January 2025

To streamline work and improve accountability, we're evolving existing teams and shifting responsibility to our Black Student Union (BSU) and Division of People, Equity, and Culture (PEC). This collaborative approach empowers BSU and PEC to work with faculty, staff, and students to ensure a more accountable university community with greater transparency and clearer communication.

As we move forward with these efforts, we welcome you to engage with us. You can share questions, ideas, or feedback through this  BIPOC Task Force feedback form . We deeply appreciate the contributions of our student colleagues, faculty, staff, SLT, and mentors alike who have supported this work and continue to do so. Together, we can ensure that progress is sustained for future generations of students.

This website provides updates on the work of our BIPOC Task Forces, which have made significant strides in addressing priorities from the Black Student Town Hall in Winter 2024.

• Participation: 70 students, faculty, and staff, including 5 members of the SLT participated over the summer in 7 task forces.
• Accomplishments: Performed review of existing practices, leading to the formulation of multiple detailed recommendations seeking to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout the university.
• Recommendations: Focused on 44 areas (some overlap between groups) such as enrollment engagement, diversity among faculty and staff, student support, DEI training, and university branding. These recommendations will be factored into upcoming prioritization and budget discussions.
• Continuation of Efforts: Oversight of implementation will be managed by the I&E Activation & Accountability Leadership Team (AALT), Strategic Enrollment Management Plan (SEMP) team, and Division of Student Affairs for relevant recommendations. The new Vice President for People, Equity, and Culture will play a pivotal role in ensuring the sustainability and alignment of ongoing initiatives. Specific task forces like marketing and branding will evolve into more formal advisory bodies to relevant areas.

• University DEI-AB Framework  (Student AFFAIRS, FTLC)
• In 2024, the University has appointed a Vice-President for People, Equity and Culture : Dr Robert Shorty
• University Libraries
  • Focus on structural and policy inequity and user education and engagement using the MCOD model
  • Library faculty include a DEI-related goal in their Faculty Work Plan
• Seidman College of Business
  • HBCU articulation agreements for graduate programs
  • DEI initiatives in hiring processes
  • Commitment to track the number of minoritized faculty members and students 
• College of Education and Community Innovation
  • Committee on anti-racism and social justice meets monthly
• Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies
  • Under Mission and Vision, they have guiding principles, priorities, one of which is educational equity, and an objectives dashboard with 2026 objectives and measures starting 2022. Key indicators are for example retention from year 1 to year for different polulations of students, diversity in Honors college, etc.
• College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS)
  • CLAS DEI-AB Committee meets monthly starting in Winter 2023
  • Each unit has an implemented DEI-AB plan that started in the Fall 2024 under the supervision of Dwayne Tunstall Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence and Curriculum. First assessment in Fall 25.
• Kirkhof College of Nursing
• Increasing Accessibility:
  • Holistic admissions being improved and leveraged across undergraduate and graduate programs to increase inclusivity
  • Efforts to make nursing education more accessible for students from disadvantaged and diverse backgrounds through support from two HRSA grants.
• Diversifying Faculty:
  • One current HRSA grant also supports an objective to develop a plan for diversifying faculty; work is in progress.
• Faculty & Staff Development:
  • Hosted a Holistic Nursing Student Success Workshop (Fall 2023) to improve student success and retention.
  • Faculty Learning Community with representation from nursing, the library, and PT/OT. The group read the book DEI Deconstructed and now using the workbook Reconstructing DEI. It is our goal to take these lessons learned to inform next steps.
• Increasing Community Awareness of Racism in Nursing:
  • Planning a SHIFT film screening and panel discussion (April 2025), Everybody’s Work: Healing What Hurts Us All, to explore the impact of racism in nursing.
• Curriculum Efforts:
  • Study underway related to integration and scaffolding of LGBTQ+ health across undergraduate curriculum
• DEI Climate Efforts:
  • Launching the AACN Lamp Culture & Climate Survey (Winter 2025) to evaluate diverse experiences and foster belonging.
  • Hiring underway for DEIB coordinator (title TBD)
  • DEIB taskforce (title TBD) forming
•  College of Health Professions(CHP))
  • has a committee since 2025 Justice & Equity Action Committee (JEAC) 
  • Under the strategic planning web page for the College, they have a commitment dashboard with key indicators of where they stand in terms of students and faculty of color and sense of belonging and other commitment indicators
• College of Computing
  • will launch the WAIVE lab for inclusive accessibility
• Padnos College of Engineering

  • They have an Equity and Inclusion committee

  • They support students with different programs of SI (supplementary instruction) for the historically difficult classes
  • Peer Assisted Learning (PAL)
  • Structured Learning Assistance (SLA)

The full report is now available

Next Steps

The next step is to launch a co-design process involving the COACHE Steering Committee, currently elected faculty leaders, the Provost’s Cabinet, and the Senior Leadership Team. This collaborative effort between administrators, tenure track, and affiliate faculty will focus on creating an engagement framework. To ensure a constructive and impartial approach, we will pursue a facilitated process determined collaboratively. 

In addition to establishing venues for engagement, the planning process will identify key focus areas for discussion and action. These focus areas will be informed by the previous COACHE faculty listening sessions as well as the discussions held by the COACHE Steering Committee with the Provost’s Cabinet and the Senior Leadership Team. An initial outline of a plan is provided below; a finalized engagement plan will be shared in early January.  

This approach reflects a commitment to collective effort and community strengthening, ensuring that the path forward is inclusive, collaborative, and impactful. Here is the expected timeline: 

• December 2024: Co-Design the Engagement and Action Plan outline and select facilitator(s)   
• January 2025: Initiate Constructive Dialogue Engagement and Refine Action Plan   
• February – March 2025: Deploy Engagement and Action Plan   
• By April 2025: Present Recommendations and Next Steps for Change   

Grand Valley State University is committed to fostering an environment where faculty, staff, and students can thrive.  Feedback and insights are invaluable in helping us achieve this goal. We believe that faculty satisfaction plays a crucial role in the overall success of our institution. Their perspectives on various aspects of their academic journeys are vital to shaping a more fulfilling and supportive work environment.  For this reason, GVSU has joined The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) for 2023-2026./ This is a long-term project at the Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, led by R. Todd Benson, focusing on faculty. 

As part of the collaboration, during Winter semester 2024, faculty were asked to participate in COACHE’s Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey./ COACHE will provide to GVSU diagnostic reports and regular consultations with the COACHE team on how to make meaning and act from the data.  In Fall 2024, GVSU faculty will be engaged to review the findings and to start to make changes. 

Over the past few years, the university has heard various feedback through faculty fora, the Climate Survey, and faculty governance. Now, we want to dive deeper to better understand how we can improve the faculty experience at GVSU.