This priority area addresses the College’s need to create clear accountability and reporting systems that incorporate the lived experiences of staff, faculty, and students—and provide necessary training and education to ensure accountability becomes a feature of the Dartmouth community.
Actions
Senior leaders will provide a variety of mechanisms, including public forums, to support community feedback and dialogue on issues of equity and belonging.
Discussions about topics related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging will be prioritized by senior leaders. These forums can take the form of workshops, town halls, and small group discussions in which community members have an opportunity to learn about the College’s trajectory, ask questions to clarify expectations, and have open conversations about the current climate. Each member of DSLG will create these opportunities within their respective units. IDE will advise senior leaders on appropriate formats for their communities. These opportunities for feedback and dialogue will begin in Spring 2023 and should be ongoing throughout the duration of the plan.
Provide DEI training and education for all leaders (senior leaders, department chairs, deans, diversity deans, administrative leaders, etc.) to meet expectations for developed leadership competencies.
As new research related to organizational leadership emerges that is connected to best practices in DEI management, it is critical for leaders at all levels to continue to build and model their skills to create a more inclusive community. To this end, IDE will provide leadership training for faculty, staff and administrative leaders that centers inclusive management and conflict resolution practices, building on training efforts from C3I. These trainings began in Summer 2022 and will continue through the duration of this plan.
Create a mechanism to identify where and how the College can improve its historical accountability for past injustices impacting marginalized groups including Native Americans, enslaved Africans, LGBTQ-identified people, women, and those who identify as Jewish (by practice or ethnicity).
Dartmouth, like many of its peers, is poised to confront and take steps to restore injustices that have impacted historically excluded communities. This work has already begun, with the historical accountability student research program, the repatriation of Samson Occom’s papers to the Mohegan Tribe in 2022, and faculty research on the history of enslaved people at Dartmouth. The college will continue supporting current initiatives and identifying new opportunities to address its past. A report outlining the campus-wide work in this area will be authored by Spring 2024.