Diversity and Inclusion Task Force Report

May 2005

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA EXTENSION SERVICE

Diversity and Inclusion Task Force Report

May 2005

During winter 2004, Dr. Charles Casey, dean and director of the University of Minnesota Extension Service, appointed a Task Force to examine the status of diversity and inclusion efforts within the Extension organization. The Task Force was comprised of Leslee Mason, Juan Moreno (chair), Patricia Olson, Dick Senese, Toby Spanier, Patricia Stoppa, Annie Vann, David Werner, and Deb Zak. This statewide committee was charged with reviewing Extension's current policies, procedures, and practices in the area of diversity and inclusion and recommending tangible and doable alternatives to assist the organization in maximizing its impact upon new, diverse, and historically underserved populations in light of the new organizational realities brought about as a result of a significant reorganization during 2003 and 2004.

The committee's first task involved a comprehensive review of all organizational systems that are currently in place in order to help insure organizational compliance with the spirit and intent of civil rights laws as well as those available to assist the organization in pursuing its ethical obligations in the area of diversity and inclusion. A complete list is attached as Appendix I. Secondly, the committee attempted to summarize the multiple and varied efforts under four major categories:

A. ACCESS AND REPRESENTATION

Extension will work towards building a workforce that reflects the diversity of the population of the state. Extension will include members of diverse groups as full and influential participants in all aspects of the organization, but especially in decision-making and policy bodies that shape the organization and its programs.

B. CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT

Extension will establish an organizational climate that creates, promotes, and sustains the ideals of diversity and pluralism throughout the organization and eliminates harassment and discrimination at all levels. Extension will establish physical environments and surroundings that are welcoming, accessible, safe, respectful, and inclusive.

C. PROGRAMS AND PRODUCTS

Extension will ensure that new, diverse, and historically underserved audiences have equitable access to participate fully in all events, programs, and activities.

D. SPECIAL INITIATIVES

Extension will create as well as partner in new, innovative, and meaningful efforts to reach new, diverse, and historically underserved audiences when such efforts are consistent with its mission.

Distinct goals were subsequently identified under each category. Finally, the committee made its recommendations based on the four major categories and goals. This comprehensive review of the diversity and inclusion area of the organization and its subsequent recommendations is also designed to serve as a strategic plan to help carry out Extension's commitment to the ideals of diversity and inclusion during the next five years (2005-2010). It is the Task Force's hope that Extension administration will seriously consider each of the 19 recommendations in this report and act upon all of them. The Task Force believes that they are all equally important and deserve attention and action if Extension is going to fulfill its mission of “making a difference by connecting community needs and University resources to address critical issues in Minnesota,” while maximizing its impact among all the people that call Minnesota home.

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA EXTENSION SERVICE

Diversity and Inclusion Task Force Report

May 2005

Minnesota has long had a significant American Indian as well as African American presence. In addition, as the state continues its long tradition of providing a permanent home for migrants, immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers from all parts of the United States and the world, the ethnic and racial landscape of the state has become much more diverse. Although human diversity has always been present in the State of Minnesota, there is no question that the state is currently entering a new era of greater racial and ethnic diversity. This is occurring at a time when other historically excluded populations are also gaining increased voice and visibility within the social landscape of the state. As a consequence, communities large and small across Minnesota are experiencing a significant demographic transformation, making the state a richer mosaic of races, nationalities, backgrounds, cultures, abilities, lifestyles, beliefs, and orientations.

As a brief example, in the race/ethnicity category alone, the population of African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans grew by 72 percent during the 1980s and by more than 85 percent during the 1990s. From 6.3 percent in 1990 and 12.5 percent of the total population in 2000, the state's population of color is projected to grow to more than 20 percent of the total population by the year 2020. This is already the case within the urban corridor. Based on projections from the State Demographer's Office, more than 33 percent of the state's youth will be racial and ethnic minorities by the year 2020. Minority populations are also younger than the white population. While about 26 percent of the white population is under the age of 18, the youth population ranges from 35 to 45 percent for the various minority groups in Minnesota.

How this expanding diversity aligns with Minnesota's economy will affect the future quality of life of the state. Already, the state's economy increasingly relies on a diverse workforce. People of color are a growing cornerstone of the workforce in the hospitality, construction, horticulture, landscaping, meat and poultry packing, dairy, food processing, and other agriculturally-related businesses throughout the state. Additionally, tribal gaming is a major employer as well as an important engine of economic growth and development in many rural communities of the state.

While many of Minnesota's more than half-million people of color are prospering economically, a disproportionate share are clearly not. Gaps in incomes and education between whites and people of color are large and often growing in Minnesota. An increasing proportion of the state's children are poor children of color. Additionally, a disproportionate percentage of the prison population of the state is African American (37%) as well as other racial/ethnic minorities (53%). All of these significant and disturbing trends call for bold initiatives to reverse a course towards greater division, fragmentation, and exclusion of a growing and changing segment of our society. To ignore these trends would be to invite a serious decline in the state's quality of life and position in an increasingly diverse and interdependent global economy.

In Minnesota we enjoy a quality of life that is one the highest in the nation and in the world. This has been achieved thanks to a historical statewide covenant that has made intentional investments in the best schools, universities, parks, health care, and transportation infrastructure possible. Additionally, Minnesota has always prided itself in its strong sense of justice and egalitarianism. This implies that in Minnesota everyone has had a chance for a better life, not just a privileged few. Traditionally, in this state, we have believed that every Minnesotan should have the opportunity to get a quality education, to care for their families, to get affordable healthcare, and to live in a healthy and safe environment. In other words, we have adhered to a common vision that every Minnesotan should be able to enjoy and participate in the benefits and responsibilities of a place that works well for everyone.

It is within this social context that during winter 2004, Dr. Charles Casey, dean and director of the University of Minnesota Extension Service, appointed a Task Force to examine the status of diversity and inclusion efforts within the Extension organization. The Task Force was comprised of Leslee Mason, Juan Moreno (chair), Patricia Olson, Dick Senese, Toby Spanier, Patricia Stoppa, Annie Vann, David Werner, and Deb Zak. This statewide committee was charged with reviewing Extension's current policies, procedures, and practices in the area of diversity and inclusion and recommending tangible and doable alternatives to assist the organization in maximizing its impact upon new, diverse, and historically underserved populations in light of the new organizational realities brought about as a result of a significant reorganization during 2003 and 2004.

The committee's first task involved a comprehensive review of all organizational systems that are currently in place in order to help insure organizational compliance with the spirit and intent of civil rights laws as well as those available to assist the organization in pursuing its ethical obligations in the area of diversity and inclusion. A complete list is attached as Appendix I. Secondly, the committee attempted to summarize the multiple and varied efforts under four major categories. Distinct goals were subsequently identified under each category. Thirdly, the committee made its recommendations based on the four major categories and goals. This comprehensive review of the diversity and inclusion area of the organization and its subsequent recommendations is also designed to serve as a strategic plan to help carry out Extension's commitment to the ideals of diversity and inclusion during the next five years (2005-2010). It is the Task Force's hope that Extension administration will seriously consider each of the 19 recommendations in this report and act upon all of them. The Task Force believes that they are all equally important and deserve attention and action if Extension is going to fulfill its mission of “making a difference by connecting community needs and University resources to address critical issues in Minnesota,” while maximizing its impact among all the people that call Minnesota home.

A. ACCESS AND REPRESENTATION

Extension will work towards building a workforce that reflects the diversity of the population of the state. Extension will include members of diverse groups as full and influential participants in all aspects of the organization, but especially in decision-making and policy bodies that shape the organization and its programs.

1- Situation: With Extension having gone through a dramatic organizational change in the recent past, a number of new hiring authorities presently exist within the new organizational structure (CALs, APLs, DFOs, REEs [4-H, Health and Nutrition]). Many are not currently aware of the requirements, opportunities, resources, web sites, and other pertinent information that is already in place about how to build a diverse workforce.

Recommendation: Require a mandatory training for all supervisors who will or could be serving as hiring authorities within the new organizational structure and, therefore, be in charge of search committees. To lead a search committee the individual must have gained “Hiring Authority” status; much like a person in charge of a grant must first have “Principal Investigator” status. Each and every search committee must have at least one person who has this “Hiring Authority” status gained via this mandatory training. This training could possibly include such things as:

This training should be offered multiple times during the first year and training materials will need to be developed. Refresher trainings should be required every few years.

2- Situation: As an organization, we tend to be in a rush to get positions posted and get new staff hired and on board. This rush to proceed, although understood and appreciated, often implies that several check points in place to insure a successful search are often overlooked.

Recommendation: Mandatory check points need to be developed and built-in to each and every search. These check points may include:

Extension should require that all search committees have, at minimum, one person who will agree to “hold the charge” of ensuring that diversity is considered at each step of the hiring process (certainly all members should be doing this, but to begin with, we believe that we need to be overt in this search committee membership requirement). Additionally, it is important that all search committees include members from communities of color. They do not necessarily have to be affiliated with Extension.

3- Situation: Our current recruitment process appears not to be getting us as many diverse applicants as we would like.

Recommendation: Designate one person (in Coffey Hall or at a Regional Center) to take on a short-term special assignment to re-assess our recruitment and advertising plan. Critical to this research would be to eliminate advertising in expensive media that gains the organization very limited applications but, more importantly, to determine new places where Extension should advertise that may lead to reaching more people of color. The same person researching new advertising venues would research and attempt to locate “Head Hunter Organizations” that specialize in locating diverse applicants for positions. These organizations would be paid from savings on effective advertising and would be paid based on their success in significantly diversifying our employment pools. Extension should also, as an organization, purposely recruit (set up a booth, hand out cards and flyers, etc.) at conferences and events that draw a notably diverse audience. Furthermore, search committee members should each contact prominent colleagues to nominate candidates, noting how quickly that becomes a large number of contacts. Extension should also encourage its professional staff to come back from each conference with at least 2 or 3 new recruiting contacts - either potential candidates, or people who may be good referral sources for candidates from underrepresented groups.

4- Situation: Some of our diverse applicants are currently screened out (correctly) based upon their written application and lack of experience, which does not allow us, as an organization, to find out if they would have been viable candidates via an interview.

Recommendation: Consider doing Organizational Interviews of diverse applicants screened out of employment pools. Whoever does these interviews could identify if the applicant does show tremendous promise and, if so, in what capacity area. They could then 1) encourage them to apply for positions in that specific capacity area 2) notify the Capacity Area Leader that the individual should be interviewed for future openings. Candidates who hold great promise would be hired by the organization as Regional Educator Interns (or some similar title). The organization may choose to have any number of interns at any one time. When positions open in the organization that an Intern fills, another Intern could be hired to fill the previous position. Finally, Extension also needs to consider the role of compensation in the recruitment picture. Does our current compensation plan allow us to be competitive in the marketplace when seeking highly qualified diverse applicants?

5- Situation: Extension has made great strides, in the last several years, in diversifying the composition of its Citizen's Advisory Committee (CAC) and the 4-H Foundation Board. Other influential policy and decision-making bodies, however, have not done as well.

Recommendation: Extension must intentionally diversify the composition of all of its committee structures. Lessons learned and best practices from diversifying the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) and the 4-H Foundation Board, as well as those learned from achieving greater gender balance in the total organizational workforce, must now be applied to the rest of the organization in terms of race/ethnicity. Some critical committees in this regard include: County Extension Committees, Extension Volunteer Committees (such as MAVA), and Program Design Teams.

B. CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT

Extension will establish an organizational climate that creates, promotes, and sustains the ideals of diversity and pluralism throughout the organization and eliminates harassment and discrimination at all levels. Extension will establish physical environments and surroundings that are welcoming, accessible, safe, respectful, and inclusive.

6- Situation: We aren't certain what the current status of Extension's organizational climate (attitudinal context) for diversity is, although we certainly have strong clues from many places that improvements need to be made in this area.

Recommendation: Establish some benchmarks to use to measure the organization's progress in this area over time. Our first step is to assess what the current organizational climate is. The first choice would be to use a valid and reliable instrument such as the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). This is an individual as well as a group assessment tool. Several Extension staff members are already trained to administer this inventory. The Center for 4-H youth development has already used it. Another resource is the National Extension Diversity Center's Diversity Climate Survey which may not be as reliable as the IDI and might be more expensive. But the advantage of this second instrument is that it is specifically designed for Extension organizations throughout the nation. Charge a work group to measure the current organizational climate and make recommendations about how to proceed from there. Included in this group could be the IDI certified staff members, key Extension leaders, HR, underrepresented staff members, etc. The cost of this undertaking would be approximately $10.00 per staff member for the inventory, travel costs for the sessions, and possibly the cost of certification of some additional staff members. There is also a cost related to the use of the National Extension Diversity Center's Climate Survey.

7- Situation: Extension currently offers virtually no incentives for staff members to focus specifically on diversity areas in their ongoing professional development journeys.

Recommendation: Offer incentives for staff members to pursue professional development opportunities related to diversity. Some ideas: provide matching funds centrally for an employee pursuing professional development related to diversity; allow for mini-leaves for cultural immersion experiences such as internships or exchanges with other agencies; provide funding for intensive second language acquisition courses, etc. Research in this field indicates that these longer-term types of experiences play a significant role in changing attitudes and behaviors towards human differences. Charge a small work group to research and recommend fresh, innovative, and feasible professional development opportunities in the area of diversity. Perhaps design a proposal and approval process for staff members that include a plan for how the staff development experience would be used or shared more broadly across the organization. Providing such incentives will take a significant organizational funding commitment.

8- Situation: Extension has not trained staff members in some mandatory compliance areas such as sexual harassment and civil rights in a number of years.

Recommendation: Identify the mandatory compliance areas and design and implement centralized development training. This is long overdue. Charge a small work group, including the Diversity and Inclusion Specialist, to design and deliver this key training throughout the state. Cost for some things such as sexual harassment training might be minimal because there might be a CD training kit available from the central University EEO office. Some of this training is incorporated into the new staff orientation program. Other training could require travel costs. Use technology to save costs as much as possible.

9- Situation: Extension has made some measurable progress in the area of an appropriate environment (physical context) for diversity, yet not everything is being attended to. We fear that things will become outdated or information will not get to new staff members, etc.

Recommendation: Assign someone to consistently oversee and sustain the current initiatives in the following areas:

C. PROGRAMS AND PRODUCTS

Extension will ensure that new, diverse, and historically underserved audiences have equitable access to participate fully in all events, programs, and activities.

10- Situation: With very few exceptions (2), Extension's 56 programs were not designed with the input of diverse or non traditional audiences, nor in an inclusive manner. With very few exceptions also, Extension's 56 Program Business Plans do not have dedicated allocations or internal plans as to how to reach out to diverse and non traditional audiences as well as to be inclusive in providing the programs to new audiences.

Recommendation: Need to find out what the needs are from the people we are going to serve, not what we think they need (ask them). Do not make assumptions. Take time and education to learn about the potential new audience.

11- Situation: Programs are usually offered at “traditional” times when many non traditional audiences cannot participate due to the kind of work these potential audiences are involved in. This item may also include religious holidays. Extension has usually advertised its programs and materials in traditional ways, cultures, and languages; therefore, reaching mostly traditional audiences only. There is a lack of knowledge and sophistication on the part of Extension's decision makers, educators, and others about diversity resources and potential partners from non traditional audiences. People of diverse backgrounds do not always feel welcome or comfortable in attending and participating in Extension programs.

Recommendation: Take time and education to learn about the multiple intricacies of serving diverse audiences. Make available updated diverse directories and utilize opportunities for networking with non traditional partners. Develop trusting relationships over time.

12- Situation: Lack of diversity in Extension's workforce prevents us from working with whatever diverse audience we are targeting.

Recommendation: Hire staff from the target culture/diverse audience to do, help, or direct the job. This kind of ACCESS is critical in developing programs and materials as well as doing outreach. Extension needs to dedicate funds specifically to advance this effort.

13- Situation: The vast majority of Extension programs are not accessible to audiences with low and/or no English proficiency since they are available primarily in English only. Programs are also developed to target dominant European cultures without considering other cultures that live and work in Minnesota.

Recommendation: Develop programs as well as “transform” programs in our current offerings so that they would be linguistically and culturally accessible to everyone in the state. Throughout the entire program cycle (conceptualization, funding, development, marketing, and implementation) Extension must consider the filter of inclusion.

14- Situation: Funding has been distributed in the same traditional ways to the same traditional groups for many years. Programs have been developed the way they are, often without serious consideration as to how inclusive they are in their development and how they may impact the diverse audiences that may participate in them.

Recommendation: Distribution of funding should be rerouted to meet the needs of historically underserved and new Minnesota communities and to provide incentive funding for those programs that are inclusive.

15- Situation: There has been a general lack of accountability organizationally when it comes to diversity and inclusion issues and topics.

Recommendation: There have already been recommendations made from other Extension teams that have been appointed to review this area. Additionally, there have been many staff development diversity opportunities (even free ones) that people do not attend or internships that have helped educators to reach diverse audiences but did not last. Extension should appoint a governing board with the power to ensure that diversity and inclusion regulations and norms are met and people, at all levels of the organization, are held accountable for not only the new policies that might come out of this document but also for the many already existing ones.

D. SPECIAL INITIATIVES

Extension will create as well as partner in new, innovative, and meaningful efforts to reach new, diverse, and historically underserved audiences when such efforts are consistent with its mission.

16- Situation: Throughout Minnesota, Extension has examples of programs that are attempting to reach new, diverse, and historically underserved audiences. However, Extension does not have an effective way to collect, analyze, or evaluate these efforts and programs.

Recommendation: Design a model to collect data on efforts, emerging needs, opportunities, and marketing strategies within each capacity area to identify programs designed for diverse audiences. Will My Programs be able to provide this information?

17- Situation: Sustainable funding and human resources are always central issues when designing innovative programs for new audiences. Most of the existing programs that are specifically designed to reach diverse and historically underserved audiences were initiated with outside funding. Once the grant funding is depleted, the programs typically ended as there weren't resources built in to sustain the programs over time. Capacity Area Teams are required to have approved business plans for all programs that receive program support funds. There is a small number of business plans for programs that address the needs of diverse or historically underserved audiences.

Recommendation: Designate at least 10% of program support funds in each capacity area to support new or existing initiatives that address the educational needs of diverse or underserved audiences. This would be consistent with the incidence of populations of color in the state at the present time (12.5% according to the 2000 Census). The programs must fit Extension program priorities.

18- Situation: 4-H Youth Development Summer Intern positions are designed to provide hands-on experiences for the intern and at the same time provide Regional Extension Educators and/or County 4-H Program Coordinators with the extra help needed during the busy summer season. 4-H Summer Intern positions are contingent on local funding and will vary from 8 to 13 weeks in length. The general qualifications are: Experience using computer software technology is required. 4-H Youth Development experience as a member and/or volunteer is preferred.

Recommendation: Pilot three interns in positions where the work is centered on reaching new or diverse audiences. Every effort will be made to recruit and hire interns from the population that they are going to be working in within Extension.

19- Situation: Extension staff professional development opportunities are often led by professionals within our own organization. This model leads to having staff that learn only from professionals who have had similar experiences working with traditional Extension audiences. The needs assessment process was designed for Regional Directors to seek input from County Extension Committee members on existing programs that match identified needs in Minnesota counties. For the most part, voices form diverse and historically underserved audiences were not included in the needs assessment process.

Recommendation: Identify and fund professional development opportunities for Extension staff to learn more about diverse and underserved audiences by participating in conferences with them. Examples include conferences sponsored by the 1994 land grant colleges; 1890 land grant colleges; and other educational institutions serving persons of color. In order to focus time and resources on expanding educational opportunities for diverse and historically underserved audiences, Extension must dedicate financial resources to this effort. The resources can include additional staff time to design and deliver programs, or staff time to identify and seek outside funding from foundations that target their resources to diverse audiences.

APPENDIX I

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA EXTENSION SERVICE

Diversity and Inclusion Task Force Report

May 2005

Review of Diversity and Inclusion Efforts

A. ACCESS AND REPRESENTATION

Extension will work towards building a workforce that reflects the diversity of the population of the state. Extension will include members of diverse groups as full and influential participants in all aspects of the organization, but especially in decision-making and policy bodies that shape the organization and its programs.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/administrative/information/plan.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/units/diversity/statement.html

http://www.extension.umn.edu/units/diversity/principles.html

http://www.extension.umn.edu/units/diversity/responses.html

Policy can be found in the internal Extension Website under H.R.

http://www.eoaffact.umn.edu/RegentsEEO.pdf

http://www.eoaffact.umn.edu/RegentsDiversity.pdf

http://www.eoaffact.umn.edu/Nepotism&Consensual.pdf

http://www.eoaffact.umn.edu/SexHarassment.pdf

http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/disabilitiesact.html

http://www.extension.umn.edu/units/diversity/policy.html

http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/ohrpolicy

http://www.eoaffact.umn.edu/

http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/adp/practices/jones.html

6. Participation

i. In Extension Citizen Advisory Committees

ii. In County Extension Committees

iii. In Extension Volunteer Committees

iv. In Program Design Teams

B. CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT

Extension will establish an organizational climate that creates, promotes, and sustains the ideals of diversity and pluralism throughout the organization and eliminates harassment and discrimination at all levels. Extension will establish physical environments and surroundings that are welcoming, accessible, safe, respectful, and inclusive.

http://webdev.extension.umn.edu/internal/Professional_Development.html

http://www.extension.umn.edu/units/director/360Performance/evaluation.pdf

http://www.intercultural.org/idi/idi.html

http://www.extension.umn.edu/units/director/hr/PComplaints.html

http://www.extension.umn.edu/units/dc/item.html?item=07771

C. PROGRAMS AND PRODUCTS

Extension will ensure that new, diverse, and historically underserved audiences have equitable access to participate fully in all events, programs, and activities.

4. Reporting

i. Federal Plan of Work

ii. Various Stakeholders

D. SPECIAL INITIATIVES

Extension will create as well as partner in new, innovative, and meaningful efforts to reach new, diverse, and historically underserved audiences when such efforts are consistent with its mission.

Examples:

1. Woodlands Wisdom

2. Pathways to Educational Partnerships

3. White Earth Summer Math and Science Program

4. Parents Forever - Padres Para Siempre

5. Latino Financial Literacy Program - Dollar Works en Espaqol

6. Info-U in Hmong, Spanish, and Somali

7. Health, Food, and Nutrition Programs

8. Science Education Partnership for Greater Minnesota

9. Collaborations with 1994 American Indian Land Grant Colleges

10. “On the Move” program in Dakota County

11. New Immigrant Farmer Program

12. Emerging Leadership Investment Program

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