College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Office of Culture, Access and Belonging

Annually diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and MSU Extension are gathered, scored based on criteria developed by the CANR Diversity, Equity and Inclusion  Committee, and then are grouped into three categories: Platinum, Gold and Green with Platinum being the highest level. (See more on the DEI Badge Project and process.)

Departments and units were honored in April 2024 for their 2023-2024 DEI initiatives and activities.

DEI Core Area Implementation Examples/Strategies

Culture and Climate

• Establish a DEI Committee in your unit or department.
• Have faculty that engage in DEI committees in CANR, MSU, and/or in your unit or department.
• Develop a list of identified efforts in areas of diversity, equity and inclusion (e.g., trainings, workshops, seminars, surveys, accessibility efforts).
• Establish community norms in your unit or department.
• Develop a mechanism for reporting on DEI work across the missions of CANR.
• Assess the climate of your unit or department through annual surveys.

Training and Professional Development

• Display effort to have all members of your unit or department (including students) have a baseline competency in understanding and articulating the importance of DEI through trainings and other development opportunities.
• Provide funding to support DEI professional development for all faculty and staff.
• Participate in college-level DEI programs.
• Provide examples of programming in the MSU community and local community (internal and external from MSU).

Teaching, Outreach, Research and Service

• Support the MSU Chapter of Minorities in Agriculture, Nature Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS).
• Provide examples of DEI community collaboration projects or programs that your unit or department is currently doing.
• Build infrastructure to continue to champion and implement DEI work through committees in CANR, MSU and nationally.
• Ensure your unit or department includes diverse and underrepresented perspectives, equity and inclusion embedded in curricular content and instruction.
• Display efforts to collaborate with minority-serving institutions, Hispanic-serving institutions and/or tribal colleges.

Recruitment, Hiring and Retention

• Participate in the Academic Achievement Graduate Assistantship program.
• Display efforts to increase diversity, equity and inclusion through grants and participation in CANR pre-college programs (e.g., Multicultural Apprenticeship Program, ANR Institute for Multicultural, ANR Institute for Multicultural Students- Bilingual, Michigan Indian Leadership Program, CANR Pathfinders).
• Include the CANR DEI Statement and ODEI contact information in all unit programming materials and course syllabi produced by CANR units.

Leadership

• Communicate to faculty, staff and students in your unit or department the importance of making DEI programs, projects and initiatives available to staff and employees of all rank and role, including the importance of providing release time and recognition to all (i.e., hourly and salary) employees
• Show leadership areas to create and support initiatives that make DEI a focus and guiding principle:
               o Develop, implement and assess a unit or department DEI plan.
               o Establish leaders who will ensure their individual unit has an active DEI task force with DEI strategic plan objectives to achieve fair and equitable outcomes.
               o Have the unit and department leaders support the efforts of the CANR Office of Culture, Access, and Belonging.
               o Have leaders in each unit or department create and implement a unit policy to hold all community members accountable to center DEI work in every role and align their behavior accordingly.
               o Have leaders support DEI professional development for all CANR and MSU Extension employees
• Develop a set of guidelines/metrics for DEI work per faculty, academic, field and support staff that are included in all employee evaluation documents.
• Assess, discuss and document DEI practices, initiatives and reforms for all positions as part of annual evaluation practices.
• Add recognition of a recurring budget line for DEI activities.