Work Session - Inclusive Dubuque Quarterly ReportThe Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque
strengthens communities and inspires giving.
Economic Opportunity
Academic Achievement
Equity and Inclusion
The Community Foundation brings together community
members to create greater good, addressing
complex community challenges to build a
thriving, resilient region. We focus this work on three impact areas.
Poverty Race & Equity
Barriers to Success
Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque
Initiative Updates:
•Advancing Equity Report
•Business Leader Equity Cohort
•Best Practices in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Series
•Data Walk –April 2, 2019
•NAACP Speaker Series
•MIT Students
Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque
Advancing Equity Report
•37 organizations and businesses
•Highlight of how our community is working to help reduce disparities that
exist among diverse groups.
•Juvenile Court System (Restorative Strategies Implementation)
•Fountain of youth (Community Listening Sessions)
•Dubuque Museum of Art (Culturally Diverse Programming)
•Catholic Charities (Immigrant Resource Fair)
Business Leader Equity Cohort
•Business executives, C-suite
•Foster an inclusive workplace culture
•Work together as a cohort to address
community or systemic-level issues
Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque
Data Walk –April 2, 2019:
•Data featuring key community
indicators.
–Academic Achievement
–Access to Opportunity
–Workforce & Employment
•50+ Attendees
Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque
Best Practices in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Series:
•Year two of the 8th month program
•Participation has been strong
•Peer Learning Council to discuss Best Practices 2.0
Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque
Civil Rights and NAACP Speaker Series:
•January 25: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In Iowa: A Message for
Today
•February 8: A Brief History of Civil Rights
•February 22:Hidden Figures of NASA
Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque
Civil Rights and NAACP Speaker Series:
•March 7th: Will the Circle be Unbroken
little known stories of the civil rights
movement.
•March 22: The Maroons: Free People of
Color in America
•April 5: Food Desserts in Urban America
and Urban Dubuque
Network Partners at Work
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•Campus Compact Civic Action Plans
Faculty and Staff
Significantly integrating community-based learning into their
academic majors and co-curricular programs, which include
on-going opportunities to link their scholarship to student
learning informed by community-based learning, research and
civic engagement.
Students
Engaged in meaningful community-based learning from curricular
and co-curricular perspectives. “Projects” striving to be long-
standing and fit into a larger narrative that links to a
collaborative vision between the city, students and their Loras
education.
College
Every faculty and staff person on campus is aware and informed
about how the college, fellow colleges and universities and city
work together to address quality of life issues in Dubuque and
beyond.Our reputation as a civically engaged campus is a strong
recruiting tool for faculty, staff and students.
Community
The college strives to collaborate with governmental, non-
profit organizations and other institutions of higher education.
All contribute to improving the quality of life for individuals
living in Dubuque and beyond, guided by the city’s
comprehensive plan, Imagine Dubuque. Our reputation as a
civically engaged community is a strong recruiting tool for
future residents, as evidenced by outcomes measured by all,
in support of the goals of Imagine Dubuque.
Network Partners at Work
•Working in concert to strategically leverage strengths, assets and resources in support of the
City of Dubuque’s comprehensive plan will require institutions of higher education to be
willing to map out their strengths and their weaknesses.
•Understanding how and when efforts may be most effective will be important and
collaborating in strategic ways with other institutions of higher education to coordinate
efforts, while devising methods to set and measure shared outcomes will be essential to
success.
Network Partners at Work
•Cultural Snapshots Project -mobilizing expertise in various areas for community-
based research, striving to democratize the process of stakeholder input
1 2 3
Network Partners at Work
National Attention
•Putting the “Action” in Civic Action Plans
•Compact Nation Podcast –Season 3 Episode 9 –January 2019
•https://compact.org/podcast/
•In two interviews, we highlight the work of two institutions —Loras College and
James Madison University —who approached the concept of Civic Action Planning
in very different ways that both made big impacts on their campuses and
communities.
Network Partners at Work
•Engaged Scholars Initiative
•The Engaged Scholars Initiative (ESI) is aimed at developing, supporting and connecting
leaders from member institutions within the states representing Campus Compact of the
Midwest, who can advance co-created knowledge, critically engaged pedagogies, models of
institutional change, and collaborative action that addresses societal issues.
•Jake Kurczek, Loras College, Awarded ESI Fellowship 2019-2020, 1 of 10 Fellowships
Network Partners at Work
•Civic Leaders Program ($1000)
–Work alongside Community Based Learning staff and faculty to achieve community goals
–Gain knowledge about local government, local nonprofits and social issues
–Participate in group service at multiple sites to gain experience in different non-profit areas
–Engage in conversations with community leaders and intentional engagement in diverse community settings
–Develop your capacity as a community leader
–Integrated curricular and co-curricular experiences
–Exposed to unique opportunities to build leadership skills
•Gain Skills in:
–Creating partnerships
–Promoting asset-based approaches
–Understanding community needs
–Social justice practices
–Cultural competency
–Networking
–Social action and sustainable change
Cultural
Snapshot
Immigration
Consultation
Marshallese
Canoe
Community
Survey
Civic
Leaders
Equipping Civic Leaders
•Civic Leaders should be able to…
–Zoom in and out
–Form overall reports with all pieces attached created by involved parties
•Civic Leaders
•Government
•Community
Looking at Data
from Municipality
Develop
Research
Questions
Create
Sets of
questions
for parties
With a Process Mindset you should…
•Observe
•Collect
•Analyze
•Report
•Recommend
Individual
Institutional
Systematic
Using a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Lens
Organizational Communication:
Sophomore Level Public Relations Course
Presented by:
Dr. Katrina Neely Farren-Eller
Class Representatives
Systems Approach to DEI
Individual Level:
Foundational Shifts
in Thinking and
Acting
Institutional Level:
Embedding Shifts in
Thinking and Acting
Within Institutions
Structural Level:
Network of
Relationships Among
Individuals and
Institutions that
Create Culture
•Emotional Intelligence Skills
•Cultural Competency
Training
•Understanding of implicit
bias and privilege
•Intercultural
Communication Skills
•Equitable policies and
practices
Systems Approach to DEI
Individual Level
Institutional Level
Structural Level:
Organizational Culture
Circularity/Interaction
Between Levels
Using a DEI Lens to Impact Culture at Loras
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Matrix
DEI Committee
International
Program Office
White Privilege
Lenten Group
Classes focused on culture,
intercultural interactions, etc.
Faculty impacting
their committees
Organizational Communication Course
Credit: Dean Boles
Organizational Communication: The Lorian Project
•Introduction to The Lorian
–Student-led
–Trying new things
•How our project is useful
–A more inclusive paper
–Reaching a larger and broader audience
–Knowing what our staff and audience wants
Organizational Communication: The Lorian Project
•Internal and external focuses
–It all starts internally
•Changing technology and demographics
–Digital Platforms
–Focusing on diverse topics: LGBTQ, religion, race, ethnicity, etc.
Organizational Communication: The Lorian Project
Team Members:
Jon Quinn, Andi Leineberg,
Gillian Wedlake, Matt Wazio
-Our group’s focus
-What we did
-Research
-REM
-Our Conclusion
Organizational Communication: The Lorian Project
Team Members:
Alex, Beth, Valentina, Nick, and Kelsey (editor of The Lorian)
•Research focus
–Task Management in The Lorian
Organizational Communication: The Lorian Project
•Interviews of the staff for the Lorian
•Overall themes
–Retention rate is low
–DEI is not discussed much when writing
–Bringing in new students is difficult
–Everything tends to fall on a few dedicated staff
Organizational Communication: The Lorian Project
•Our solutions that were brought to an REM session were:
–An employee survey with a section on DEI
–A partnered event to bring in new students and discuss DEI and
journalism
Organizational Communication: The Lorian Project
Team Members: Isabel, Abby, Kaylee, Ricky
•In order to build more inclusive readership while also providing
education on different group identities, The Lorian can
emphasize or prioritize particular identity groups on a rotating
basis.
•This prioritization should be reflected in a mission statement.
Organizational Communication: The Lorian Project
•The Lorian must be willing to update their website/social media
accounts, paying attention to diversity and inclusion issues both
visually and content-wise.
•The Lorian has to understand that social media is a platform that
can help an organization grow.
Organizational Communication: The Lorian Project
Team Members: James, Allie, William, Anna, Samantha
•Our group’s overarching question was how we might increase The Lorian
newspaper’s readership on campus.
•Our group wanted to explore how the school’s paper can be more relevant
to all people on campus. We wondered what information is left out and why
that might be the case. We did this by focusing on diversity, equity and
inclusion. If the paper takes DEI into consideration, the readership will
increase because more people will actually relate to the stories.
Organizational Communication: The Lorian Project
We conducted our research by interviewing a diverse group of people from all
over campus.
Findings:
1.Much of the material in The Lorian pertains to athletes and is not
inclusive of other groups
2.Students want more actual news from around campus, entertainment
and student articles that pertain to their identity groups
Organizational Communication: The Lorian Project
Why are our findings important for the paper?
1.It makes The Lorian more exciting for students to read, and will create
articles that allow everyone to learn from and about each other.
2.If the paper expands its material to be more inclusive and
representative of all groups on campus, the audience will follow.
Organizational Communication: The Lorian Project
Our suggested solutions:
1.Every freshman class has to take a survey with DEI-focused questions that
help the Loras administration, staff, and faculty to see the level of DEI
understanding that new students have.
2.This understanding will also aid The Lorian in determining what kinds of
articles would be educational and interesting for new students.
Thank you.