The DEIA Committee for The University of New Mexico (UNM) College of Population Health (COPH) will:
Create realistic goals and outcomes reflective of the need for action balanced against the resources and decision-making authority of the Committee that include long-and short-term strategies because organizational change takes time.
Status: Following the 2024 DEIA Convenings the DEIA Committee will issue a series of short reports by May that indicate what is known, gaps in knowledge, and next steps short and long term.
Use existing resources including traditional data, lived experiences, informed citizens, and community-based knowledge to inform goals and be realistic with resources needed to achieve stated goals.
Status: The DEIA Convenings for 2024 are centering co-learning that involves input from both UNM and COPH sources of knowledge, governmental and non-governmental units and informed citizens, community groups and leaders.
Status: The Committee has been careful to create events and activities that require minimal resources. Minimal fund-raising activities through sponsorship of the Convenings is being pursued.
Create a communication plan so people know what we are doing.
Status: The DEIA Committee is working with the COPH Marketing/PR Office to construct a website that is representative of the COPH activities related to DEIA.
Build strategic collaborations with groups and individuals inside and outside COPH that can help further the goals of the DEIA Committee,
Status: Collaborating with other units at UNM main campus, Health Sciences, and around the state of New Mexico.
Status: Building an alliance with Health Sciences programming that addresses equity.
Develop an understanding of the status of diversity and inclusion for staff, faculty, and students within COPH.
Status: Starting in September 2023, with the first meeting of the new DEIA committee, virtual discussions of 60 minutes were held with UNM Diversity officials from the main campus and Health Sciences. Further, to gain an understanding of student issues a student subcommittee was established, and the COPH Education leadership team met with the committee to explain student demographics, admissions, recruitment, retention and graduation rates. The Committee also began to consider COPH course content and cultural representation. Further, the DEIA committee established a staff subcommittee to ensure that there was a mechanism by which staff could convene and advance issues to the full committee for examination. Additionally, the Committee worked with Health Sciences DEIA leadership to implement an analysis of the hiring process using one example as a case study to examine the success of inclusive hiring practices. Throughout the period from September to December 2023, the committee worked with the Dean of Faculty Affairs on metrics for DEIA to be incorporated into the faculty annual evaluations.
Status: The DEIA Committee is considering processes and practices that increase inclusion and diversity for students, staff and faculty by creating ad hoc student and staff subcommittees, considering how to assess staff and faculty relations, and working the Health Sciences Center Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to consider how to build inclusive hiring practices by featuring DEI scholars, case studies and workshops.
Assess progress to determine how the DEIA committee will measure efforts by the committee.
Status: Develop additional goals around students, staff, and faculty. Focus on satisfaction (climate), recruitment (everyone), admissions (students), retention and graduation/promotion (students and faculty).
Status: Produce a checklist of what we set out to do and determine if those goals and activities were met and implemented.
