WinSETT - Creating a Centre for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Dr. Margaret-Ann Armour was a foundational builder of equity, diversity, and inclusion in Canada. This article describes her vision and leadership in creating the Canadian Centre for Women in Science, Engineering, Trades, and Technology (WinSETT Centre, www.winsett.ca) to generate and sustain national conversations and diversity initiatives. We outline the activities associated with these phases — beginning the diversity initiative, building on success, creating capacity, and launching a national centre — to demonstrate how this change effort has evolved. The comprehensive work since 2003 illustrates the focus, tenacity, and institutional entrepreneurship of Dr. Armour to ‘move the dial’ for diversity and inclusion in Canada. She was a pioneer in social entrepreneurship, creating the organizations, initiatives, and networks to support systemic change.

Socioeconomic Status, Race, and Public Support for School Integration

Polling data routinely indicate broad support for the concept of diverse schools, but integration initiatives—both racial and socioeconomic—regularly encounter significant opposition. We leverage a nationally representative survey experiment to provide novel evidence on public support for integration initiatives. Specifically, we present respondents with a hypothetical referendum where we provide information on two policy options for assigning students to schools: (1) a residence-based assignment option and (2) an option designed to achieve stated racial/ethnic or socioeconomic diversity targets, with respondents randomly assigned to the racial/ethnic or socioeconomic diversity option. After calculating public support and average willingness-to-pay, our results demonstrate a clear plurality of the public preferring residence-based assignment to the racial diversity initiative, but a near-even split in support for residence-based assignment and the socioeconomic integration initiative. Moreover, we find that the decline in support for race-based integration, relative to the socioeconomic diversity initiative, is entirely attributable to White and Republican respondents.

Outreach from academic libraries: Supporting our local school district’s diversity initiative

Campus and community outreach activities often play an essential role in fulfilling the mission of academic libraries at public institutions. At the University of Florida (UF), library employees are partnering with local schools to support student learning and development through the exploration of new technologies and historical resources. In past years, the UF Libraries have collaborated with local teachers to host academic library tours, collection exploration, and research workshops. The UF-Marston Science Library has also hosted Girls Tech Camp, a one-week summer camp to encourage middle school girls to pursue STEM education and careers. Building on these past activities, the UF Libraries conducted a pilot project in summer 2019 to support the diversity initiative of the local school district.

Antiracism in Residency: A Multimethod Intervention to Increase Racial Diversity in a Community-Based Residency Program

Background and Objectives: In order to address racial health inequity, it is imperative to create diverse physician workforce and leadership. We describe and report on the outcomes of a comprehensive diversity initiative at our residency with the goal of increasing the racial diversity of residents and faculty. Methods: At a community-based family medicine residency program, we instituted a multifaceted diversity initiative. The four components were mission statement revision, a diversity task force, an antiracism curriculum, and an ongoing system to evaluate progress. Results: From 2014 to 2017, the proportion of persons of color among the residents increased from 28% (10/36) to 68% (27/40). Faculty diversity increased from 9% to 27% over the same period. Conclusions: This multimethod diversity initiative dramatically increased the proportion of underrepresented and other minorities in the residency program. The intervention succeeded due to the commitment of leadership and resources to addressing racism and making diversity a top priority on an institutional level.

The Diversity Initiative as Anti-Revolutionary Project

Through diversity initiatives, academia and business have recruited many new talented individuals from historically underrepresented communities. These institutions are now in the position of possessing, managing, and deploying a massive amount of diverse talent. We examine what we may expect from these institutions as they continue to absorb diverse talent, as well as what we can expect from these talented individuals as they become a newly established class.