priority in the University’s Strategic Plan
  • Alignment of DEI initiatives across the University
  • Capacity building — shift from communicating about programming to communicating about benefits of DEI and how to take action
  • Success in examples with other University departments (e.g., Library, Textiles)
  • Positioned to become an industry DEIB leader
• Threats
  • Unaligned DEI programming within a decentralized framework
  • Potential of shifting University priorities
  • Waning of DEI interest
  • Impact of political shifts at state and national level
  • Not enough financial support to execute strategic plan

Assessment Structure

OIED’s program assessment model is built with three guiding frameworks: Tharp’s Cultural Consciousness Matrix⁵; Marcella LaFever’s Medicine Wheel⁶; and NADOHE’s Standards of Professional Practice for Chief Diversity Officers in Higher Education⁷.

Functional assessment areas include the following:

• Recruitment, Retention and Graduation
• Campus Culture and Climate
• Research and Inquiry
• Mentoring and Leadership Development
• Institutional/Student/Faculty/Staff Excellence
• Strategic Planning
• Assessment and Accountability
• Training and Education
• Equal Opportunity Employment

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⁵ Tharp, D. S. & McCloud, L. I. (2020). Doing Social Justice Education: A Practitioner’s
Guide for Workshops and Structured Conversations. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
⁶ LaFever, Marcella. (2016) Switching from Bloom to the Medicine Wheel:
Creating learning outcomes that support Indigenous ways of knowing in post-secondary
education, Intercultural Education, 27:5, 409-424.
⁷ Worthington, R. L. (2012). Advancing scholarship for the diversity imperative in higher education: An editorial [Editorial]. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 5(1), 1–7.