Criterion One: Mission and Integrity Core Component 1b: In its mission documents, the organization recognizes the diversity of its learners, other constituencies, and the greater society it serves.

---

	Diversity across the curriculum In order to achieve our goal of establishing a diverse community, UMKC has developed several programs and initiatives that incorporate diversity into the curriculum.
The Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching [FaCET], which is described in other criteria chapters, operates with a focus on promoting academic excellence by facilitating student-centered pedagogies and practices. FaCET offers many seminars and programs throughout the year which emphasize student learning and which are committed to the improvement of teaching, particularly as it relates to diversity in the classroom. First established in the 1980s, UMKC’s Women’s and Gender Studies [WGS], an inter- and multi-disciplinary academic program, focuses on the critical analysis of how gender, race, class, ethnicity and sexuality contribute to women’s and men’s experiences. WGS courses are offered in our schools of Law, Medicine, and Nursing, and by numerous departments in the College of Arts and Sciences. Currently, the WGS Program offers a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies. Expansion plans are underway to include several certificates for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as for community members. Programs of Study offered Students who choose our Black Studies minor acquire a broad-based knowledge and understanding of the issues and research methodologies that have shaped scholarship in African-American studies. Under the guidance of the DAE, UMKC is currently revising the program, with new curricula and staff. In May 2009, the University named Clovis E. Semmes as Director of its Black Studies Program. Because one of our goals is to increase student enrollment, including recruitment and retention of students from diverse backgrounds, DAE and the Provost Office created the Diversity Curriculum Infusion Institute in 2007-08. The Institute provides guidance, resources and peer assistance in order to incorporate diversity into curriculum. After completing all of the requirements, each faculty member receives professional development funds in the amount of $1,000. UMKC Staff and Administrators UMKC’s affirmative action plan, which is prepared annually by the DAE, is designed to provide ways to assess yearly improvements in hiring, training and promotion of minorities and women in all parts of the organization. The plan’s effectiveness is measured by the results it actually achieves rather than by the results it is intended to achieve. The findings also help to identify the need for alternative strategies. UM System’s Equal Opportunity Program also governs UMKC’s hiring practices. DAE manages and administers several programs for our internal constituencies that help advance our diversity mission. Diversity Empowerment Workshops are one of the many tools used by DAE to empower the UMKC community to live our core value of diversity, inclusiveness and respect. More than 1,300 faculty, staff and students have participated in the day-long workshop about diversity awareness and empowering conversations and activities. The ultimate objective of the workshops is to provide a safe environment in which to recognize bias, educate self, and share with others. DAE’s Essential Dialogues for Understanding offers topic-specific dialogue sessions featuring panel discussions, films, book readings and other venues. In support of program development, DAE’s Diversity Collaborative Programming has assisted more than 40 diversity programs and provided foundational support to several offices throughout the University. Recently, we were reminded of the importance of providing a safe environment in which to recognize and to respond to bias. In July 2007, UMKC agreed to pay $1.1 million to two female employees to settle a lawsuit that accused the University of doing nothing to stop the two tenured professors who ran their laboratory from making sexual advances, cracking explicit jokes and groping female co-workers. The two women, a graduate student and an associate professor, sued the University after they both left the laboratory in 2005, calling it a “sexually hostile work environment.” The two women asserted that while they worked at the laboratory, they were confused about how to file an official complaint with the University, and that when they did complain, the response was perfunctory.
Responding to this incident, UMKC has initiated sweeping changes in our policies and procedures in a determined effort to prevent such a situation in the future. In Fall 2007, DAE launched the Unlawful Discrimination and Sexual Harassment Non-Supervisory Seminar. Everyone at UMKC is required to take the seminar, which focuses on four major learning goals. Seminar participants will be able to (1) identify key elements of unlawful discrimination and harassment, (2) identify key elements of sexual harassment, (3) know and be able to explain why this information is important, and (4) gain a working knowledge of what to do if discrimination, harassment or sexual harassment is or appears to be happening.