The Reed School of Media and Communications believes in and takes action to further both the University’s and the College of Creative Arts and Media's commitment to excellence in equity, inclusion and diversity in recruitment and retention of students, faculty and staff. As members of a land-grant institution that seeks to extend knowledge and to serve the people of West Virginia, we in the Reed School actively embrace and propound inclusive excellence to strengthen and diversify our teaching, scholarship, and community engagement.
Through its curriculum, service, faculty and student scholarship and media, the School is committed to presenting diverse viewpoints to a general audience and to seeking and maintaining ties to a range of diverse sources. In public relations and advertising, the School considers excellence in campaigns to representing and communicating with diverse clients and audiences. In news storytelling, excellence is equated with the ability to produce stories for and about a wide range of communities and audiences, and exploring new forms of media technology that empower and drive inclusion and equity for under-represented groups.
The Reed School of Media and Communications has a formal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Plan, which is developed in collaboration with a faculty and staff DEI committee, and with faculty and staff oversight. The committee works each semester with faculty and staff to document progress on stated goals in the plan, meets quarterly to review progress and prepares an annual end-of-year report. Goals for the School include:
- deepen the Reed School's understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion issues as central to our standards for providing a quality education with focused attention to the items of emphasis outlined above;
- improve and increase the organic incorporation of diversity, equity and inclusion in curricula and course instruction for all Reed School faculty and students;
- increase efforts to recruit and retain qualified faculty and staff members representing historically underrepresented groups, with an emphasis on domestic racial and ethnic diversity;
- increase efforts to recruit and retain top students from diverse/minority groups, with an emphasis on domestic racial and ethnic diversity; and
- increase programming and collaborations that address contemporary diversity, equity and inclusion issues and that are intentional in integrating underrepresented perspectives and experiences into media research, professional practice, community service and curriculum development.
The School's Diversity Committee considers this plan a living document and asserts that the committee has a duty to convene to respond to any rapid changes in society and current event issues impacting the industry and academy.
Diverse Faculty and Staff
- Demonstrate effective efforts to recruit and retain faculty and staff members from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds, using the University’s faculty composition and the School's composition during the preceding accreditation review as a benchmark.
- By sharing the University’s best practices and supporting documents, formally instruct search committee members how to achieve best practices in building and considering a diverse applicant pool.
- Partner with nearby historically black institutions with strong journalism and communications programs through faculty exchanges and joint endeavors.
- Host periodic faculty and staff development sessions that promote diversity, including workshops with the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, brown bag lunch sessions, teach and learn seminars, reading sources and best diversity pedagogical practices.
- Participate in the University’s diversity recruitment programs and commit to identifying and cultivating relationships with diverse educators and industry professionals and to making competitive offers to diverse candidates.
Diverse Student Body
- Recruit, retain and increase the number of students from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds, maintaining a level at least as high as the university’s overall.
- Increase student participation in international programs.
- Support and foster student organizations that promote diverse students’ exposure and access to professional media contacts and opportunities.
- Provide minority students access to upper-class and alumni mentors.
- Formally incorporate perspectives, critiques, and recommendations of current and past underrepresented students into ongoing recruiting and retention efforts, with the goal of creating an improved School climate of diversity, equity and inclusion.
A Curriculum of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
- Affirm the importance of domestic and global diversity, equity and inclusion through the historic and current contributions of diverse voices in society, as demonstrated by course objectives, lessons and assignments in the syllabi and course schedule.
- As a land-grant institution, support experiential and community-engaged learning that organically exposes students and faculty to the diversity of cultures and experiences that exist in this country and in the world.
- Recruit a diverse group of professionals and scholars to serve as practitioners-in-residence, guest lecturers in classes, workshop leaders and panel discussants to give students exposure to varied perspectives and viewpoints on historic and contemporary media and communications issues.
- Work with faculty to ensure there are adequate resources available through texts, readings, films, media, case studies, speaker databases and other materials that reflect diversity in backgrounds, opinions, perspectives, and experiences and that can be readily incorporated into courses.
Supportive Environment
- Create, maintain and monitor a climate that is respectful and supportive of diverse people and their histories and viewpoints, and that actively centers the goals, initiatives and assessment measures outlined in this plan.
- Actively engage in partnerships to offer programming and discussions related to diversity.
- Participate in diverse national organizations and events on the importance of diversity and inclusiveness in the communications discipline and report such attendance/participation in annual files.
- Support the University’s religious holiday observance policy and be sensitive to the observed and practiced holy days of different faiths.
- Recruit women and minority professionals to serve on the College of Creative Arts and Media Visiting Committee.
- Increase collaboration with other WVU programs and campus resources that enrich the experience of underrepresented students, such as the Center for Black Culture and Research (CBCR).