What did we do?

We structured our DEI plan around three strategic objectives: recruitment and retention, education and scholarship, and building a more inclusive and equitable community.  

Poster paper with welcome messages from UMSI

RECRUITMENT & RETENTION

Greater diversity within our community helps everyone feel that they belong. Though we have more work to do, we made progress in diversifying our faculty and student cohorts on some dimensions. We asked: “How can we do more to recruit and retain a more diverse community of students, faculty, and staff?” 

Faculty Diversity Recruitment  Click to expand

While we still have much work to do, UMSI made notable gains in faculty diversity between 2015 and 2021. Specifically, compared to the baseline year of 2014-15: 

Student Diversity Recruitment  Click to expand

UMSI has continued efforts to advance our student recruitment efforts, within legal parameters, to support student diversity in all academic programs. These efforts include events, advertising, recruitment outreach, website marketing and the work of professional staff, paid student staff and faculty as well as student and alumni volunteers.  

During DEI 1.0, the largest gains in African American, Hispanic and Native American (AHN*) applicants and enrollments came the years that application barriers were removed such as:

For example, following GRE removal:

*The full definition of AHN: Includes domestic students who identify as African American/Black, Hispanic/Latino(a), and/or Native American/Alaskan Native/Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; or multiracial including one of these racial or ethnic groups (count is unique individuals).*


In 2021 a group including student leaders, UMSI Admissions staff, the Assistant Dean for DEI and leaders from the DEI Committee met to discuss ways to advance student diversity recruitment efforts. This dialogue informed a number of new actions, including:

iSuccess Transfer Student Support & Retention  Click to expand

UMSI iSuccess includes a series of activities and programs to support transfer students in their transition to the University of Michigan and the School of Information. The program emphasizes cohort-building to create connections among students, while also providing space for transfer students to address the unique opportunities and challenges they are likely to encounter. 

A 2018-19 evaluation of iSuccess found that:

Students throwing their graduation caps into the air

Education & Scholarship

Social justice-oriented research strengthened, while a new commitment to create an anti-racist curriculum and co-curriculum galvanized faculty, staff, and students to change the status quo. 

Inclusive Teaching & Anti-Racist Curriculum  Click to expand

Since 2013, UMSI has continued to provide annual inclusive teaching training in different forms to faculty including customized workshops facilitated by UM experts and external consultants. In addition, UMSI has supported an inclusive teaching liaison as a faculty service role, which involves attending campus meetings and connecting UMSI faculty with resources and training opportunities. In 2017-19, we collaborated with the UM Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) for a two-year initiative when nearly all faculty participated in an individual consultation focused on inclusive teaching pedagogy. 

When our students engaged in activism following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, UMSI prioritized creating an antiracist curriculum. An anti-racist curriculum task force was embedded into the UMSI DEI Committee. In the first year, consultants were hired to provide anti-racism education for faculty (as well as for staff and students). Upon reviewing external resources and reviewing dozens of syllabi across UMSI, the DEI Committee's anti-racist curriculum subcommittee synthesized the practices identified and developed a “good practices” document. This living document provides inclusive teaching practices including course content, pedagogy, supplementary course materials, and course policies and procedures. 

In its second year, the antiracist curriculum initiative more clearly connected the work of the DEI committee with academic program committees. Program committees engaged in a process of building antiracism into statements of program competencies and developing antiracist content into a core course such that all students would have exposure to this content during their program at UMSI. These efforts continue and include building assessment and accountability practices.

Research Supporting Diverse Communities  Click to expand

Overview

UMSI has a long tradition of community based, equity focused and community impact research. With our explicit commitment to DEI and with an increase in the diversity of faculty joining UMSI, we have seen this strength grow further and faster. 

A number of UMSI's research teams include a focus on addressing inequity and understanding and impacting historically underserved communities, and many guest speakers sponsored by faculty research groups shared scholarship that addressed inequity with a DEI and social justice lens.

Here is a selection of the scholarship UMSI faculty - most hired in recent years as a result of faculty diversity recruitment efforts - produced across many dimensions of diversity, equity and inclusion, social justice and antiracism:


UX/HCI/Social media




LIS/Archives



Data Science/Information Economics


Health Informatics

Student Career Development  Click to expand

The UMSI Office of Career Development (CDO) developed the following DEI mission statement: The Office of Career Development is committed to integrating diversity, equity and inclusion, and anti-racism into all curricular and co-curricular offerings, policies, practices, and assessment with a particular focus on student empowerment and advocacy, as well as employer education and accountability. Actions to date include:

Students working together in the lecture hall

Cultivating an Equitable 

& Inclusive Community

With a fast-growing community of busy, productive people, the challenges of distributed work spaces and amidst a global pandemic, we considered:  “How do we develop, promote and reward the norms, expectations, and practices that create an inclusive community that helps every one of us thrive?” 

DEI Committee  Click to expand

The UMSI DEI Committee, first formed in 2013, brings faculty, staff, and student committee members together as a working group to identify and address DEI priorities, issues, and initiatives. The committee, a true working and advisory committee, has prioritized two kinds of actions:

The intensive multi-year time commitment, and smaller subcommittee structure with faculty, staff and students working together creates an important chance not only to address the items in the charge but to build community and understanding across faculty, students, and staff. The committee’s structure and membership model is still uncommon at the University. 

Over the years, many DEI efforts were incubated in the DEI committee and have since become part of what full time DEI staff members lead as part of the DEI Office. This includes DEI awards, DEI newsletter, DEI website, DEI funding requests (mini-grants) our signature iDEI Talks event, Lunar New Year event and annual MLK event, organizing DEI education and inclusive teaching sessions on anti-racism, disability advocacy and sexual misconduct prevention and hosting community gatherings to address immediate or emerging issues or to provide a space for reflection and healing. 

In its practices, the DEI Committee seeks to model ideals of an inclusive, equitable working group through discussion about its norms, opportunities for formal feedback and reflection, and frequent informal check-ins with committee members. The DEI committee is a vital community and organizational structure and serves as a positive force for DEI efforts and as a group that advocates for equity and inclusion at UMSI.

Learn more about the DEI Committee here! 

DEI Awards  Click to expand

UMSI's DEI awards recognize members of the UMSI community for contributions to our goals for advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) including efforts to build an anti-racist community. UMSI has two awards, the first, an award for Impact in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, launched in 2015. The second, an award for Impact in Gender Diversity in Information & Technology, was created in 2017.  

Since the inception of DEI Awards over 30 students, faculty, and staff have been recognized for their contributions-- as individuals and as teams.  In addition to the selected winners, each year we received numerous nominations that demonstrated the breadth and depth of efforts and impact that individuals and groups are having in our community. From the staff team that created the Religious Holidays Fact Sheets to the Career Development Team's comprehensive approach to integrating DEI, from faculty-led community impact research to student leaders and activists, the DEI Awards are one way we demonstrate that what we value, we recognize.

Learn more and see a list of DEI Award Recipients 

Student Life   Click to expand

A division of the Office of Academic and Student Affairs (OASA), UMSI Student Life is focused on helping all students feel welcome and part of an inclusive community. Examples of programming and resources developed during DEI 1.0 include:

Outreach  Click to expand

The Community College Summer Institute (CCSI), is the first of its kind within a school or college at the University of Michigan. Community college students often view the University of Michigan as an “out-of-reach” institution for transfer. UMSI sought to change this in 2017, when we launched the first CCSI with funding from the Office of the Provost. As the school’s flagship outreach program, the institute creates a low-barrier point of entry for community college students to learn more about UMSI and the University of Michigan. Using a high-touch, participant-centered approach, this three-day event offers intensive exposure to the field of information, application and admissions advising, professional development, transportation assistance, housing, and a travel stipend. Since 2017, CCSI has reached 175 community college students, of whom:

Since the institute’s inception, UMSI has collaborated and consulted with multiple other campus units - including the Center for Educational Outreach and Wolverine Pathways - in support of expanding community college outreach and access at UMSI and campus wide. 

Engaged Learning  Click to expand

The UMSI Engaged Learning Office has integrated diversity, equity, and inclusion and antiracism into curricular and co-curricular offerings, policies and practices, and assessment activities. Particular focus has been given to incorporating DEI-oriented skill building for students and emphasizing engagement with DEI-oriented organizations as part of client and/or community based courses and programs. 

The ELO team has engaged in significant training and reflection related to DEI in order to carefully build policies and practices that center DEI and anti-racism into their work, and has collaborated with the DEI Office to continue to enhance how they prepare students to work effectively in diverse teams and in diverse communities. Some examples of ways the ELO has emphasized DEI in its work include:

DEI Education Click to expand

From student orientations and community conversations, to staff meeting DEI sessions and faculty workshops, we worked to educate the UMSI community, organizing opportunities to learn from skilled practitioners and from each other. DEI education activities have been organized by the UMSI DEI Office, the DEI Committee, by UMSI units such as the Office of Academic and Student Affairs, and by faculty, staff and students across UMSI, often with DEI funding support.

Here is a sampling of DEI education and community building events from across the five-year strategic plan: