The plan will serve as a road map and framework to activate and advance equity, diversity, and inclusion at UMB over five-plus years and is built around four themes referred to as REPS.
Photo: Diane Forbes Berthoud introduces the University’s inaugural diversity strategic plan during a hybrid town hall.
“Practice makes permanent,” said Diane Forbes Berthoud, PhD, MA, chief equity, diversity, and inclusion officer and vice president at University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) as she introduced the University’s inaugural diversity strategic plan: “Weaving University REPS: Diversity Action and Accountability Plan” in a hybrid town hall Nov. 9.
Quoting advice she was once given from a music instructor, Forbes Berthoud explained that repetition of behaviors causes them to perpetuate. “The connection here is what we want to do is begin to practice, more and more, those things that make for a more dynamic, vibrant, equitable, and inclusive university,” she outlined, emphasizing that through that repetition, the diversity plan’s principles will become “fully integrated in our culture and in what we are.”
Developed by the Diversity Strategic Plan Committee, the plan will serve as a road map and framework to activate and advance equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) at UMB over the course of five-plus years. It is built around four themes referred to as REPS:
- Increase Recruitment and Retention
- Improve Experience and Climate
- Support Professional Development and Career Advancement
- Increase alignment of Scholarship, Service, and Education toward the fulfillment of UMB’s mission
Noting their alignment with UMB’s 2022-2026 Strategic Plan, Forbes Berthoud outlined the specific goals and objectives of each theme, their metrics of assessment and loci of accountability, and time frame for implementation to the online audience and those who attended in person at the SMC Campus Center.