Education & Scholarship

Goal: Equip students, faculty, and staff with the knowledge, experience, and competencies necessary to eradicate biases and discrimination and to be successful in a multicultural, international, pluralistic society

Diversity and Inclusion Framework Report, 2017

1. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Reading Groups

Last summer, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion provided the opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to engage with one another through discussions of selected texts related to racial justice. Six peer-facilitated reading groups ran throughout the summer months, exploring books including Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, and Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. Special thanks to the facilitators and participants of these reading groups, who dedicated their time to reflect on issues of racial justice. 

The College of Education, Health, and Human Development (EHHD) has been working on an ongoing Diversity and Inclusion Plan since 2017. In response to hearing an increased desire for opportunities to learn more about diverse identities and topics, the college created new programming, offered conversations and website resources, and formed EHHD book studies. Three groups met throughout the year to discuss different texts, understand the ways that personal identities impact the work of participants, and increase this awareness in training future leaders in well-being, education, and health and human development fields. 

2. Indian Education for All (IEFA) Course 

The Montana Constitution mandates that, as educators, all faculty and staff in the Montana University System learn about American Indian tribes and recognize the unique contributions of American Indian peoples in Montana. MSU faculty and staff are asked to complete the Indian Education for All (IEFA) online training as part of a statewide commitment to ensuring that our educational offerings honor the cultural integrity of and equitably serve American Indian students and communities. The IEFA course guides participants through the background of Indian Education for All, Montana Tribal Nations, and frequently asked questions about Montana’s American Indian people. 

To date, 45% of MSU faculty and staff — and a total of 1,677 members of the MSU community (including students) — have completed the course. If you haven’t already, please visit the IEFA course website to help MSU reach our Indian Education for All goals. 

The Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering's Norm Asbjornson Hall.

Feature: Working toward diversity goals in hiring practices

During academic year 2020-2021, the Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering—in collaboration with the IChange team members from the college and The Diversity and Inclusion Office—began exploring strategies to diversify the processes of hiring faculty and the engineering faculty pipeline. The committee aimed to: 1) identify opportunity areas in the hiring of diverse faculty in the college, 2) create a plan to address such opportunities, and 3) generate guidelines for recommended hiring practices. 

The committee conducted a thorough study by interviewing human resources offices and department heads of each engineering department to understand the hiring practices currently in place. After analyzing the hiring processes in detail, the committee identified specific ways to ensure diversity and equity practices are in place and adopted by department units. Some of the opportunity areas identified were providing effective implicit bias training for hiring committee members, setting clear timelines from the advertisement to the interview process, finding diverse venues and places to post positions available, and closely collaborating with MSU Human Resources throughout the process. The committee is currently examining best hiring practices of similar institutions and presenting a set of strategies and research-based interventions that will lead to effective hiring and retention of diverse faculty for the college.