Preconference

College Strategies for Building Community, Monitoring and Addressing Climate

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Abstract

What strategies and actions can colleges take towards the goal of creating an inclusive community where students, faculty and staff feel affirmed and able to share their perspectives? This presentation will discuss how, over the past few years, the Ivy College of Business has adopted both qualitative and quantitative approaches to assess, track, and improve a diverse and inclusive climate. Specifically, we will share our experiences with the annual "build our community" event, which aims to create opportunities for students, faculty and staff to come together to discuss issues of community and implement changes. This event allows us to accumulate a vast amount of qualitative, emotion-laden feedbacks from different groups within the college. We will also discuss the recent climate surveys administered to effectively collect quantitative, numerical responses from students, faculty, and staff, and how such data are used to monitor progress and changes in climate over time in the college.