Equity Case Studies Report - School of Social Work - University of ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

UBC school of social work equity and diversity strategic plan: A compilation of case studies 83 (MacDonald et al., 2003, p. 484). Moreover, there is a great connection between commitment to equity and climate. Demonstrating a strong commitment to addressing and improving issues of equity can promote an environment where faculty and students with privilege can react “humbly and cautiously to criticism and complains by colleagues and students who belong to oppressed groups” (MacDonald et al., 2003, p. 484), and where minoritized faculty and students feel that such criticisms and complaints will be heard. The School of Social Work at Dalhousie provides us with a significant example of institutional commitment and the impacts of such commitment to climate and collegiality. The example is the university-wide training program for staff and faculty called Diversity at Dal: What Part Will you Play?, which is a collaborative project between the Employment Equity and Personnel Offices and the School of Social Work. These training workshops were designed and facilitated by members of the School, and were organized around the principles of awareness, analysis, and action. The process of these three core principles work towards the planning of personal and systemic actions to make changes. Such commitment, involvement, and collaboration such as this can affect many areas of equity and diversity within an educational site, and as such, can have a strong impact on climate and collegiality. Examples such as these can provide possibilities for improvements and attention to climate for the UBC School of Social Work. Lessons Learned/Suggestions for Policy and Practice From the work and analysis conducted to date, the Equity Task Force has begun to shape a vision that acknowledges the need to devote considerable attention to the processes and methods through which the UBC School of Social Work’s equity plans and practices are developed, implemented, monitored, and revisited on an ongoing basis. The emerging vision is
UBC school of social work equity and diversity strategic plan: A compilation of case studies 84 that in order to realize an equity plan; it needs to exist not only in text, but also by ‘living’ through practice. As such, a living equity plan is informed by the following guiding principles: • It is not only what organizations do (either informally, or in terms of policy) which challenge oppressive and racist structures, but how organizations do this, and how policy is implemented which has a significant impact (Ahmed et al., 2010); • Attention is given to processes and methods for development, implementation, and sustainability of an equity plan instead of focusing on a set of isolated and not necessarily related best practices; • A holistic approach to address equity issues is built upon recognition of current inequities, meeting professional and community standards, and a respect of rights and freedoms; • Institutional and faculty commitment and openness to change and to challenging structures of oppression are conditions for any basic and meaningful change; and • Student leadership and participatory governance ensure accountability and transparency of process. To complement this emerging vision, the lessons learned and recommendations for policy and practice that emerged through the process of interviewing other Schools/Faculties of Social Work and undergoing analysis are provided below. This analysis included suggestions from other sources used throughout this report. As one of the challenges in establishing positive change in the area of educational equity centres on the implementation of policies, the goal of this report is to have these recommendations considered in the UBC School of Social Work’s attempts to minimize the disjunctures between policy and practice, and in the development of a new equity and diversity strategic plan.
Page 1 and 2:
University of British Columbia’s
Page 3 and 4:
UBC school of social work equity an
Page 5 and 6:
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10:
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34: UBC school of social work equity an
Page 83: UBC school of social work equity an
show all

Equity Case Studies Report - School of Social Work - University of ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?