Leadership & Campus Climate
Promising Practice: Train leaders in effective change management
Many campus leaders have never received formal training on the change management skills necessary to lead the substantial changes required to close equity gaps. Effective change management is integral to implement the policies and practices that help close equity gaps.
MATC Strategies:
In Transformation 2025, Organizational Excellence is a stated priority through advancing organizational agility and excellence in a culture of innovation and informed decision making. This includes the Objective to incorporate growth mindset strategies and established criteria to create a collegewide framework for innovation initiatives. In order to approach each initiative and project, we will expand our training and use of the ADKAR and Bridge’s Transition Model for Change Management models in order to better anticipate and plan for actions and reactions to change. In the upcoming academic year, we will bring national experts on campus to help us with transformative leadership development related to inspiring teams during times of change and managing the psychological transition that comes with big changes.
Promising Practice: Provide equity-focused professional development
Most campuses have never offered racial equity training for their staff. Through dedicated training, participants will develop racial literacy and racial equity problem-solving skills to ensure their continued ability to address and confront practices, cultural norms, and policies that undermine racial equity.
MATC Strategies:
Since 2018, the MATC Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee has provided training and awareness opportunities for the college community. Participating in these events can be used for all employees to earn a DEI Internal Certificate, which is promoted as a professional development goal for staff and as part of a faculty member’s Teaching Action Plan. Participation hours can also count toward faculty fulfilling their Wisconsin Technical College System’s required renewal credits.
In Spring 2021, MATC hired its first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Executive who reports directly to the President and is tasked with building and sustaining a more welcoming and inclusive culture at the college by promoting a shared understanding between and the importance of the connection between a DEI culture and student and employee success.
As part of the Moon Shot for Equity partnership, MATC will engage in a racial equity eConvening Series. This series will be hosted by the USC Race & Equity Center beginning in May 2021 and running monthly through April 2022. We will invite appropriate stakeholders to attend the live sessions based on the topic each month. The recorded sessions will then be available for the entire college community.
Promising Practice: Conduct campus climate assessments
Campus climate assessments are powerful tools for leaders to understand student, faculty, and staff perceptions and experiences, identify strengths and areas for improvement, and measure year over year progress on critical initiatives. Data gathered through campus climate assessments can help to inform other equity initiatives.
MATC Strategies:
For the past decade, MATC has conducted biannual student and employee climate surveys (Student Success Inventory and Persona Assessment of Campus Environment). Results of these surveys have been actively included in our planning processes, including helping to set targets for improvement.
In Fall 2021, we will deploy the USC’s National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates (NACCC), a quantitative survey that provides data about undergraduate students’ appraisals of institutional commitment to equity and inclusion, the extent to which they interact meaningfully with diverse others, where and what they learn about race and their feelings of readiness for citizenship in a racially diverse democracy, and other important topics. USC will compile and provide data files, along with a customized report that includes results and practical recommendations that will then be used in our planning processes.