Building Support for Staff Diversity Education
This year has highlighted acute inequities in our society and the urgent need for racial and social justice. In response, this has rightfully led to an increase in requests within the UVA community for facilitated dialogues about bias, cultural competencies, LGBTQI rights, disability justice, systemic racism, and many more discussion topics pertaining to all dimensions of diversity. The Office for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (ODEI) and University Human Resources (HR) are working to build educational infrastructure for our staff, but we know it will take all of us pooling our resources and talents to meet the diversity education needs of our University community.
Recognizing this, staff from ODEI and HR’s Talent Management teams are creating a database of UVA members across the Academic Division and UVA Health who currently facilitate and educate classes, discussion groups, book clubs and workshops on the topics of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice. If your work fits these descriptions and you would like to be considered for the database, please complete this short registration form. In addition, if you are new to this type of work but interested in facilitation, you are encouraged to register as well.
After the review period, facilitators/educators will be notified if their services have been approved for listing in the database or if additional information is needed. Once the database is complete, it will be launched and communicated to the UVA community who can search for opportunities they wish to explore.
In support of this creative approach to galvanizing the skills, talents and abilities of UVA employees, this database is supported by Kevin McDonald, Vice President for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and John Kosky, Chief Human Resources Officer. Kevin McDonald shared, “I look forward to deepening our bench of trained facilitators and educators across all dimensions of diversity and developing our capacity to cultivate a more inclusive learning community.” John Kosky observed, “UVA has a talented pool of individuals with expertise and depth in the diversity and inclusion field and it is phenomenal to develop a repository to identify these resources to provide capacity to advance this important body of work and become a more diverse, inclusive community.”
We thank you for your interest and look forward to your participation.
If you have questions, please reach out to Lisa Harris.
Sincerely,
Lisa Harris, HR, Sr. Learning and Development Consultant
Kristin Morgan, Senior Director for Grants Administration and Strategic Partnerships
Rachel Spraker, Senior Director for Equity and Inclusive Excellence