The University of Denver is joining the Aspire IChange Network, a national effort to improve diversity and inclusion in STEM. DU has been selected as one of 19 universities to join a three-year institutional change effort to develop inclusive faculty recruitment, hiring, and retention practices. This process will start with a self-assessment of our current policies and practices, and then will move into the development and implementation of a campus action plan to drive change across all of our STEM programs.
The Aspire IChange Network – one of three Aspire Alliance change initiatives – seeks to support and cultivate post-secondary institutions where STEM faculty from underrepresented groups (URGs) are widely recruited, hired, and retained, and where all STEM faculty practice inclusive teaching, advising, and mentoring. The IChange Network is designed to catalyze change at institutions by providing a comprehensive, systematic approach to organizational transformation using a structured self-assessment process to inform the development and implementation of an institutional action plan. Stay tuned for future updates as we constitute the IChange Campus Leadership Team, which will be led by Tom Romero, Interim Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion and Kate Willink, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, and in collaboration with the Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science and the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.