DFA Inclusive Excellence

Workgroup Charge and Members

The Diversity Equity & Inclusion Action Planning Workgroup meets weekly and reports up to the Division of Finance and Administration Senior Leadership Team monthly.

CHARGE

One of the Division of Finance and Administration’s shared goals for fiscal year 2022 (FY22) is to “create and begin to implement a division-wide diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategy for FY22-26 using the We Have Work to Do framework and the DFA Framework for Success performance metrics system. It is critical that the Division of Finance and Administration take more concrete actions to advance OSU’s goal to create a culture of belonging, collaboration and innovation, and align with the university’s plans for inclusive excellence.

Specifically, this workgroup will recommend a range of actions and activities that all division units can contribute toward, with a focus on:

• Reviewing policies, standards and processes to remove barriers and expand access to DFA services

• Increasing employee diversity through recruitment and retention strategies

• Expanding inclusion, equity and a sense of belonging among current division employees, including a consideration of employee recognition programs

• Increasing the impact of DFA employees’ day-to-day work has on diversity, equity and inclusion goals at OSU

To achieve this objective, the division will utilize an adaptive planning process with the guidance of the Office of Institutional Diversity:

1. Charge an action planning workgroup to oversee the process

   1. Broadly representative of DFA (across organization, functions, roles)

   2. Engage in shared learning about organizational change, equity, policy development

   3. Conduct stakeholder outreach and collect input

2. Initiate the deliberative phase

   1. Envision a future state for DFA animated by inclusive excellence

   2. Engage in systematic inquiry to assess opportunities for growth and change

   3. Design the DFA’s diversity, equity and inclusion action plan

By  December 2022, this workgroup will collaborate with the vice president and DFA senior leaders to develop a slate of division-wide diversity, equity and inclusion actions for FY2022 through FY2026. Following this work, the action planning workgroup will transition to a steering committee to sustain the iterative phase of the DEI action plan, implement actions, monitor progress, and incorporate learning to adapt actions and objectives.

The workgroup will initially spend time engaging in learning, so everyone has a shared understanding of terms and concepts, the basics of organizational change theories, and an idea of how policies can lead to inequities among people.

Early in the process, the workgroup will create a communication plan that includes community outreach and regular sharing of information. The workgroup will collect and analyze relevant data, including stakeholder input, division self-assessments, employee surveys, focus groups and institutional data. The workgroup will identify specific actions and proposed metrics for the division’s DEI priorities that map to the Framework for Success.

Workgroup members will meet weekly. The committee co-chairs will meet monthly with the division’s senior leadership team, and senior leaders will be invited to workgroup meetings as needed for discussion and decision-making. The vice president will provide some limited funding to facilitate the workgroup’s meetings.

Workgroup Members