Welcome this is Alexia Hudson Ward the editorinchief of toart inclusive Excellence or tie for short a multimedia blog hosted by choice a publishing unit of the association of college and research libraries a division of the American Library Association we explore issues of equity divers inclusion and accessibility that affect
The higher education Community among the goals of this channel is the development of a pool of knowledge and actionable resources for information professionals undergraduates faculty of all disciplines campus staff and administrators at every level seeking to understand racism from New Perspectives and to promote racial Justice on their campuses
We are excited to welcome you to our podcast series that borrows its name from the higher education academic calendar therefore you are listening to Tai’s fall semester podcast series our second fall semester podcast features a great discussion with Crystal mccormic Weare the inaugural Chief diversity officer and Senior advisor to the
University president on Dei at K University in this podcast Crystal illuminates for us how colleges and universities can Foster and strengthen belonging on campus for all campus populations including students faculty staff and administrators Crystal highlights how belonging must go deeper than institutional statements to incorporate measurable outcomes such as the
Retention of students and staff Crystal served as the Director of diversity and inclusion initiatives at the University of Pittsburgh library system from 2004 to 2021 in that role she was responsible for Dei initiatives for over 250 faculty staff and students on five campuses including four Regional campus libraries she also conducted diversity
Programming and training for the entire Library System and led University Library System driven diversity efforts throughout the larger academic Community crystal is a founding member of the Greater Pittsburgh higher education diversity Consortium and has provided Diversy and inclusion training for the Pittsburgh Public Schools Food Service division the Junior League of
Pittsburg the Pittsburgh diversity Council the national school nutrition Association and other nonprofit organizations based in the Pittsburgh region in her role at decain Crystal is the coordinator of the president’s advisory Council on Dei and provides essential updates on internal metrics and progress on Dei initiatives Crystal also works with the University
President and the leadership advising on issues related to duan’s Dei strategy and providing support support to advance Innovative approaches to diversity related initiatives on campus she holds a bachelor’s and political science and sociology a master’s degree in education from ducain University and also holds several Dei certifications from multiple
Institutions now to our conversation with Crystal mccormic wear Crystal thank you so much for joining us looking forward to this conversation today well thank you for the invitation I’m honored to do so absolutely absolutely the topic of belonging is is such a big topic yet I think for many of
Our toward inclusive Excellence uh listeners and you know our colleagues within higher education it still feels a little nebulous and so I know that you’re going to be able to provide us a lot of really good context um in relation to how belonging intersects with
Dei and so my first question for you is that you know many institutions have adopted and Incorporated belonging within their diversity equity and inclusion plans so how do you Crystal Define belonging within the higher education context and is it measurable so I’ll just give you a
Little bit of History I’m in my prior position that’s when the wording belonging came to be so I think it’s more generational so I think the Z’s and the young Millennials you know came up with the belonging piece and so when I think of belonging I think of you know
People feeling valued and comfortable in who they are and in their space they have a comfort zone and a safety zone where they can say what they feel and not be judged so belonging to me in my interpretation and just talking to um a relatively older Z who which be my 24
Year old daughter what makes you feel like you belong she says Comfort I’m not being judged I’m not being attacked by my thoughts and so with that in mind I said well you know let’s go into a little bit more detail about this so you know Alexa
Alexia when you told me about you know belonging I’m like let me do some research because I did work in a library at one point but my best research was my 24y old and you know she’s working now and I said you’re in the workplace now
How do you feel like you belong she says well they include me in things they ask me for my input so I feel like I truly belong and I’m not just a bystandard as a colleague and I feel the same way about higher education these students are here for four to six years
Regard you know it all depends on their program but they want to have some input not just inside the classroom but outside of the classroom so that they have some type of they’ve had they leave their Mark wherever they are um either in the classroom or in the residence Halls even
In the lunchroom or cafeteria or eating facility activities that they belong to fraternities sororities other you know extracurricular activities they feel like they truly belong and they have a voice and that that they can participate as you said and feel very comfortable yeah thank you for that um I
Want to follow up with you on the idea of like the intersection of belonging and inclusion you know and as you and I have had like several conversations belonging is really starting to rise to the surface of strategic planning processes with many institutions um throughout the United States and I
Imagine that globally it’s going to also take some attraction as well do you feel that this concept of belonging is measurable so in other words you know is there some kind of connection through which we can say yes you know belonging has mattered and here is why so we have
Been we’ve actually been um surveying our students and asking them on within each unit you know do you belong do you feel value and we’ve been getting data back um and the data has been conclusive 97% of our students said that diversity upgrading inclusion and belonging make a
Big difference in them you know deciding on coming to this institution um and W 91% said that faculty staff and administration in terms of diversity is a big deal so including them into the surveying as opposed to just saying are you happy here are you unhappy happy
Here it’s helping us with our retention measures so what we’ve done is we’ve taken that in that information back to the administration faculty um and the president and the cabinet and said these are what this is what’s important to these students as well as their parents
So parents have also had a say so in terms of where they want their children to go um and belong on a campus and so coming in our admissions office has actually done some some surveying as well asking parents whether or not what’s important how do you feel like
You can belong as part of the University committee community and we actually developed a a parent portal that’s on the website for parents to log in and find out what’s going on with their child I mean of course it’s not fura they can’t go in and look at their
Grades but they can see what’s going on on campus so they can feel a little more involved in their child’s life and then the children you know the students they have an opportunity to have conversations with their parents but you know I think that’s a big part of you
Know belonging that the parents feel like they belong as well so we are intentional when we recruit um that we engage the parents as well as the students it’s it’s important to us to do the whole holistic belonging and inclusion component including someone is nice that’s when you’re inviting you’re
Like hey you know come on the longing is like we need for you we need your input and we need it badly we really value your input and we’re going to take it seriously so yeah thank you you um touched on the connection between belonging and retention and that actually uh goes into
My next question for you is thinking about those connections Crystal also for faculty and for staff because I think for a lot of us in higher education when belonging comes up as a convers we’re going to incorporate it in planning our minds and our gaze automatically goes to students but you
And I both know that belonging is just as essential um for faculty and for staff and and administrators as well so could you talk about those connections that you could potentially see between belonging and retention for the entire Community um in addition to students well it’s interesting you just brought
That up because in my presentation to the new staff orientation this past week I talked about valuing others and belonging and that for the first time we’ve had I would say informal Affinity groups or employee resource groups but now we’re actually launching a full-fledged formal ERG group and we’re serving we’re
Serving faculty staff and administration we’ve given them eight choices we said and if you have some ideas you know jot them down but here we’re going to start with eight we’re going to select the top five and then we’re going to move forward with those and as we grow we’ll add more
Ergs what I explain to new to the new staff is if the students if you don’t feel like you belong as faculty staff and administration it’s going to be conveyed upon the student and they’re going to know that yes these are very insightful young people they will come back and say
You know someone’s disengaged well they act like they didn’t really want to be here they didn’t want to service me so you know offices that are very important are student life Residence Life Financial Aid these are the front you know these are frontmen for universities um you know admissions coming in the
Door but then Student Life um well-being and counseling all of these divisions that are student facing are so important even their academic advisors which we now call student uh we call them Student Success coaches because we want it to be collaborative we don’t want it just to be the academic advisor telling the
Student what they need to do this is a collaborative effort so what we’ve done with that is the Student Success coaches were some of the main people who said to us you know what we need to feel like we belong as well because we know that we
Have a very important role at the University so now we have choices between religious diversity because I’m at a Catholic institution but we have such a diverse group of faculty staff Administration and students that are not um of the Catholic faith and so in our Center for well-being and counseling we
Have a non-denominational prayer realm we have one in that space as well as within the residents life spaces so that everyone feels like they belong the lgbtqia community um women we’ve just added four more lactation rooms to the university where we always had one it was kind of hidden and tucked away but
Now they’re you know spread throughout campus and so from January until now we went from 1 until 500 we’re getting ready to get six and then hopefully within another year we’ll have seven lactation rooms the incoming you know Workforce at most colleges and universities you see are women who are
Childbearing um just on my floor alone where I work there are two women who are actually going to have a baby and a couple of them who are coming back from maternity leave it’s so important that they feel like they belong they should not have to do this in their car or in
Some space that is not comfortable for them so you have to look at it from a holistic view as well as just you know an academic or scholarly view belonging is extremely important we will retain talented faculty staff Administration and students if they feel as though they
Belong and they have a comfort zone and that someone truly cares and you know research will tell you that a lot of Faculty staff and um you know Administration on campuses will leave because they just don’t feel comfortable um we actually had a student who came
Into Duane he was not a student of color he was a young man who was not a student of color as I said before but he came from lower economic needs upon interviewing and you know coming on the campus he um actually called the admissions office and a very caring
Admissions officer answered the phone and he said I’ve been here for a week but I don’t know if I belong here she talked him through it she called me immediately and said you know what should I do and I said give him my number I said I’m here for all of the
Students I reached out to him I said here’s some resources for you but if you need to speak to me directly I can help you navigate um this system I said because not everyone is coming from you know well means at this University we have socioeconomic means across the
Board with faculty staff and students you know across the board so he came in and we spoke and I said you know I come from humble beginnings as well um I came from a still town where my both of my parents were you know bluecollar workers
The nurse and steel mill and it made him more relatable it made it more relatable for him he said I just feel overwhelmed there’s a bunch of rich kids here I’m like everyone has their Niche here and everybody has their place and you can make your mark as well and when I said
That to him he smiled a little bit and he said thank you he said I was just so nervous because I just felt like I was out of my league you know that impostor syndrome and with faculty staff and administration so now I’ll admit when I
Came in I I went here I graduated from here I was very involved my daughter went here you have a little bit of impostor syndome like do I belong here you know and so you have to prove yourself but then as the weeks went by you know um you infiltrate yourself you
Become more comfortable because of the people around you who make you feel like you belong who reiterate that you belong here and that you have a voice and that we’re seeking you for impact and for influence and persuasion about de and and belonging issues and valuing
Others yes thank you so much and I think um for the purpose of our audiences knowledge um an ERG is an employee Resource Group and they’re also called Affinity groups as well yeah and they’re also called Affinity groups yes and they are typically um comprised of individuals who share some form of a
Commonality who will formally or informally get together to support each other and also to support each other in advancement of the work of their respective institutions and so thank you for sharing that really great story about constituting of some new employee resources groups at your University it parkens to my next
Question um for you Crystal around policy right and and you and I over the over the many many many years that we have known each other we many many many many years that we’ve known each other you know we have talked a lot about the necessity to not vacate governance while
We are looking to scale Dei initiatives belonging being one of them right and the implementation of the policy that invites various perspectives and and experiences into the institution’s decision-making fold is really important can you talk about the ways in which you negotiate that political landscape right around how you help to shepher through
Or support or Advance Dei policy that ensures that the belonging initiatives are successful and remain in place that they have degrees of sustainability so I work I’m on cabinet and so I’m one of two women on cabinet and two people of color on cabinet um I work very and this is the president’s
Cabinet president’s cabinet of the University so on on week on the weekly basis um we meet and we talk about and we hash out policies and procedures that will make life better for our faculty staff students and administration and so when I talk about Dei I I want to get
The 100% support of cabinet um and especially the general counsel Community engagement and the president so across the board we have all the senior vice presidents in that room and as we talk about policies like the chosen name um initiative the hear my name initiative the lactation room
Initiative I need them as my partners and leaders and colleagues to help pass some things through and so but we make sure we want to be within the legal confinement of doing things legally through the proper due process as well as getting the nod from cabinet so I
Work very closely with the general counsel to make sure that we are in alignment that we are not showing reverse discrimination or anti you know all of the things that you can be accused of um we want to be a so being a Catholic institution it’s easy because
We follow our mission and our mission is to serve God by serving our students and we follow the seven marks of a spirit and education we’re the only spiritan um university in the world um so we’re a Catholic order that is very unique so when we say you’re a unicorn you
Definitely are a unicorn because you’re the only one and so it’s easy to infuse the spirit and Mission along with the de Andi purposes because the spiritans were the ones who went out into Africa and served as missionaries and they had to serve a certain number of years in order
To be ordained as a spean missionary um they they’re throughout the country we’ve had spiritans in the United States for 150 years so we you know there’s that line of governance but also the mission the animated you know is Mission and it’s important that we Infuse them
On a day-to-day basis so on any given day I look at our diversity statement that has been and we do have an official diversity statement that every new faculty staff administrator and student receives the minute they walk in the door so there’s no question where we are we say diversity Equity inclusion and
Belonging and social justice is in our DNA and so it’s read um they they sign off on it the parents get it as well so they have a full understanding but getting back to your original question um I make sure that all the tees are crossed and the eyes are dotted that we
Are within legal alignment um so that we are not showing any type of reverse discrimination or anything of that um instance but I am excited to just let you know that we do have a new Dei certificate program that is third 30 hours um it’s for faculty staff and
Administration because we feel it starts at the top so and so you know we also have de within you know curriculum however we want faculty staff and administration to be trained 30 hours seven required um courses and three electors unless they want to take all six of the elected I’m an
Overachiever so I’ll be sitting there at all 13 we’re very excited because we’re one of the first universities that actually has a Dei certificate program but it’s infused with our mission and so we’re covering religious diversity socioeconomic diversity the military the lgbtqia community um implicit bias microaggressions Title 9 gender issues
Um we we covered how to be an ally How to Be an Effective Ally and we talk about Workforce bullying and they’re like what does that have to do with de and well someone who’s on a receiving end of a microaggression might see that as Workforce Boolean and so we need to talk
About that so we’re being very transparent and very open about why it’s important that everybody feels as though they belong we are developing mentorship programs so that specific groups that might be underrepresented on campus they have a place to go to outside of an affinity group or ERG just to know have
Some camaraderie and friendship so that they know they’re not the only one so it’s important that we make sure that everyone knows that they belong and so you know within the nine months or almost 10 months that I’ve been here we’ve made some leeway that’s really fabulous and I very
Impressed with Duane’s internal credentialing program because it’s one of the few in the nation that I’ve heard of where um uh anyone can basically take a course of learning to be credentialed on a campus yes with the understanding around the intersections of the research the policy procedure but then as you had
Also said you know it also helps to create a cohort of practitioners beyond the chief diversity officer right and so I just think that that’s really an interesting aspect of the work that you are helping to lead and that you’re designing at your institution that is
Really fabulous we have like we have 38 people in our cohort and it’s going from the the Deans all the way down down the pipeline so we we’re starting very high we have three Deans that are enrolled out of the 10 for this training and they have been participatory um engaging but
Then we also have admissions the Frontline people and they tend to be younger so our very first course that we started we launched in September on September 8th the very first course that we introduced was generational diversity because on college campuses we have five generations on campus from The
Traditionalists Who tend to be faculty to the generation Z’s who are in the classroom so then in between that you have the Baby Boomers the xers the Millennials and so you know what can we do to bring everyone together to be on the same Accord each course is three
Hours we could have had the multi- generational diversity course for another three or four hours and which we might yes it was very engaging um there were some serere you know we laughed a little bit about some of the stereotypes of each of the uh groups but we said how
Can we work with them and so they might have these stereotypes or you know some bad publicity but what can we do to work positively with them yeah no thank you for that that’s really fabulous um so Crystal my last question question to you is that you
Know what has been great in watching your trajectory and your your leadership trajectory for me is how you bring a lot of people under the tent and that you iterate on all of your professional experiences you know to help to influence the ways in which a lot of
Individuals and entities can be under the broader tent and so reflecting back on your experience as an academic library at min ministrator and now sitting in the seat of the chief diversity officer of a major university in which you report directly to the president I’m really interested in
Hearing from you how can libraries contribute to and model institutional belonging efforts so as the Dei um officer at the academic library at the University of Pittsburgh a lot of what I did at pit I’m doing here I’m infusing and you know just transferring and I I have more power um
And more influence now so right I’m taking it to another level but with that said I work very closely with the library still um I have someone on my bias education response team I have someone from the library on the president’s Council um on diversity Equity inclusion also the inclusive
Network because they provide the research they give us the the cited articles that can back up any type of information that we need to present to cabinet and to faculty they can look it up immediately and find out what the trends are in terms of diversity equity and inclusion
So the library Dean um Sarah Baron has been especially helpful and her whole entire team they’ve been so open and I’m happy to say that they are on it in terms of diversity equity and inclusion they’re ahead and I’m very proud of that because they’ve been open and honest and
Even prior to me coming here they were doing Cutting Edge type of programming and they don’t have a de Andi officer this is just within the team so academic libraries to me and I I have a soft spot for them because I work with them for 20
Years if you use the library and take advantage of the resources and the expertise there’s no reason why any college or university would not have proper means to execute A diversity AG inclusion program because of their information and their expertise on these subject matters they have that
Information it’s just a matter of using it and using it the right way so it’s not just a place of books and you know I actually co-presented with one of the library um team at the new staff orientation and they were talking about some of their program pramming and
Exhibits and it’s highlighting Hispanic Heritage Month and they did the Holocaust and they do programming almost on a bonly basis and it’s dealing with diversity Equity inclusion and which I’m really proud of as well because they infused that some way somehow thank you and then I also want
To talk a little bit um about the second part of the question is around how Library staff can model belonging right and so um we definitely bring the goods when it comes to the research and the enthusiasm of serving on committees that do important work yet there’s a lot of
Work ahead of us in terms of our own diversity measures and metrics um addressing implicit bias becoming anti-racist organizations so could you talk to the academic Library community how do you see from your Vantage Point from your leadership role what are the opportunities that are ahead of academic
Libraries in terms of really modeling internally onetoone with their staff how to model belonging within the libraries well I can say just based on what I’m experiencing now um a lot of the Librarians are working on committees throughout the uh University to learn more about diversity equity and inclusion actually signing up for
Training um as well as going through their internal academic training through ala and policy and you know AC RL all of those types of programming can be really beneficial to academic libraries um just from my tour when I first began um at Duan I noticed that there weren’t any
Lactation rooms but then I got a phone call and they said guess what we’re going to do we’re going to add a lactation room just because you brought it up and I was very pleased and happy about that because they’re going through restructuring in that room in that building and they weren’t necessarily
Sure if they were able to you know they had to make choices between certain rooms and when she said it I said oh okay I said but it’ll still be nice and so you know what I didn’t have to ask anymore two months later she’s like
Guess what we’re going to do we’re g to fit that room in there so just things like that um make a big difference in people’s lives something that simple to say that we’re adding a Lac a room to a woman and I actually had someone say to
Me my children are older they’re they teenagers but I remember the days where I had to go out in my car or I had to go into the ladies room and to know that you you’re working on these rooms and you know the library is going to have
One and certain divisions you know we’re trying to get them across campus she said that made me feel good and she said I’m just happy that there’s somebody out there that I she said I’ll never have another child however she’s happy that these steps are being made so academic
Libraries I think within themselves they can do their own assessment as to where they are and where they need to move forward um working with your de office and asking them what can the library do um to be more inclusive we actually did um a study at the University of
Pittsburgh prior to me leaving asking students of color what can we do to make you feel like you’ve along they talked about artwork so as a result the University of Pittsburgh they featured the August Wilson art on the floor archives floor I’m archives and preservation beautiful displays of
Artists who did different types of paintings and artwork to depict August Wilson um exhibits that display diversity equity and inclusion you know during disability resources month to display your collection that talks about disability resour ources and how you can become more culturally competent in terms of you know November Veteran
Affairs and Native American Affairs um disability resources in October Hispanic Heritage Month in September October December highlighting all of the holidays of all of the religions going from you know November all the way through January to February you know black history month um women’s History Month highlighting those collections um
Talking amongst each other as to how you can you know promote diversity equity and inclusion it starts with the library Dean um the library Dean is to set the tone um and talk about it and that page can be welcoming it can have a diversity statement um and it could just be the
University statement but it can also be listed on the diversity on that page of the website of the academic library to know that you are in congruence with the University diversity page or land acknowledgement statement I’m working on land acknowledgement statement right now because Duan at the time did not have
One and I thought it was wow I thought it was important that we Infuse the history of duang University um because the fort duain before it became Fort pit hence Pittsburgh it was Fort Duan and this was one of the major thorough fars for the French and Indian War and so I contacted
The Three Rivers adoption Council I mean I mean Three Rivers um Indian Council as well as the library to get information about our you know contribution and the historical content of Fort duain before you know Duan University and all of these things and we put it together we
Have a very powerful draft of a land acknowledgement statement and I feel that I would have rather waited to have a good statement than just say you know here we’re going to recognize you we’re standing on your land um but here are the historical um contributions that you all have made to American
Society that we use on a day-to-day basis so that was from the help of the library great Crystal thank you so much for this conversation today we really appreciate it and we know that our listeners are going to have a lot of value you gave us a lot of really great
Ideas that uh we can impl almost automatically in partnership with our various institutions Chief diversity officers uh diversity officers and others who are really committed to this work and to this concept broadening the concept of belonging so thank you so much for your time and thank you as a
Final note I would just say that Chief diversity officer working with the library Dean if the library Deans if they’re on this call um or the associate Librarians are on this you know webcast I would I would challenge you to reach out to your CDO and say you know after
This this podcast I realize I need to reach out to you and be proactive and what can we do to make life better for the University on the whole not just the um diversity office but the university on the whole be on those diversity committees so you can take back that
Information to the rest of your body and your colleagues great wonderful charge thank you so much again for your time we appreciate it thank you You thank you for listening to our toward inclusive Excellence fall semester podcast with Crystal mccor mcware the chief diversity officer and Senior advisor to the university president on Dei at Duan University sign up for reminders of new content releases and follow us on Twitter and Linkedin
Thank you so much for your time and support be Well
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