As the academic year winds to a close I want to extend my sincere thanks to my campus colleagues for your work on one of the most important priorities we have ever undertaken together: advancing inclusive excellence at CU-Boulder.听
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We want everyone 鈥� students, faculty, staff and visitors 鈥� to feel engaged, valued and supported on our campus in actively learning and realizing their full potential.
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We began the year by saying that we want our campus to be a place where individual differences are viewed as a key strength of our university, and where diversity and inclusive excellence define our community and our work.
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This year for the first time in our history we have engaged in a comprehensive and collaborative effort to build a strategic plan for diversity, equity and inclusive excellence. This work will continue and we expect it to have a major impact on our goals for student success, retention, revenue and reputation.听
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We should all be proud of the work we have done this year in pursuit of our inclusivity goals. Ninety-five percent of all academic and administrative units participated in discussions to develop values-based diversity and inclusion plans. Many units brought students, faculty and staff together to confer on these vital discussions. This was a unique process and the first time the campus has engaged in these conversations on a broad scale.
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The interest in advancing this topic by our community was demonstrated by the strong attendance at the spring town hall, which focused on campus social climate, and at the two Diversity and Inclusion Summits in November and February. We also hosted forums this spring to foster deeper discussion of the results of our campus social climate survey.听
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I am excited for the work we will do this summer and into the 2016-17 academic year to continue to assess the information we have gathered, create concrete plans and build a collaborative environment in achieving inclusive excellence.
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The work we are doing together on this critically important initiative, for the future of the university, is transforming the campus and helping us to realize our goal to be a top academic institution that is welcoming for all. 听In the fall we will share more information about how the campus will work together to bring these efforts into a cohesive whole. 听Please continue to engage with your departments in discussing how your area can drive toward inclusive excellence.听
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