During this time of remote work and learning, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion continues to develop resources, support, and programming that can help facilitate our university's efforts to address systemic racism in concrete ways. Aligned with President Snyder's commitments in Beyond Words, and our university mission, where faith and justice are always intertwined, our objective is to equip all academic and staff units to fully engage in a process leading to anti-racism. The Systemic Analysis process is designed to help guide this unit-level self-reflection.
The point of the systemic analysis process is to consider how obstacles are "baked" into our systems and structures, presenting often-invisible barriers for fully addressing the needs of all our students, especially those who are minoritized and/or marginalized in our society. In doing so, we flip our perspective from asking "how do we change our students to better fit the requirements of our system?" to "how do we adapt our institutional structures and processes to be more equitable, responsive, and inclusive in meeting the needs of all our students?" From this unit-level reflection, we can begin identifying the issues we need to act upon. We then commit to specific actions and specify how we will know we are successful in our efforts.
The resources on this page provide guidance, support, and accountability for this process. We invite you to participate.
Components of the Systemic Analysis Process
- Units who have begun their reflections and would like guidance and further resources may attend an DEI-facilitated consultation workshop.
- Units who have made strides in systemic analysis and/or any other DEI work may be asked to provide a 15 minute report on their approach. Any department may sign up to report as well. In these Report Out sessions, the university engages in a culture of inquiry, coming together to gain new perspective and share ideas on how to successfully create more equitable spaces for our students and other constituents.
- All units (whether just starting or deep in progress) will submit a Qualtrics report on their process. These reports will be compiled into documents that will be shared with the university on our Accountability page.
Steps to Guide Unit-Level Reflection
- Listen to members of your department--faculty, staff, students--whose identities are socially marginalized.
- Review your infrastructure, approaches, policies, and processes.
- Review the scope and content of your programs, activities, and work.
- Evaluate structural diversity of staff and populations served.
- Analyze your strategic partnerships in supporting efforts to educate students for justice.
- Evaluate the values reflected in your department's vision/mission statement.
- Identify training needs and opportunities.
- Accountability / Assessment.
Just starting out?
Access DEI's Systemic Analysis Guidebook.
Here, you will find extended explanations, tips, examples, and resources for each step. If you have any questions as you move through the process, please contact us via email at [email protected].
Ready to submit your report?
Submit a Qualtrics progress report on your Systemic Analysis process.
As units move through the eight-step systemic analysis process, all are asked to submit to the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) the following through a Qualtrics Report Form:
- Process - Describe your systemic analysis process (e.g. held listening sessions, conducted an audit of policies, reviewed data, etc.) and preliminary findings.
- Issues Identified - Describe challenges/problems/issues that you have identified as a topic of concern in your unit.
- Action Steps - Describe the action steps that will be taken to address these issues identified through the systemic analysis.
- Outcomes - Describe outcomes and how they will be assessed.
NOTE: Units are not expected to have a full systemic analysis complete upon submission to Qualtrics. Units may simply report on any efforts taken so far, and continue to submit their progress to Qualtrics as new updates are available.
DEI will publish regular updates (based on Qualtrics submissions) in LMU This Week. Additionally, an ongoing documentation of progress and reports will be available on the DEI website.
These reporting measures are in place to ensure maximum transparency and accountability towards a more equitable university.