The University of Vermont enjoys a well-earned reputation as a progressive institution, but improved diversity across the campus community remains an important goal for the university. Now, thanks to a new grant, undergraduate students, faculty and staff will have the time and resources to devote to this vital pursuit campuswide. 

The $2.5M Driving Change grant, from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, will jumpstart multiple initiatives for faculty, staff and undergraduate students, all with the goal of creating a more inclusive and welcoming environment for all students.  

Over the five-year term of the grant, UVM will develop and implement four programs, according to College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Dean Linda Schadler: first, providing professional development opportunities to staff as well as faculty, who can then implement changes to create more welcoming environments in their classrooms; second, identifying and removing institutional policies that create roadblocks for students; third, offering programming for all students “to help them all develop cultural competency, cultural humility and intergroup dialogue skills – the skills they need to be a more inclusive social culture”; and fourth, the creation of “Our Common Ground Leadership Development Program,” half of whose students will come from groups historically underrepresented in STEM fields. 

Schadler and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Student Success Jennifer Dickinson are heading up the grant’s implementation, but faculty will carry out much of the effort in creating the welcoming classrooms that are a key piece of the grant’s goals. DEI Fellows will be faculty members who receive specialized, three-week trainings including “learning how to conduct intergroup dialogue in difficult situations,” Schadler says. Topics will also include inclusive pedagogy and advising. They’ll then return to their communities of practice – with eight to 10 colleagues sharing similar work and goals – and convey what they’ve learned during monthly meetings. 

“The communities of practice are among the most important parts, for me,” says Amer F. Ahmed, Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, adding that many faculty members have expressed interest in learning about inclusive classroom practices – but have needed stronger resource support. This grant provides necessary funding to get the work done. 

“What's distinctive about this grant is that the fellows will get paid in the summer,” Schadler says. “Faculty who want to change their classrooms can apply for summer funding or a course release, and staff will have pieces of their job taken over by somebody else, so they have time for this.” 

“When we get a set of resources, we're able to pay faculty to facilitate those conversations, to build those best practices for inclusive teaching,” Ahmed says, and the Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion will work with the Center for Teaching and Learning toward that goal. 

Creating an inclusive environment is particularly crucial in classrooms, which are a central part of the college experience, and which are a notoriously difficult space to change, Ahmed says.  

“One of our goals is to improve our interactions with students and to make classrooms more welcoming and more nurturing,” says Breazzano Family Green and Gold Biology Professor Jim Vigoreaux, who will lead the department chairs’ community of practice. He expects efforts to begin with workshops for department chairs as well as professors, who can then disseminate their learning among colleagues while applying it to their own classrooms. 

Undergraduate students’ participation will also be crucial to the programs’ success, Dickinson says, noting that undergraduate education does not stop when students leave the classroom. “Student clubs and activities are co-curricular spaces where we expect a lot of learning to occur,” she says, which makes inclusivity in these spaces as crucial as it is in classrooms. “If students don't feel welcome in social spaces, that bleeds over and makes them feel unwelcome overall on campus,” she says, adding that the programs’ overarching approach to welcoming all students, in all their campus experiences, is a unique and key component of the grant. 

All undergraduate students will work within their learning communities to fulfill the grant’s goals in co-curricular spaces like dorms, where students live for their first two years. The grant “allows us to create a point person for creating the programming that helps students absorb this as part of their experience here,” Dickinson says. Importantly, bringing such learning into living and social spaces makes it an integral part of campus life, Dickinson says, rather than a separate, disjointed requirement.  

“We already have a community learning model that emphasizes skills that we want our students to have for living in community, for understanding people across different perspectives,” Dickinson says. “We’re adding a little bit more structure, to ensure that students have opportunities to practice these skills through intergroup dialogue.”  

A smaller cohort of STEM students will also participate in Our Common Ground Leadership Development Program, which Schadler says is “a leadership program that will be about half students who have been traditionally underrepresented in STEM, and half white students.” A team of students and staff will create the program, and some aspects will be exclusive spaces of community and support for STEM students of color. 

“A key part of the leadership development program will involve bringing participating students to campus before they start at UVM,” Dickinson says. “Here, they will learn how to speak across difference, to discuss openly difficult topics like race and racism, as well as inequities in STEM disciplines.” These students will then “feel empowered to be leaders at UVM in setting the tone and raising expectations for creating an inclusive environment in their majors.” 

How will participating faculty and staff know if their work is successful? Part of the answer will be in the numbers. “We're a primarily white institution,” Vigoreaux says, pointing to the fact that white students and faculty number over 80%. Yet as a university, UVM’s “mission is to educate the future generations and also to create knowledge – and knowledge comes in all ways, shapes and forms; it just doesn't come from the white European tradition,” Vigoreaux says. “Knowledge comes from many different sources, so if we want to be true to our label as a university that promotes learning and creates knowledge, then we have to better use the resources that are out there, and those resources are across all spectrums of humanity.” 

Schadler notes that faculty and staff will know they’re succeeding in creating a more welcoming environment if the applicant pool grows more diverse as the programs go into effect. This will help to create a more diverse student population. Parity in graduation rates will also indicate that students feel comfortable and welcome on campus as they complete their degrees. Similarly, a welcoming UVM environment will attract more diverse employees as well. 

Dickinson says another important indicator will be the First Six Weeks Survey, which all students fill out yearly. “That survey includes questions about belonging and interacting with people that you consider similar to or different from yourself,” she says. These numbers provide a snapshot of how students are feeling about the campus environment, and whether this is changing over time. 

Some changes will be less tangible if equally important. “I think these efforts will directly translate into students’ experiences in the classroom, whether they realize it or not,” Ahmed says, “for their faculty member to have spent time, energy and effort on creating a more inclusive classroom.” 

Another aspect of the grant is collaboration with other institutions; six universities received the grant this cycle, Schadler says. “We have already started working with the University of Albany and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, because we have some similarities in the goals that we're trying to promote.”  

Hopefully, lessons learned here create a path that other universities can follow – particularly those that, like UVM, still have largely white student and faculty populations. “HHMI challenged us to be the primarily white institution where inclusivity can come out as a model for other institutions to use,” Vigoreaux says.  

Says Schadler, “We’re expecting and hoping that UVM becomes an exemplar for other very white universities to be able to change.” 

Ahmed, Dickinson, Schadler and Vigoreaux are optimistic about the outcomes ahead. “What I'm hoping is that students interested in STEM will see UVM as the place where they have an opportunity to fulfill their dreams and goals, and that they can see themselves as contributing members to the scientific endeavor,” Vigoreaux says, adding, “I would also like to see UVM benefit from the wealth that having a diverse student population can bring to the institution by having greater diversity, in every sense of the word, among our student population." 

Schadler, too, anticipates positive outcomes for students. “The advisors will be better advisors. The faculty will be more inclusive teachers. The student body will be more culturally and self-aware.” 

Dickinson, meanwhile, looks ahead to the impact of the planned programs on students’ future careers. “When students leave here and go on to graduate school or move into various industries, we want them to live that same kind of commitment to diversity in STEM. And the way that you do that is to make it part of who they learn to be, as professionals. Then, they have an opportunity to create change and be leaders no matter what area they end up being employed in after they complete their education.” 

Support and help are available for students and staff struggling with mental health or experiencing discrimination. If you need help, please contact the resources below: 

Support for Students: 

Office of Equal Opportunity: 802-656-3368 / equalopportunity@uvm.edu
Vice Provost and Dean of Students Office: 802-656-3380 / studentaffairs@uvm.edu 
Counseling and Psychiatry Services: 802-656-3340
Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: 802-656-8426 / diversity@uvm.edu 
Office of International Education: 802-656-4296 / internationalstudents@uvm.edu 
*Students may also reach out to the dean’s office of their school or college 
 
Support for Faculty and Staff:

Office of Equal Opportunity: 802-656-3368 / equalopportunity@uvm.edu
Employee Assistance Program: 866-660-9533