UIC is committed to addressing systemic racism, improving our campus climate, and advancing racial equity on campus. Engaging every department on our campus is a significant part of these efforts. Additionally, we recognize that each department and college has unique needs when it comes to racial equity and therefore must develop their own, context-specific strategic plans to achieve their particular racial equity goals.

The deadline for submission of department and college plans has passed.

Each department head was required to complete the Advancing Racial Equity strategic planning template. Deans reviewed all of the plans submitted from each of their college’s departments and wrote a summary report, which was sent to the Provost, Chancellor, and Associate Chancellor and Vice Provost of Diversity for review.

Department heads should lead this effort, but can certainly enlist the support of faculty and staff within their units. The best plans will be those that consider the perspectives of many members within a department, including students, faculty, and staff. It is imperative to share the work of thinking about and completing this template equitably, and not overburden those within the department who consistently engage in this type of work, particularly students, faculty, and staff of color.

While each strategic plan will be unique to a given department, the best plans will be those that are thoughtful, holistic, and innovative yet achievable. Additionally, plans that incorporate the perspectives of many members within a department—students, faculty, and staff—will be the most likely to succeed.

In recognition that strategic planning around racial equity may be new to some units, the template was designed to offer a starting point for this work, as well as a way to standardize strategic plans across departments. Importantly, the template is designed to be a useful tool, but should not be constraining. If you want to include something that does not fit neatly into one of the categories, please include it in additional pages. Similarly, if your unit’s structure or processes do not align with some of the priority areas exactly (i.e. you work primarily with residents rather than undergraduate students), make note of that and adjust accordingly. The template is a living, breathing document that is meant to be revised over time as units work on achieving their goals.

It is likely that goals you have for one priority area will be applicable to another. In that case, overlap between those parts of the template is acceptable.

Exactly how long and detailed a unit’s plan will be depends on their goals. However, you are not expected to write incredibly lengthy responses; 2-3 sentences may be all you need in a given segment of the template. Small steps, communicated concisely are absolutely acceptable.

Many colleges and departments at UIC have been working diligently on developing strategic plans related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. If your department has such a plan, you should use that as a starting point in completing this template. As this template asks you to specifically focus on racial equity, there are likely parts that will overlap with already-existing plans and others that will need more specific attention.

If your College has a diversity, equity, and inclusion strategic plan, you can use that as a guide in completing your department-specific plan, as it is ideal for such efforts to align. In these instances, it is possible that departments within the same college will have aspects of their templates that will be similar. That said, the purpose of this template is to support you in creating a customized plan unique to the specific needs and context of your department; thus, departments within a college should not submit identical plans. We do encourage collaboration between departments in brainstorming ideas for these plans.

There are many examples provided throughout all five parts of the template to assist you in your planning. Importantly, they are examples and, as such, should be used to guide your thought-processes but not serve as final answers (although some overlap may be expected). There is no checklist for what you must include in your plan as racial equity work cannot be prescriptive. If you are stuck, consider getting the perspective of others in your department to assist in brainstorming. You can also find a number of resources—reports, case studies, research articles—on the Office of Diversity’s website that you may find helpful in completing your plans.

Please email areplan@uic.edu.