Progress on DEI in the ECU Faculty Manual

Many of the recommendations from the 2020 Exploratory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion that have been implemented required updates to the ECU Faculty Manual that impact faculty tenure and promotion, annual evaluations, and annual professional development requirements. A list of these changes, associated resources, and the status of resources that are still in development appears below.

Note: “diversity, equity, and inclusion” is often abbreviated as “DEI” below.

Unit administrator responsibilities, and units should address DEI throughout the code (Part IV, Section I.II.b., Part IV, Section II.IV. Minimal Code Requirements, and the Unit Code of Operation Format)

The revised language makes explicit the unit administrator’s responsibility for creating environments supportive of DEI, and units are asked to include information about how the unit is addressing issues of DEI throughout their unit code. The Committee reviewed an example of how the Brody School of Medicine addressed DEI throughout their draft revisions to their code, and sent it to the Unit Code Screening Committee as a resource for units who will need to incorporate this information into their unit codes as they are revised. The Brody School of Medicine example can be found HERE.

Valuing DEI teaching, research/creative activity, and other scholarship in annual evaluations (Part VIII.I.III)

The revised language adds contributions, scholarship, and service that advances ECU’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion to the list of things to be considered in annual evaluations.

DEI information in Tenure and Promotion materials (Part X.I.E, and the Cumulative Report)
The revised language suggests faculty candidates can add a letter from a colleague about the candidate’s equity-related challenges. In the Cumulative Report, there is an addition under Teaching, Research/Creative Activity, Clinical Practice, and Professional and University Service to document efforts in support of diversity, equity and inclusion.

New requirement for one approved DEI learning activity each academic year (Part XI, Section IV.II)

The requirement was approved in April 2021, but the implementation was postponed until the 2022-2023 academic year (see memo). Throughout the 2021-2022 academic year, the Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion met with Deans and other campus stakeholders to discuss the requirement and gather information. The Committee approved guidelines for faculty and administrators about the annual DEI learning activity that were presented at the September Faculty Senate meeting.

In conjunction with this effort, the Committee created a page containing a listing of existing DEI-related efforts at ECU. It was first created as a Canvas page, but the Committee was informed that they could not use Canvas for this purpose and will now work on moving that information to the committee’s blog.