We know higher education is not a luxury; it is a necessity for individuals and our economy's health. Races and ethnicities historically underrepresented in higher education make up 47 percent of the state’s population. Creating a diverse and inclusive community that reflects New Mexico is critical.
COPH accepts the responsibility to reflect its global values in its workforce. Our campus community thrives when our workforce reflects the diversity of our student population and the communities we serve. To achieve this goal, we must effectively identify, recognize, and eliminate barriers, and increase accountability in recruiting, hiring, and retaining staff and faculty.
Diversity goals for faculty and staff cannot be achieved if objectives related to campus climate, institutional commitment, research, teaching, public service, training, and diversifying the student body fall short and thus jeopardize the retention of a talented workforce.
The actions of each COPH employee have an impact on the College climate and can enable an environment in which opportunity is present for all. Our practices should enable all participants to be authentically present in the classroom, workplace, and community. Such efforts enhance the climate of the COPH; improve our health and wellness; maximize learning outcomes; increase retention and success; and facilitate professional fulfillment and improvement.
A climate assessment is a first step that organizations often take to get a sense of the learning environment, culture, and equity within their unit. Importantly, we note that a climate assessment is only a preliminary step in a comprehensive process.
COPH should aim to incorporate existing climate assessments and/or build upon them through exploratory conversations, input from DEIA groups and committees, and increased opportunities for all voices to be heard or given equal weight.
This plan challenges COPH to embed diversity and inclusion into the heart of its fundamental mission of research, teaching, and public service. We build upon the land grant vision of an institution that provides for the advancement of all. Campus growth, new initiatives, emerging research, and high-profile funding opportunities have created increasing opportunities for COPH to embed diversity and inclusion into its daily work; approaches to teaching, learning and curriculum; and public service.
Structural competency refers to the capacity of health professionals to recognize and respond to the role that social, economic, and political structural factors play in community health. A principal idea driving our work focuses on embedding biological pathways within social interactions that develop across the life course and across generations.
It is important to incorporate consideration of the social, economic, and political structural forces that shape the community into our research, teaching, and public service. Structural competency refers to the capacity to recognize and respond to these factors as root causes of disease and inequity. A principal idea driving our work focuses on embedding biological pathways within social interactions that develop across the life course and generations. A central goal is to identify structural forces that unequally distribute health and disease across socially defined groups. An important next step is to design multi-sectored strategies that result in systems change.
A central goal is to identify structural forces that create distributions of health and disease unequally across socially defined groups. An important next step is to design multi-sectored strategies that result in systems change.
