Like many across the US, Juniata College stands at a crossroads regarding our need to address matters of social justice, equity and inclusion, support for BIPOC, international and LGBTQ+ students. To that end, the college has taken a moment to analyze some challenges we face and how to address them to support not only our current students but also our faculty, staff, alumni, and prospective students.

The Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), the EDI Council and the Senior Leadership Team have worked collaboratively to listen to and consider recommendations made by students and faculty over the last year. Here you will find what we've heard and how we plan to move forward.

We acknowledge that this is a working document. Some concerns involve greater collaboration amongst us all to identify the best outcomes. When new challenges arise, it will be important for us to think about and find ways to address them. As we continue this work, check back to see what progress we have and will continue to make as we move forward.

If you are aware of progress that has been made in one of these areas that your campus department may be responsible for, feel free to share with us at movingforward@juniata.edu

 

Accessibility

Our Goal: Provide course offerings in locations and through methods that are accessible for all

  • Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) membership with regular participation in training opportunities as well as interaction with other professionals across the country who work in Accessibility Services.
  • Neurodiversity Trainings provided to multiple campus groups including RA’s, Peer Mentors, Admissions, and SoTL (Faculty).
  • Listserv membership enabling interactive communication among peers within the field of Accessibility Services which helps us maintain best practices and remain up to date with emerging best practices.
  • Creation of Student Accessibility office branding to promote visibility and awareness of supports and services.
  • Autism Awareness Month Programming in partnership with Disabled Student Union, Education Department, Library, and other RSO’s.

Our Goal: Reduce equity gaps in student connection with SAS, use of accommodations and services, and outcomes. 

  • The College implemented a software solution (AIM) to help facilitate transparency and communication between students and faculty as it relates to course accommodations (Summer 2020) 
  • Identified gaps in cohorts that underutilize SAS services utilizing AIM and Colleague data (Summer 2024). 
  • Creation of Student Accessibility office branding to promote visibility and awareness of supports and services. 
  • Implemented outreach and programming on the intersectionality of disability with other identities (Spring 2024).  
  • Autism Awareness Month Programming in partnership with Disabled Student Union, Education Department, Library, and other RSO’s. 

Our Goal: Realizing and respecting accommodations

  • Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) membership with regular participation in training opportunities as well as interaction with other professionals across the country who work in Accessibility Services. 
  • Neurodiversity Trainings provided to multiple campus groups including RA’s, Peer Tutors, Admissions, and SoTL (Faculty). 
  • Listserv membership enabling interactive communication among peers within the field of Accessibility Services which helps us maintain best practices and remain up to date with emerging best practices. 

Bias Reporting

Our Goal: Processing and completion of incident report and resolution

    • The Bias Incident Response process has undergone a significant reorganization. Some of the changes are related to the best methods for responding to and addressing incidents when they have been reported by different parties. This also meant clarifying the role of the team as an administrative and advisory body who will provide recommendations to human resources, academic affairs and student life in terms of processing and resolution. 
    • Ongoing efforts to improve the process include Maxient software and delineating the intake process in order to best support the students affected by the bias. (2024) 
What Is a Bias Incident?

Our Goal: Transparency in communication of number of incidents reported on campus

 

BIPOC Student Support

Our Goal: Authentically addressing race/ethnicity retention and graduation gaps

    • The Office of Institutional Research published retention and completion rates in a disaggregated format disaggregated by race (Fall 2021). Additional analysis of retention and completion for under-represented and under-resourced cohorts (first-generation or Pell-eligible, for instance) is ongoing and related data is published as collected. We are regularly analyzing data to identify equity gaps and suggesting changes designed to help eliminate them. For example, we have identified equity gaps in some of our experiential learning opportunities. Participation in experiential learning opportunities is directly related to student success measures such as retention and graduation. Furthermore, the analysis work performed has involved disaggregating funding data by racial, and economic backgrounds, which in turn helps to inform Enrollment Management in exploring strategic augmentations in financial aid awarding to help to close gaps in retention and graduation rates that appear impacted by financial need. 
Published Data
  • A collaborative effort is underway to identify students in academic distress earlier and provide resources and support to facilitate academic success and course completion (Fall 2021) 
  • Eagles Care and Retention Committee are still at work to provide resources to students.  They now receive emails through basecamp as a metho of contact from Faculty, Staff, or Learning Associates. (Fall 2024) 
  • The expansion of Academic Coaches to include part-time individuals with a broader range of identity representation through in-person and remote contact is underway. (The position was posted in Fall 2021 with additional staff anticipated for Spring 2022.) 
  • Full-time hire for Academic Coaches. (Spring 2024) Now staff are located in Statton Learning Commons.  

Our Goal: Address the need for safe spaces for BIPOC students on campus

  • The Unity House and the Office of EDI has developed programming to create spaces of belonging. An example are Donuts with the Dean, Open Houses to invite the campus community, and Fall of 2024 we created Community Conversations that allows for skill development, belonging, and space to gather for conversations. 
  • The Diaspora House is the LLC created for all students designed to provide them with a living environment promoting equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging.  This house was created to support the needs of all students and with a centering of Black, Latino/a, Indigenous, and other underrepresented students looking for community. (Fall 2024 a Community Agreement was reached outlining the goals of this LLC) 

Our Goal: Provide access to mental health support for and by African Americans

  • The College has incorporated remote tele-counselors that represent a range of diverse identities and clinical modalities to help address BIPOC students’ need for support. Clinical modalities represent backgrounds and experience in addressing racial battle fatigue and racialized trauma with clients (Fall 2020). 
  • The Counseling Center now allocates frequency of counselor contact based on clinical assessment and client need, eliminating session limits and additional fees beyond the universal health and wellness fee. Students can meet with a counselor in person or via zoom. (Ongoing and available in 2024) 
  • Glaeser Counseling Center hired a counselor for Fall 2023 specialized in serving of domestically underrepresented students, especially those who are Black, Latino/a. 

Campus Climate

Our Goal: To assess and address issues of campus climate

  • The HEDS Diversity and Equity Campus Climate Survey is now available for all faculty, staff and students. An analysis of the results of this survey will begin after the first of the year and will guide the work of many campus departments going forward. This survey will help benchmark our current climate and provide comparative data with other institutions. We will readminister this survey in 3-4 years to assess progress. 
  • Fall of 2023, A Belonging Survey was administered to assess what are the students need to increase their sense of belonging. 

Community Connections

Our Goal: Assess the difficult interactions between students, JCPS and Huntingdon PD

  • JCPS Officers took part in cultural competency training 
  • President Troha hosted a coalition of area law enforcement leaders, including representatives from the HBP, District Attorney’s Office, Pennsylvania State Police and institutional representatives to discuss the relationship between the campus community and area agencies (Summer 2020). The effort to maintain and develop continued relationships and dialogue, shared training events and cooperative understandings is ongoing. 
    • Fall of 2024, JCPS still offers opportunities to engage. 
  • JCPS has facilitated changes in its campus presence and presentation, including changes to the appearance and dress of officers, the look and presence of the campus safety vehicle (Fall 2021). 

Our Goal: Assess challenges with racial profiling and acts of intimidation in the Huntingdon community

Curriculum

Our Goal: Ensure that teaching about systemic racism and minority experiences are a required part of the college curriculum

  • All faculty included as an annual goal in fall 2020 how they would alter their teaching to address systemic racism. Approximately 60% reported adjusting content of courses to diversify authors and perspectives; 1/3 addressed how they teach and worked to utilize more inclusive practices. 
  • All students are required to have a U.S. experience requirement as part of our general education curriculum. In a U.S. experience course, students will explore the complex social, cultural, political, and historical contexts that shape the lived experiences of traditionally marginalized groups within the U.S. Students will critically examine how power, privilege, and marginalization influence opportunity. In the fall of 2020, all faculty included in their annual goals one way they would address structural racism in their teaching. Approximately 60 altered course content by relying on texts written by members of marginalized populations and/or purposefully relying on examples and illustrations that spoke to minority experiences. About 1/3 of the faculty focused on altering their teaching methods to be more inclusive in their strategies and approaches. 

Our Goal: Address the need for more faculty of color teaching in the general education and POE curriculum

  • Diversifying the faculty remains a priority. Search committees are trained by the Dean of EDI and the Provost to build diverse pools of candidates. Without demonstrable evidence of diversity in those applicant pools, searches will not be allowed to continue. 
    • Summer 2024, EDI and Human Resources partnered on mandatory training for all hiring committees to reduce bias and make the hiring process more equitable and fairer. 

Our Goal: Provide additional financial support for non-STEM academic programs

  • Under the guidance of the Provost and in collaboration with the Dean of EDI a strategic hiring plan for faculty is underway. This plan will focus on ensuring the breadth of perspective central to the liberal arts and to support STEM, social science, humanities and arts program over the next 3-5 years.

Our Goal: Address inaccurate or missing representation of marginalized groups in academic programs

  • In an effort to address this challenge, an audit of academic programs as a part of their annual review will take place. The goal of this audit is to address inaccuracies and/or lack of representation. This will be an ongoing effort and will become a required part of new course development in academic programs. (ongoing, 2024) 

Co-curricular Opportunities

Our Goal: Ensure that students who participate in athletic programs feel integrated into the campus community

  • The Dean of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion is partnering with Athletics in support of Project RISE (Resources and Inspiration for Student Engagement), an effort to partner incoming students with upper-division peer support and alumni to cultivate persistence, affinity, connections and success (Fall 2021). 
    A taskforce will be created to brainstorm ways to create an Inbound Program for students who participate in fall sports. This will provide an additional opportunity for student athletes to connect with various members of campus. 

Our Goal: Assess inequities in internship and research opportunities for BIPOC students in comparison to white students

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

Our Goal: An administrative response to issues of equity and inclusion on campus

  • Summer of 2022 and 2023, in Psychology professors piloted Summer of YOU, a class designed to increase belonging for first generation and underrepresented students.   
  • Fall of 2024, The Office of EDI offered weekly sessions called Community Conversations to help students build skills, increase their sense of belonging, and provide a space for gathering. 

Our Goal: To increase the EDI capacity on campus

  • An EDI Program Coordinator position has been added. Recruitment will begin In the second week of November 2021. Additionally, the EDI Office has three student workers who will be coordinating programs, marketing and social media presence as a part of their work-study programs. 
    • The EDI Office hired a full-time Assistant Director in 2023.  The Dean of EDI is now a member of SLT and reports directly to the President of Juniata. EDI consistently hires students and has been given the funds to keep a Juniata Associate as part of the office for 10 hours per week. 

Our Goal: Ensure that the Board of Trustees are educated about issues of cultural intelligence and social justice

  • Summer of 2022, Dr. Timothy Eatman was a guest trainer and consultant during the Board Retreat.  The goal was building capacity in EDI for the Board. 
  • The members of the Board of Trustees will undergo Cultural Intelligence & Competency and Unconscious Bias training over the next year. As a part of their preparation for this work, they will also read as a collective From Equity Talk to Equity Talk by Tina Brown McNair et al. 
  • Plans to implement training are underway for 2025. 

Our Goal: Transparency, quality and frequency of communication related to EDI efforts

  • Through the development of the Bias Incident dashboard and the monthly updates from the Office of EDI, there is an effort to ensure that more information is being shared and regular updates will provide clarity for all constituents. 
    • The Bias Response Team continues to handle bias responses and will update the Juniata Community at least once per semester. 

LGBTQ+ Student Support

Our Goal: The expansion of gender inclusive housing options

    • Gender inclusive bathrooms incorporated into most buildings on campus or into plans for renovation (Beeghly Library/Learning Commons) when impossible to incorporate into current structure because of code restrictions (VLB currently). Campus planning accounts for the incorporation of gender inclusive bathrooms into all new or additional campus construction. A campus bathroom map was published on the Dean of Students website. 
    • Statton Learning Commons contains gender inclusive bathrooms (2024) and the The Field Station Bathrooms were made to be gender inclusive in the summer of 2024.  
Bathroom Policy and Map

Our Goal: Address mis-gendering of students in classroom and work settings

  • We are actively working to provide professional development for faculty around this issue. Our SoTL Center has issued best-practice guidelines to faculty and staff. Additionally, Jacoba Rock presented best-practices to the faculty at the November 2021 faculty meeting. Additionally, software changes are being made to ensure that students’ pronouns are displayed in Self-Service and Moodle. 
  • As part of CIC Belong Initiative, faculty continue to be kept up to date with best practices in Belonging. As of 2023, Dean of EDI was added as a member of the Belong Campus Leads Team. 

Our Goal: Assess inability for chosen name to use in all data systems/collection

  • A Names Task Force has been assembled to identify all systems in which names are required. Additional Name Fields have been added to our core Colleague system. Students and employees are now able to specify chosen names and personal pronouns. Additional work will need to be done to understand requirements external to Juniata and the implications to chosen names and pronouns. 

Our Goal: An accurate account of LGBTQ+ student demographics for retention and graduation rates

  • The Arch Directory was adjusted to reflect personal pronouns once entered by individuals through Colleague Self-Service (Summer 2020 – Fall 2021). Sexual and gender identity are captured in the Eagle’s Nook housing application for data migration into the Colleague Student Record. 

Professional Development for Faculty and Staff

Our Goal: Facilitate faculty development related to cultural intelligence, humility and competency

  • A three-year plan has been implemented in order to ensure that all faculty, student-facing staff and student leaders are trained in cultural intelligence and competency as well as unconscious bias during that time. The training module being utilized is from The Cultural Intelligence Center. This module calls for action plans, accountability partnership and re-assessment to identify the campus-wide growth in those areas. 
    • The belong initiative continues to bring resources to campus.  As of 2023, a website was created to highlight training, webinars, and other resources. 
  • In addition, there will be a series of workshops prior to the start of the spring 2022 semester to build faculty and staff capacity with regard to cultural intelligence, equity literacy, accessibility and accommodations, culturally competent advising, and cultural humility in community-based learning. 
    • The EDI council has provided training topics to start in the 2024-25 school year.  The first developed is “how to handle Microaggressions” for faculty. 

Recruitment and Marketing

  • An audit of recruitment marketing collateral has been underway and still continues. More specifically, photography used in print and web-based marketing materials is under review by staff in Enrollment and Marketing. Publication revisions began during the 2020-2021 academic performed and additional revision efforts continue. Furthermore, meetings and discussions took place throughout the month of October with some faculty, staff, and students that led to a cancellation of a planned fall photoshoot in effort to regroup to discuss (photography strategy). 
    • Fall of 2023 saw the hiring of photographer with skill in photographing people with darker skin tones.   
  • In addition, audit work performed so far has revealed that an active web page, https://www.juniata.edu/admission/just-the-facts/, is currently advertising information that is out of date. Instead of just performing an update to refresh the facts and data, an opportunity exists now to reimagine the presentation of these pages and more appropriately present and promote enrollment and student profile data. Enrollment Management will be leading efforts to reimagine these pages. 
  • UPDATE - Multiple meetings with various campus community members took place November to December and a revised just-the-facts web page has been developed that provides greater disaggregated data points with easy to find links. Ongoing work will continue with this page. https://www.juniata.edu/about/just-the-facts/

Our Goal: To accurately market living and learning in Huntingdon to BIPOC prospective students

  • While progress has not yet been made to address this concern, conversations have begun between the Vice President of Enrollment and Marketing and the Dean of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. A first-step action discussed is to perform focus group work with both Juniata College and Huntingdon community members to identify marketing inaccuracies and explore ideas for marketing improvement. Further discussions are needed to plan this effort out in a manner that is intentional. 
  • UPDATE - Given the Huntingdon community links to this specific action, a meeting is scheduled for February 6 with Huntingdon community member, Anthony Bullett, who is very interested in assisting with supporting students, faculty and staff of color and has offered to assist with efforts to more accurately market living and learning in Huntingdon to BIPOC prospective students. 
  • Fall 2023, Cindy Lattimer from Stone Church hosted a meeting with the Dean of EDI and community members including Anthony Bullett.  This meeting discussed opportunities to partner in the community for things like Juneteenth.