Brandon University will develop an EDI Strategic Plan to guide research

Brandon University is developing an EDI Strategic Plan to support equity, diversity, and inclusion on campus, with a particular focus on research.

Early outreach to targeted stakeholders has already begun, wrote BU Provost and Vice-President (Academic) Dr. Kofi Campbell in an email to campus. He said that a previous baseline analysis had found that a lot of EDI work was already being done across campus, but that it lacked cohesiveness.

“In the absence of a larger guiding framework, this excellent work is being held back and hindered by duplicated and splintered efforts,” he wrote. “I know this in my own office, which touches the Office of Diversity and Human Rights, the President’s Anti-Racism Task Force, the Sexual Assault Advisory Group, and the new BUQueer committee, among others. There are many areas where working together could lighten the load on all, but currently these opportunities are too-often limited to ad hoc and one-off initiatives.”

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion are highlighted as an “Opportunity We Choose” in Mamaawii-atooshke aakihkiwiin, the overall BU Strategic Plan. There, EDI is cited not just as a moral requirement but also a strategy that brings tremendous benefits to all — in part by ensuring broad perspectives are heard and considered, and by leveraging previously marginalized or unrecognized talent.

As with the situational and baseline analysis, Brandon University has received a $50,000 CRC Program stipend to support the creation of this EDI Strategic Plan. BU has chosen Canadian diversity and inclusion consultants Zenev and Associates to help with this work.

A draft EDI strategic plan is expected as early as the spring.

 

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