Your Input Needed: Diversity and Equity at Emerson
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Update 2/2/22: The deadline to participate on HiveWise has been extended to Tuesday, February 15.
Next week, the College, and its partner Beyond Racial Equity (BRE), will invite you to share your thoughts on diversity, equity, and inclusion at Emerson, using a new interactive tool that not only asks what you think, but allows for a virtual conversation to take place between community stakeholders.
The information collected between Monday, January 24, and Tuesday, February 15, will be used to inform the strategic review being conducted by Beyond Racial Equity, an external consultant hired last Fall by a subcommittee of the Presidential Advisory Group for Community & Equity to investigate structural and systemic barriers that are preventing BIPOC students, students with disabilities, and students from other marginalized groups from experiencing a sense of belonging and full participation in the Emerson experience.
The platform, HiveWise, is an “asynchronous collective engagement tool,” designed to improve how organizations analyze and address complex problems.
HiveWise is different from a standard online survey, where an organization or business asks you questions and there is little if any follow-up. HiveWise allows participants to see not just their own answers to questions, but all answers from all participants. More importantly, participants can share the pros and cons of other people’s responses, providing more context and nuance to the data. To ensure confidentiality, names are not associated with the responses.
This platform will provide an opportunity for community stakeholders – students, faculty, staff, and alumni – to actively engage in the BRE Strategic Review, and inform future strategy sessions focused on student satisfaction and campus climate.
In order to get the most out of HiveWise, it’s important for participation to be robust, candid, and respectful of others’ opinions and perspectives. Comments will be monitored by Beyond Racial Equity staff, and those considered inappropriate will be deleted.
“The Beyond Racial Equity team of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility experts are eager to learn more about the Emerson experience from students, faculty, staff, and alumni through participation in HiveWise,” said BRE founder/consultant Tara Jenkins. “Please join and share your input!”
The BRE Strategic Review, part of Emerson’s Community Equity Action Plan, has four phases: Discovery, Institution and Stakeholder Review, Strategic Planning, and Findings and Recommendations. The first phase, Discovery, consisted of small group interviews and individual meetings, and concluded at the end of 2021. This community engagement initiative is part of phase two, Institutional and Stakeholder Review, which also included focus groups across campus.
Beyond Racial Equity is expected to submit a report of findings and recommendations in March 2022.
For more information on the Beyond Racial Equity Strategic Review, visit emerson.edu, or email communityequity@emerson.edu or info@beyondracialequity.com.
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