Systemic Analysis

During this time of remote work and learning, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion continues to develop resources, support, and programming that can help facilitate our university’s efforts to address systemic racism in concrete ways.  Aligned with President Snyder’s commitments in Beyond Words, and our university mission, where faith and justice are always intertwined, our objective is to equip all academic and staff units to fully engage in a process leading to anti-racism.  The Systemic Analysis process is designed to help guide this unit-level self-reflection.

The point of the systemic analysis process is to consider how obstacles are “baked” into our systems and structures, presenting often-invisible barriers for fully addressing the needs of all our students, especially those who are minoritized and/or marginalized in our society. In doing so, we flip our perspective from asking “how do we change our students to better fit the requirements of our system?” to “how do we adapt our institutional structures and processes to be more equitable, responsive, and inclusive in meeting the needs of all our students?”  From this unit-level reflection, we can begin identifying the issues we need to act upon.  We then commit to specific actions and specify how we will know we are successful in our efforts. 

The resources on this page provide guidance, support, and accountability for this process. We invite you to participate.

There are three components to the Systemic Analysis process: First, units who have begun their reflections and would like guidance and further resources may attend an DEI-facilitated consultation workshop. Second, units who have made strides in systemic analysis and/or any other DEI work may be asked to provide a 15 minute report on their approach. Any department may sign up to report as well. In these Report Out sessions, the university engages in a culture of inquiry, coming together to gain new perspective and share ideas on how to successfully create more equitable spaces for our students and other constituents. Lastly, all units (whether just starting or deep in progress) will submit a Qualtrics report on their process. These reports will be compiled into documents that will be shared with the university on our Accountability page. 

Eight Steps to Guide Unit-Level Reflection:

1. Listen to members of your department--faculty, staff, students--whose identities are socially marginalized. 
2. Review your infrastructure, approaches, policies, and processes. 
3. Review the scope and content of your programs, activities, and work.
4. Evaluate structural diversity of staff and populations served.
5. Analyze your strategic partnerships in supporting efforts to educate students for justice. 
6. Evaluate the values reflected in your department’s vision/mission statement.
7. Identify training needs and opportunities.
8. Accountability/Assessment.