As we commemorate and reflect on the launch of our Strategic Plan for Antiracism (SPAR) in July 2021, we recognize the significant accomplishments our community members have led, as well as the work that still needs to be done.

We have seen incredible engagement from faculty and staff and had difficult, mind-opening conversations that are shifting our school culture in small but tangible ways. As you read through some of the highlights on this page, we invite you to reflect on changes in your own unit and in your personal understanding of racism and oppression. SPAR is a guide toward a better School of Public Health (SPH), and its success requires consistent learning, listening, and commitment from everyone in our community. In what ways can you help to move us forward?

1,200+

Participants of the Justice in Public Health Series (Jun 2022-Jun 2023)

19,000+

Pageviews to SPH DEI website (Jun 2022-Jun 2023)

23.3%

Faculty who identify as BIPOC and American Indian (as of spring 2023; compared to 22% in 2022)

22.6%

Staff who identify as BIPOC and American Indian (as of 2023; compared to 18.3% in 2022)

Explore the goal areas

Status Key

  • Not Started
  • In Progress
  • Completed
  • Reimagined

Leadership

Goal Area #1
Lead Steward: SPH Dean

Vision: Provide clear and consistent leadership to challenge racism in any form and create an environment that is affirming, accessible, and equitable for people from marginalized communities.

  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • All staff and faculty job postings have been updated with language that exemplifies the school’s commitment to antiracism and equity. Employees and supervisors were given guidance on incorporating SPAR-aligned goals into their annual performance evaluation.
Year 1
  • The SPH Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Action Alignment Team (AAT) is active. AAT has been meeting monthly to share successes, challenges, and resources across the school. Some wins that have emerged include:
    • Each division now has a DEI committee and a graduate assistant.
    • We have used more than $200K of our GAGE funds (grants intended to help identify and implement effective diversity initiatives); $105K in direct student support.
    • The AAT has helped to bolster the communications work that is connected to SPAR and the school began adding DEI and antiracist language to all leadership job descriptions and into performance review processes.
  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • In fall 2022, the SPH Office of Research conducted a Faculty Directory Survey to gather baseline data about faculty expertise in health equity. Survey results show that 57 percent (76/134) of faculty respondents described their work as related to health disparities and/or health equity.
Year 1
  • Some faculty created new curricula or revised existing curricula and syllabi to align with antiracism principles. This work includes engaging paid community members to review syllabi.
  • Under the guidance of the associate dean for research, SPH developed goals to ensure that DEI and antiracism are central to the SPH research agenda.
  • Reimagined

Accomplishments to date:

Year 1
  • In fall 2021, the school began reimagining where to locate the Office of DEI.
  • SPH promoted the DEI program coordinator to associate director in August 2021, and hired the DEI program manager in February 2022.
  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • The interim dean and director of communications led a comprehensive legislative outreach and advocacy campaign in spring 2023 to request annual direct appropriation to SPH from the taxation of recreational cannabis. Through these efforts, the school successfully received $2.5 million in annual appropriation to establish a new SPH Center for Cannabis Research, which will have a focus on health equity. The new center will study how recreational marijuana is used in Minnesota, its impact on health, and how different populations and communities are affected.
  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • In summer 2022 through summer 2023, the school implemented a communications plan in service of SPAR Year 2 implementation. Goals included: 1) Create transparency and understanding about the plan; 2) Provide timely information about research, community engagement, events, resources, skill-building, professional development and leadership opportunities, mentorship and support, and training; and 3) Model inclusive and equitable approaches through engagement, ample feedback opportunities, multi-channel communications, and accessible publications. Strategies included: 
Year 1

SPAR Launch Communications Plan

  • In spring through fall 2021, the school developed and implemented a communications plan for the SPAR launch. It had three key objectives: 1) Make sure every member of our school knows what SPAR is and the role they play; 2) Showcase leadership commitment to the plan; 3) Engage people by educating and inspiring them to act.
  • Communications strategies included meetings; development of the SPAR theme, “Building Equity, Driving Justice: Commit | Challenge | Change” and related design assets; key messages; videos; decal and letter mailed to SPH faculty and staff; mass emails and newsletter placements; social media; and an Advances magazine feature.

Ongoing SPAR Communications Plan

  • In summer 2021 through summer 2022, the school developed and implemented a long-term communications plan in service of SPAR. Goals include: 1) Create transparency about who is leading, planning, and implementing SPAR and how others can get involved; 2) Model equitable approaches through engagement, feedback opportunities, and multi-channel communications; 3) Provide support, guidance, and resources to divisions and units; 4) Provide timely information about research, events, community engagement, resources, and training; 5) Reinforce that DEI and antiracism are top priorities for the school.
  • Strategies included events; Agents for Change profiles; “Notes on Antiracism, Justice, and Equity” newsletter; “Antiracism and Health Equity” printed booklet; social media; videos; DEI website redesign and new web landing page; mass emails and newsletter placements; internal building signage; American Public Health Association (APHA) exhibit booth; promotional materials; and newsletter templates and webpages for divisions.

Hiring

  • SPH hired an internal communications and antiracism strategist in spring 2022 with key responsibilities that include the ongoing implementation of the SPAR communications plan.
  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • In fall 2022, the school conducted its second biennial climate assessment. Several changes were made to the 2022 assessment, including deepening a focus on the survey itself rather than on focus groups or interviews; rewording several questions for more accurate data; and adding some questions about antiracism. Compared to the 2020 climate assessment results, SPH saw significant improvements in the diversity of its employees as well as in its climate, feelings of belonging, and trust in leadership’s commitment to DEI.
Year 1
  • In SPAR’s first year, the school began developing a standardized and authentic model for gathering, analyzing, and reporting data.

“Having a strategic plan focused on antiracism is helpful, and now we need folks to take actionable steps so that we can forge forward in a radically different way, together.”

– J’Mag Karbeah, Assistant Professor, CARHE Research Advisor

jmag-headshot

What’s Next? July 2023 – June 2024

  • The school will convene a steering committee to establish goals and strategies for providing an MPH core curriculum that prepares the future public health workforce to take meaningful action toward racial equity, health equity, and justice.
  • SPH will coordinate legislative tours in Greater Minnesota and on campus to build and strengthen relationships with Minnesota policymakers. Two of the tours will focus specifically on the school’s work in health equity and antiracism.
  • With the expansion of the new assistant director for DEI and community engagement role, SPH will be working towards engaging community members in new ways to promote health equity.
  • New resources are currently being developed to reflect DEI best practices for communications, including a writing style guide and event resources.

Students

Goal Area #2
Lead Steward: Associate Dean for Education & Student Engagement

Vision: To recruit, enroll, retain, and graduate students who are representative of diverse identities — and particularly from the communities that are most impacted by health inequities. The student learning environment should foster engagement, mutual respect, leadership opportunities, and personal empowerment as well as reflect inclusive, anti-oppressive, antiracist values, and empower inclusive, anti-oppressive, and antiracist actions for all students

  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • The student services alignment project, launched in October 2022, is a schoolwide initiative designed to ensure that SPH provides an exceptional and equitable experience for students in every program by identifying and removing structural barriers that could be hindering student success.
  • SPH invited students to participate in numerous events and training opportunities throughout the 2022-23 school year that had a focus on antiracism or health equity, including:
    • Justice in Public Health, featuring leading experts from a variety of disciplines;
    • BIPOC and American Indian welcome receptions and end of year celebrations for students, staff, and faculty;
    • Admitted Student Day and division-specific events with SPAR and/or antiracism as a focus;
    • Antiracism 101 and 102 trainings;
    • Antiracist animated video series;
    • Two seminar series hosted by the Public Health Scholarship Program on the use of culturally and linguistically appropriate strategies to authentically engage community members; and
    • A PhD student panel organized by the Diversity Network to give opinions and answer questions students had on the choice of pursuing a PhD and process of applying to PhD programs.
  • SPH event coordinators created a list of BIPOC caterers and vendors for reference when planning SPH events and programs.
  • The Office of DEI worked with the Student Services team to ensure that the schoolwide climate assessment complemented the data being collected in other assessments, such as the university-wide gradSERU.
Year 1

Inclusive Events

  • SPH Commencement, held in May 2022 at Northrop Auditorium, provided Spanish interpretation for guests — a new accommodation for both SPH and Northrop Auditorium. SPH worked with Northrop to rent headsets that allowed contracted interpreters to speak to guests in the audience. Now Northrop can support similar requests.
  • In academic year 2021–2022, SPH held 45 equity, justice, and antiracism-focused events including those that the Office of DEI, SPH divisions, student senate, and Health Equity Work Group organized.
  • The events manager and DEI program manager began working with EDIT (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Team) to produce inclusive, mandatory parameters for all future events.

Building Signage

  • SPH crafted new building signage that encourages students, staff, faculty, and visitors to practice antiracism in their work and conversations.
  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • The student services office worked with the communications team to identify priority websites to update with key student resources. Mental health resources have been updated on the website.
  • The student services office provided one-on-one counseling sessions for admitted and prospective students to discuss funding options and opportunities. Student Services created a standard approach to advertising and engaging students in available funding opportunities.
  • SPH’s Diversity Network hosted an applied practice experience (APEX) event where presenters talked students through the process of submitting the necessary paperwork for their APEX. This session was also recorded and shared to students upon request.
Year 1

Student Representatives on SPH Committees

  • There is now student representation on the DEI Action Alignment Team, EDIT, Orientation Planning Committee, Commencement Planning Committee, SPH Alumni Society, and Research Committee.
  • The SPH student senate president was appointed to the Education Policy Committee (EPC) as an ex-officio member.
  • There is additional student representation in various committees at the program and division level as well.
  • SPH secured stipends for student leaders of the Diversity Network.
  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • SPH hosted a number of events centering BIPOC and American Indian student experiences to bring students across divisions together, build connections, and exchange resources for year-long support. SPH’s Mentor Program brought together mentors and mentees of similar identities to build networking and supportive relationships for students. 
  • Diversity Network executive board received stipends for their work through 2022-23.
  • While there is not a specific system to keep track of resources, additional opportunities have been made available to students throughout their educational experience such as: orientation; engagement events; more regular scholarship opportunities; and SPH’s Career Canvas course.
  • Career Services has supported students to continually meet and exceed the CEPH employment requirement of 80% of students employed within a year of graduation through individual appointments and online workshops. For the 2022 calendar, SPH had a 99% employment rate.
Year 1

Affinity Spaces

  • SPH In/Color was developed in 2020 to provide BIPOC students an opportunity to connect and build community. SPH In/Color hosted virtual sessions in fall 2020 and spring 2021, and was active in fall 2021 for current and incoming BIPOC students.

Professional Development

  • SPH held an event for BIPOC students to engage with BIPOC public health professionals (including SPH alumni) currently working in the field.
  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • The school strengthened relationships with St. Paul and Shakopee public schools through events and programming. SPH hosted a number of students from St. Croix public schools during a healthcare exploration program in June 2023.
  • The SPH enrollment application questions and requirements were updated with inclusive language and an annual review process was established.
  • SPH has developed reports on recruitment and enrollment numbers disaggregated by race and citizenship. Through the alignment project, the enrollment management committee will receive monthly reports on admissions numbers.
Year 1

Student Counts by Race/Ethnicity

  • 2021 total headcount 1,428; BIPOC 24.26%; nonresident international 14.10%; white 56.89%; unknown 4.75% (Data pulled on August 12, 2021, from “2021 SPH Current Student Counts for Official Reporting”)

Applications and Scholarships

  • SPH reviewed application materials to ensure language is inclusive, antiracist, and free of implicit bias. SPH reported to the Associate for Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) implicit bias in boilerplate language that is common across U.S. applications. In these materials, the school also acknowledges the past harms done to BIPOC applicants in the application process and invites applicants to consider their role in antiracism and anti-oppression.
  • SPH updated scholarship processes to increase BIPOC applicants and recipients.
  • The school began to review SPH admission and graduate program websites to ensure that the language is inclusive and antiracist. Sites are also reviewed for coded language and implicit bias.
  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • The student services alignment project is underway. Increasing student scholarships and other funding is within the project’s scope.
  • A holistic review of the application process and Implicit Bias Training Canvas course were created and approved by the Office of the General Counsel (OGC). This will be a required training for all admissions committee members and student services staff who work in admissions beginning in fall 2023. (Note: The recent Supreme Court ruling may require us to modify as necessary.)
  • 10 programs were reviewed for the fall 2023 admissions cycle on their application decision practices, and modifications were made to the scoring criteria and affiliated rubrics as appropriate.
  • SPH shared decline survey information with programs and the information will be evaluated with division heads in July 2023. Ongoing reporting will be covered by the student services alignment project as part of the enrollment management committee.
Year 1

GRE & Holistic Reviews

  • The school permanently eliminated requirements for the GRE and instituted a holistic review of all applicants beginning with the 2021-2022 admissions cycle.

“Students come from different backgrounds, and the work that we do in public health often centers the experiences of communities of color. We have to be intentionally inclusive to be antiracist.”

– Inari Mohammed, PhD Student

inari-headshot

What’s Next? July 2023 – June 2024

  • The student services alignment project has formed a recruitment committee that will convene in August 2023. A review of all application and marketing materials will be conducted annually through a trauma-informed and culturally-sensitive lens. Continued improvements will be made to our website, applications, and events to ensure inclusivity and accessibility. 
  • SPH is launching a new undergraduate major in public health, with the first cohort beginning August 2023. 
  • The SPH admission and graduate program websites are being reviewed for the fall 2024 application cycle. The first phase of the process involves school-wide websites, with a concentration on the funding and application sites. The second phase is working with programs individually to review and update their websites as necessary. 
  • SPH is developing a website that will organize available funding opportunities for students. The student funding committee (SFC) will be convened in August 2023 as part of the student services alignment project.
  • A new SPAR education committee will explore avenues to provide more antiracist and health equity-focused education and curricular experiences to students.
  • The SPH events manager is developing training on how to apply inclusive and antiracist practices in event planning. The Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Training Team (EDIT) members have been looped in and have started working on an inclusive events training. The BIPOC vendor list will be centralized and accessible for all event coordinators.
  • A new Career Services Canvas course will be launching in Fall 2023 to provide SPH students equal access to career resources such as resume writing, interviewing, networking and job/internship/assistantship search strategies. The course is being reviewed by current students (some of whom are DEI graduate assistants in the divisions) to ensure language, content and resources are inclusive of the student of color experience. Career services is also partnering with E-Learning Services to ensure the course is developed using universal design practices.
  • This fall, the student services team plans to visit all MN local colleges and universities, with a special emphasis on those that have a large population of historically underrepresented students. SPH will also participate in recruitment events put on by historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

Faculty

Goal Area #3
Lead Steward: Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs

Vision: To recruit, hire, mentor, support, promote, and retain faculty who are representative of diverse identities — particularly Black, Indigenous, and faculty of color — to reflect the students we teach and the communities we serve. To develop an environment that welcomes new perspectives, values individual backgrounds and experiences, engages in community efforts, and centers justice, equity, inclusion, and antiracism.

  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2

Faculty Counts by Race/Ethnicity

  • 2022 total headcount 123; BIPOC 27 (21.95%)
  • 2023 total headcount 129; BIPOC 30 (23.3%)
  • Notes:
    1. Data reflects workforce snapshot counts taken spring of 2022 and 2023 of full-time faculty
    2. Data include all faculty who were paid when the snapshot was taken
    3. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Ethnicity Calculation is used to align with the student demographic reporting.
    4. Our retention rates for our faculty and staff have remained consistent.

Hiring Practices

  • The SPH HR team, Office of DEI, and Office of Faculty Affairs are collaborating to provide education and training for each faculty search committee on how to conduct an antiracist job search.
  • SPH continues the processes it began last year of 1) Coaching faculty on active recruiting methods with a focus on recruiting faculty from diverse backgrounds; and 2) Advertising faculty searches in outlets with a broad reach, especially towards professionals of color. HR also continues to refine its process for guiding division heads and faculty search committees through the development of faculty position descriptions that have well-defined and assessable required qualifications and preferred qualifications, with the number of required qualifications minimized.
  • The SPAR faculty subcommittee has reviewed faculty position postings to 1) Build consistency across divisions in language related to antiracism and SPAR; 2) Align language with our specific SPAR goals; and 3) Build transparency about the position, including through the posted salary ranges and benefits. 
Year 1

Faculty Counts by Race/Ethnicity

  • 2021 total headcount 130; BIPOC 26 (20%)
  • 2022 total headcount 123; BIPOC 27 (21.95%)
  • Notes:
    1. Data reflects workforce snapshot counts taken spring of 2021 and 2022
    2. Data include all faculty who were paid when the snapshot was taken
    3. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Ethnicity Calculation is used to align with the student demographic reporting.
  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • The SPAR faculty subcommittee recently reviewed all divisions’ faculty mentoring plans and discussed strengths, commonalities, and differences, and brainstormed ideas to increase the ability of BIPOC and American Indian faculty to find a senior mentor with shared lived experiences/academic trajectories.
  • The Provost’s charge to have a standing Salary Equity Review Committee (SERC) was developed with additional guidance on how to conduct it and with university-wide principles and school-wide principles. The SERC reviewed all full-time faculty base salaries with a focus on equity across track (contract, tenure-track, tenured), race/ethnicity, and legal sex. They have produced a closed report that describes their anonymized review process and makes specific recommendations to SPH leadership on who is needing an equity increase in base pay and how much is recommended. Leadership has reviewed the closed report and followed through with equity raises being granted during the current performance review cycle (effective for FY24). SERC will release an open report in Fall 2023.
Year 1

Salary Equity Review Committee (SERC)

  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • The SPH Office of Faculty Affairs sponsors a monthly assistant professor lunch, including one focused on improving faculty mentoring of our students by having students compile, and periodically revisit and revise with their mentor’s input, an Individualized Development Plan (IDP) for short-term and long-term career planning. Several template IDPs were reviewed and discussed with the goal of understanding that a mentor can help their student find an IDP that works best for them: their experiences, their degree program, and their goals.
Year 1

Networking Event

  • The SPH Offices of DEI, HR, Communications, and Faculty Affairs met in May 2022 to share ideas about faculty onboarding and networking events. From that meeting, the group began coordinating an annual networking event for all BIPOC faculty and staff that will also serve as a welcome for new BIPOC faculty and staff.
  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 1

Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure Policy

  • SPH revised the tenure-track/tenured faculty Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure Policy (7.12 Statement) and the U of M Provost gave final approval in July 2021. SPH prepared an executive summary of the changes in September 2021.

Promotion Dossier CV

  • The faculty CV nested within the promotion dossier is required to follow the U of M template. DEI contributions do not currently have specific section(s) in the template CV. The SPH Office of Faculty Affairs holds a promotion workshop each May for faculty who are requesting promotion in the coming academic year. The associate dean for faculty Affairs encourages faculty to include DEI work in all the major sections of the CV (teaching, research/scholarship, service) and to demonstrate (in particular through the teaching narrative, the research narrative, and the service narrative) how DEI work is interwoven throughout those sections.

“My role as an instructor is to train students to be effective public health practitioners, and that includes incorporating antiracism and health equity into the framework of the courses that I teach.”

– Susan Mason, Associate Professor

smason_headshot

What’s Next? July 2023 – June 2024

  • The SPAR faculty subcommittee will be drafting a list of key elements to share with SPH leadership and to incorporate into all divisions’ faculty mentoring plans. The subcommittee will work with each division to discuss some of these elements and form strategies accordingly.
  • The SPAR faculty subcommittee is in the process of drafting a faculty position posting template that will be shared with SPH leadership for consistency in job postings.

Staff

Goal Area #4
Lead Steward: Chief of Staff

Vision: To recruit, hire, mentor, support, promote, and retain staff who are representative of diverse identities — particularly Black, Indigenous, and staff of color — to reflect the students we teach and the communities we serve. To develop an environment that welcomes new perspectives, values individual backgrounds/ experiences, engages in community efforts, and centers justice, equity, inclusion, and antiracism.

  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2

Staff Counts by Race/Ethnicity

  • Staff Headcount Trend
    • 2022 total headcount 389; BIPOC 71 (18.25%)
    • 2023 total headcount 358; BIPOC 81 (22.6%)
    •  Notes:
      1. Data reflects workforce snapshot counts taken in spring of 2022 and 2023 of full and part-time staff
      2. Data include all staff who were paid when the spring snapshot was taken;
      3. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Ethnicity Calculation is used to align with the student demographic reporting.
      4. Our retention rates for our faculty and staff have remained consistent.

Hiring Practices

  • SPH has revised the DEI statements used in all staff job postings to better reflect our values and to use updated, inclusive language. 
  • The SPH HR team has been educating hiring managers about hard and soft skills and how to screen application materials with a primary focus on required qualifications. The HR team has been monitoring for possible adverse impacts in the selection process.
Year 1

Staff Counts by Race/Ethnicity

  • Staff Headcount Trend
    • 2021 total headcount 354; BIPOC 56 (15.82%)
    • 2022 total headcount 389; BIPOC 71 (18.25%)
  • Staff Hiring Trend
    • 2021 BIPOC 23.1%
    • 2022 BIPOC 31.4%
    •  Notes:
      1. Data reflects workforce snapshot counts taken in spring of 2021 and 2022.
      2. Data include all staff who were paid when the spring snapshot was taken;
      3. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Ethnicity Calculation is used to align with the student demographic reporting.

Hiring Practices

The school made the following changes to staff hiring practices to prioritize antiracism and inclusivity in the hiring process:

  • The school’s commitment to antiracism is now included in all staff job postings to highlight its importance in our culture and the hiring process. Salary ranges are now included in all staff job postings for transparency and to help candidates make an informed decision about whether to apply for a position.
  • Some required qualifications in staff job postings have been recharacterized as preferred qualifications, thereby increasing the size of applicant pools rather than automatically screening out candidates as unqualified before consideration.
  • Minimum posting time for staff positions has been increased from 7 to 14 days to help create larger, more diverse applicant pools.
  • Work arrangement information has been included in all staff job postings to highlight the availability of remote or hybrid work, thereby promoting inclusivity and flexibility leading to larger, more diverse applicant pools.
  • Instructions for indicating pronouns and preferred names have been included to promote a more inclusive hiring process for non-binary and transgender applicants.
  • Reimagined
Year 1

BIPOC Staff Affinity Group

  • First meeting held February 19, 2021, as a space for BIPOC faculty and staff to be together in community. Meetings ran monthly until spring 2022 and are currently being reimagined to be most purposeful.
  • The group participated in the 2021 SPH dean search process and met with the search firm to express needs for the school’s next leader. The group also met with each candidate.
  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • A SPAR staff subcommittee has been formed and is in the process of creating a compensation process for the school to ensure pay inequities are addressed.
Year 1

Staff Salaries

  • Over the past year, the school has made progress toward ensuring equitable, market-competitive staff salaries, including:
    • SPH developed new practices for salary setting and equity adjustments and integrated them with hiring and budgeting processes.
    • Ongoing work involves making this a sustainable practice, codifying it in a policy shared with and accessible to SPH employees (see current school compensation guidelines), and continuing to adjust as we learn from implementation.
  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • SPH provides a monthly new employee orientation that is updated regularly.
Year 1

New Employee Orientation

  • In August 2021, the SPH Human Resources Team updated the new employee orientation to introduce the Strategic Plan for Antiracism (SPAR), highlight the school’s commitment and work in antiracism and health equity, and encourage and inspire new employees to live the theme of SPAR, “Building Equity, Driving Justice: Commit | Challenge | Change.”
  • SPH New Employee Orientation Participation Trends (May-April; Invitations go out to all faculty and staff hires 0.50-1.0 FTE)
    • 2021 total invites 80, attendees 69 (86.25%)
    • 2022 total invites 123, attendees 84 (68.29%)

“One of the key ways of standing up to racism is to learn about racism. And to learn about racism means learning about this country: how it was founded, how it was developed, and how there has been a system that monetizes people, culture, and resources.”

– Feather LaRoche, Native American Student Services Coordinator

Feather-headshot

What’s Next? July 2023 – June 2024

  • The school will continue to build out DEI best practices towards staff search committees, including requiring an antiracist training for all committee members to complete.

Alumni

Goal Area #5
Lead Steward: SPH Associate Chief Advancement Officer, Alumni Engagement, DEIA and Operations

Vision: To meaningfully engage alumni in our research, training, and service activities around antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Alumni will be seen as valuable partners in this work. Their collective relationships and expertise will be extensions of the SPH student, staff, and faculty community as we work toward building an institution that is antiracist and is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion at SPH and in the wider world.

  • Completed

Accomplishments to date:

Year 2
  • The SPH Mentor Program engaged 179 students and 174 alumni throughout the 2022-23 school year. The program was strategic in bringing together mentors and mentees of similar identities to provide comfortable spaces for students. Mentors helped connect students to resources, networks, and tools to be successful and be prepared to enter the workforce or to advance in their career once they complete their degree.
  • The SPH hosted its first luncheon with BIPOC alumni to share their wisdom, advice, and insights about their journeys as graduate students. SPH newly admitted students and current students were able to engage, connect, and network with the alumni.
Year 1
  • Alumni Career Trends Survey: The school completed its first Alumni Career Trends survey in 2021. Among other pieces of information, the survey collects critical data from alumni as it relates to our SPH commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion and helps inform the future of SPH education, programming, and our learning environment. The 2021 survey served as a baseline and will be repeated every five years.
    • Sent to 9,713 (all contactable living) alumni.
    • 1,453 alumni completed the survey (15% completion rate).
    • Survey results were shared in fall 2021 with SPH leadership, AAT, SPH Alumni Society board leaders, University of Minnesota Foundation, and University of Minnesota Alumni Association.
  • Alumni and students reviewed and modified the mentor program application to include questions that would allow students and mentors to request to be matched with folks who have similar identities.
  • Alumni reviewed and modified the Alumni Society board application to include questions that identify and address gaps in board representation in relation to the communities they serve.
  • In Progress

Accomplishments to date:

Year 1
  • In September 2021, SPH created a DEI committee on the Alumni Society board. The committee will inform board strategy for engaging alumni around the issues of antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion in research and community engagement.
  • In September 2021, the school completed its Alumni Society board assessment. The assessment found that board membership does not reflect the diversity of our school’s alumni. It also found that our SPH alumni leaders do not receive training from their employers for addressing and leading work around issues of antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
  • SPH Alumni Society board completed DEI training with the SPH DEI office in August 2021.

“I envision a school that is so firmly rooted in antiracism that its faculty, staff, students, and alumni go out into the world empowered to call out injustice and racism when they see it.”

– Thuy Kim, PhD ’23

thuykim-headshot

What’s Next? July 2023 – June 2024

  • The SPH advancement team will be working closely with the student services office  and other partners to utilize the SPH Alumni Board to gather information about the student/graduate experience. This will help inform DEI-related initiatives with alumni and current students.
  • The advancement team will connect directly with 10-12 alumni who identify as BIPOC and or American Indian annually to hear their SPH story and experience. Any key findings will be provided to faculty, staff, and leadership anonymously.
© 2015 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer. Privacy Statement