UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The teams named by President Neeli Bendapudi to bring greater equity to Penn State’s faculty, staff and students are forging ahead. The agile service teams are focused on four priorities Bendapudi announced last spring to advance her DEIB goals by developing:  

• An equity-centered resource “hub” for students to access answers, connections and support resources  

• A faculty hiring program to help diversify Penn State’s faculty  

• A staff hiring program to address staff diversity and to support staff in their career and professional development  

• An enhanced approach for reporting wrongdoing and bias  

“I’m so appreciative of the progress each of the agile teams are making,” Bendapudi said. “Their efforts and commitment are real steps forward as we focus on enhancing equity for students, faculty and staff of all identities and investing in ways to create more welcoming, supportive environments across our campuses.” 

Each team is led by a member of Bendapudi’s senior leadership team, and each leader is integrating DEIB into the effort by collaborating with relevant stakeholders to advance their work. While each team is moving forward on a unique timeline, they share a goal to continue to make significant progress this academic year and will continue to provide progress reports.  

Since the previous update over the summer, the following offers progress updates on the four efforts: 

Staff recruitment and retention

Jennifer Wilkes, vice president for Human Resources and chief human resources officer, along with her team in HR; Suzanne Adair, associate vice president for Equal Opportunity and Access; and Adidi Etim-Hunting, director of diversity, equity and inclusion in Development and Alumni Relations, are collaborating on these efforts. The goal of this work is focused on addressing staff diversity, creating more equitable hiring practices and professional development opportunities, supporting staff in their careers, and creating welcoming and equitable campus environments. 

The following actions have been completed or are currently in progress: 

• A new DEIB resource page on the HR website that includes information on inclusive hiring practices. 

• The launch of two new employee resource groups (Vet-aLIONce and Rainbow Roar) in fall 2023. 

• The new ability for employees to share their pronouns and name pronunciation in Workday beginning in early 2024.

• A new University-wide contract with Diversejobs.net that now automatically posts all full and part-time Penn State job postings at University Park and across the campuses on the site without additional cost to individual units. This effort was initiated through efforts to support faculty diversification, and HR is also exploring other outreach avenues with diverse job boards and agencies to assist units in their efforts to recruit sufficiently diverse candidate pools.  

• A variety of new and updated training and development opportunities, including an updated staff search committee training that will roll out in early 2024. HR, in partnership with the Office of Equal Opportunity and Access, is also developing comprehensive inclusive hiring training for hiring managers and anyone who participates in the hiring process (outside of formal search committees); providing additional training for talent acquisition and unit HR training on affirmative action plans and inclusive hiring; and updating the Leadership Foundations program, which includes McKinsey and Company’s Connected Leaders Academy.  

• Reviews of affirmative action plans with unit executives and HR Strategic Partners beginning this spring semester and the implementation of a standardized process to provide affirmative action plan data to units during job searches.   

Faculty recruitment and retention programs 

Justin Schwartz, executive vice president and provost, is leading this effort — in collaboration with Kathy Bieschke, vice provost for faculty affairs; the Office of Equal Opportunity and Access; and all academic, colleges and campuses — to develop a faculty hiring program to diversify faculty pools. 

The following actions have been completed or are currently in progress: 

• Established new procedures for all academic units to create faculty recruitment plans for tenure-lines searches that address how units will develop diverse candidate pools and how they will more thoroughly evaluate candidates. Each campus and college now has an approved recruitment plan, and these are being implemented for all ongoing faculty searches.  

• Continuing support for the President’s Opportunity Fund, a longstanding program that provides partial salary support for hiring women and minoritized faculty, and which is available to all units to encourage and support recruitment efforts.  

• Launched a new Provost Endorsement Program — organized through the Office of Faculty Affairs — to offer ongoing professional development to all faculty. Now in its pilot year, the program includes a range of equity-focused topics and endorsements, including on equitable teaching. The equitable teaching endorsement is offered by the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence and engages experienced instructors in implementing inclusive and equitable teaching in their current or upcoming courses. The Office of Faculty Affairs plans to offer more programs beginning in the fall, including several on DEIB topics such as iLEAD in the College of Engineering, a leadership topic offered by the Office of Educational Equity, and a research topic offered by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute. 

• Named three senior faculty mentors this spring semester to offer guidance and help facilitate the attainment of tenure, promotion, and advancement at each faculty career stage, particularly for underrepresented racial/ethnic minority tenure-track faculty members. Organized through the Office of Educational Equity, the Senior Faculty Mentors program is a collaboration with the College of the Liberal Arts and the College of Education. The program also offers a Faculty Pathway initiative, a mentorship clearinghouse, a faculty toolkit, and resources to support inclusive classrooms. 

Student resource “hub”

Andrea Dowhower, interim vice president for Student Affairs, and Barry Bram, interim senior director for special projects in Student Affairs, are collaborating with student leaders and staff across Penn State to establish a multi-tiered, equity-focused resource for students. 

The “hub” — a tiered resource with both online and in-person components — is intended to streamline access to academic support, mental health and well-being, basic needs, career, and cultural and advocacy services for students. When implemented, the hub will offer students at every campus a single, custom support pathway to the most common student services. 

Elements of each of the three tiers are planned to launch by fall 2024, including elements of tier one (online platform) for students who begin summer 2024. Additionally, hiring processes are underway to enhance and build upon current student care resources to meet students’ needs (tier three). 

The following actions have been completed or are currently in progress: 

• Continuing to explore potential external partnerships to build equity and access into the hub.  

• Outlining requirements for the online platform and priorities for integrations with existing systems at the University. 

• Establishing a leadership structure and building cross-functional teams of students, faculty, and staff, to help with different elements of the project. Both an implementation committee — which will lead the project and determine timeline, staffing and technology needs, and identify priorities — and a student advisory board have been formed. An advisory group, consisting of key members of the University leadership, to whom the implementation committee will report will also be created. Along with a current search for a project manager, project staff are identifying content experts — including students — across the campuses to offer expertise in a range of service and support areas. 

Reporting process

Tabitha Oman, vice president and general counsel, and SeriaShia Chatters, assistant vice provost for Educational Equity, are leading efforts to address how the University approaches and manages reports of wrongdoing, including bias and discrimination, to improve responsiveness, timeliness and transparency.   

Chatters is overseeing the following changes to bias reporting: 

• Providing new professional development to all individuals who handle bias reports, including direct managers and supervisors across Penn State’s campuses, starting in fall 2024. The professional development will cover roles and responsibilities and offer education around retaliation, trauma-informed responses and more. While this training will be required for those who directly respond to and handle bias reports, faculty members are encouraged to register to complete the training as part of the Provost Endorsement Program program. 

• Implementing a new process, effective Feb. 8, to notify direct supervisors earlier in the referral process when bias reports are filed. This change will enable a more expedient process and reduce the time it takes for direct supervisors and managers — who typically help manage reports — to become involved in the process. This change will also help make communication with the reporter more responsive and expedient. Learn more about the updated referral process. 

• Expanding use of EthicsPoint (or Navex) — an internal tool to track reports, cases and investigation timelines; identify when cases have been closed; and develop data and reports. The tool is currently used by multiple offices and groups across Penn State that are responsible for case management and investigations to help promote greater visibility and accountability when it comes to responsiveness, timeliness, documentation and consistency with regard to case management.    

More broadly, a recently formed Issue Response and Investigations Center of Excellence — led by the Office of Ethics and Compliance — is moving forward with an effort to create University-wide investigative best practices and standard operating procedures for handling reports of wrongdoing. The center includes members from Student Affairs, HR, Office of Sexual Misconduct and Prevention, Office of Equal Opportunity and Access, Title IX, University Police and Public Safety, Environmental, Health and Safety, Internal Audit, and Office of Research Protection.  

The group is currently: 

• Reviewing units’ current investigative procedures and developing standard best practices and operating procedures for investigations across the University to implement this semester. To help raise awareness, training and education on new procedures will be provided to investigators across the University. 

• The team is also leading a new project this spring semester to review current reporting channels, identify overlaps, and consolidate and streamline the multitude of reporting channels across the University to reduce the time it takes for investigations and to enhance service and support to students, faculty and staff throughout the investigative process This effort will help track investigative results across Penn State in order to proactively address trends with awareness and training.  

Along with these efforts, and as mentioned by the president during the Faculty Senate meeting on Jan. 23, Penn State has invested $2 million in DEIB initiatives for fiscal year 2024 and plans to invest an additional $2 million for fiscal year 2025. This funding comes from the President’s Strategic Investments within the University budget, which enables the president to make investments in priority areas for the University that might not otherwise have occurred. In 2024, this funding went toward additional support for the Center for Black Digital Research, a joint effort between the College of the Liberal Arts and the University Libraries. Other DEIB expenses in fiscal year 2024 and 2025 are found within provost initiatives and within the Office of Educational Equity and units. 

Updates about the work of the ASTs will continue to be periodically shared with the Penn State community.