Culture, Climate & Community Engagement

• Welcoming, accessible, and inclusive spaces at Thayer that reflect and represent the rich diversity of our community.

• Taking into consideration institutional efforts, evaluate the accessibility of buildings and make changes as needed. This may include crowdsourcing accessibility challenges/suggestions from building occupants to go beyond the minimum requirements in the building code.
• Taking into consideration institutional efforts, evaluate the accessibility of digital spaces and make changes as needed (website, social media, Canvas, or academic resources).
• With Campus Services, create welcoming and inclusive signage for restrooms across Thayer buildings that better serve the needs of our community.
• Review existing artwork and /displays in Thayer facilities and refresh them to ensure that all communities feel welcome and celebrated. Adopt a regular process for reviewing and refreshing visual displays.
• Evaluate the accessibility of non-classroom learning spaces, for example, the machine shop.
• With Campus Services, improve wayfinding and signage across Thayer buildings, especially for first-time visitors.
• Training and development for faculty and staff on how to support community members with disabilities or those in need of accommodations. This could include training on ergonomic equipment options, invisible disabilities, and appropriate language for having these conversations.
• Develop a process for identifying diversity and inclusion allies within Thayer and facilitate ways for the larger community to connect with them for support.
• Consider unapparent disabilities in evaluations of accessibility
• Assess and explore opportunities to increase access to the use of Thayer spaces, considering issues such as providing on-site personnel or outdoor lighting. Gather feedback from affected parties to inform appropriate changes. Identify opportunities to co-locate faculty/staff based on role, discipline, etc.

• Follow-up surveys/evaluations to prospective students, faculty, and staff to understand their perceptions/experiences at Thayer.
• Documented, cyclical tracking for artwork/physical space/plants to maintain and keep up to date.

• Every community member feels empowered and equipped to build an inclusive environment.
• Raised levels of awareness, trust, and belonging within and across Thayer.
• Greater clarity among students, faculty, and staff of diversity and inclusion strategy, efforts, and achievements at Thayer.
• A learning and work culture that promotes continuous diversity and inclusion education at all levels across Thayer.

• Develop a diversity- and inclusion-centered communications plan that clarifies goals, messaging, vehicles (eg. email, social media, announcements by faculty), frequency of communication, and responsible persons or offices.
• Create a working group to review and update content (eg. forms, links, etc.) on ThayerExpress to identify gaps and needs, and develop plans and processes for continuous updates.
• Identify a central web space for diversity and inclusion resources and information (eg. Thayer’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan, toolkits, Building Our Community Learning Series) and develop a process for continuous updates.
• In collaboration with student groups, help fund a diversity and inclusion “lunch and learn” series around topics such as unconscious bias, microaggressions, cultivating empathy, and allyship. Ensure topic alignment with Dartmouth-wide efforts.
• Continue learning opportunities for students, faculty, and staff aim at bringing Thayer members to come together and engage around themes that help us build a stronger, close-knit, and more inclusive community. For example, continue community learning series for faculty and staff that supports continuous learning. Integrate community-building diversity- and inclusion-themed topics at faculty and all-staff meetings and other meetings with wider community attendance. Make resources widely available. 
• Create a learning arc to form a common thread for all learning efforts.

• Webpage traffic to diversity and inclusion resources page (eg. toolkits, etc.)
• Email campaign open rates and click-through rates, for diversity and inclusion resources.
• Number and demographics of staff and faculty who take part in the Building Our Community Learning Series annually.​​
• Number and demographics of students, staff, and faculty who participate in our learning and community engagement opportunities.​​
• ​Post-training surveys.
• Pulse Survey results related to commitment to diversity and inclusion.

• Increased sense of work-life balance, modeled by leadership.
• Members of the Thayer community feel heard and supported.
• The health of our community (physical and mental) is prioritized.
• Affinity groups support community members.
• Working and learning environments support both Thayer needs, as well as provide optimal places for learning and work.
• International postdocs have as much stability as possible within the scope of their experience at Thayer and within the constraints of immigration rules.

• In collaboration with HR, develop written guidance about acceptable work-life balance and expectations at Thayer. This could include consideration around flexible work arrangements and celebrations of non-dominant holidays. Increase clarity around the use of vacation/sick time.
• Share stories and experiences around work-life harmony to raise greater awareness of the importance of an institutional commitment.
• Leadership commits to modeling work-life balance.
• Provide guidance to faculty and supervisors on how to reduce barriers for students and employees in a hybrid working and learning environment.
• Identify policies and practices that serve as a means of excluding or promoting power differentials and revise them to foster inclusion and access to opportunities (eg. faculty lunches only open to faculty, faculty rank on name tags). Consider naming culture and norms of how the Thayer community addresses each other.
• Create Thayer-based affinity groups for various roles (eg. postdocs, junior faculty, etc.) and identities (eg. cultural, life experiences, etc.). Leverage or align with Dartmouth-wide affinity groups if possible (eg. postdoc association).
• In partnership with OVIS and institutional efforts, review and evaluate the current support provided to Thayer. Use focus group data to find ways to help OVIS support international students and Thayer’s action plan.
• Review communications to international students and postdocs and look for opportunities to enhance.

• Increased retention rates for students, faculty, and staff across demographic groups
• Increased engagement and satisfaction as measured by pulse check surveys
• Employees are taking their allotted paid time off each year.

• Fortified community values and respect for cultural diversity.
• The diversity of our community is celebrated.
• Increased awareness of diverse, multicultural, and religious needs of our community.

• Continue highlighting and providing opportunities for faculty, staff, and students to share their stories (ie. Humans of Thayer on Instagram, during meetings, at events, and other communications)
• Hold panels with students on diverse issues, marketed to the entire Thayer community.
• Plan Thayer community events intended to bring faculty, staff, and students together (eg. event to encourage "speed meeting" between people who don't yet know each other).
• Work with Dartmouth (OPAL) to highlight or build upon an annual multicultural calendar of events. (eg. Lunar New Year, Diwali celebrations, etc.)
• Develop cultural awareness alerts, how members of the community celebrate them, and highlight activities of members from the different stakeholder groups. Be sure to consider the frequency to accommodate the diverse needs of the stakeholders.
• Provide resources for diversity and inclusion events (for example, via a rolling budget that resets at the start of each term).

• Participation in programming amongst all groups and identities increases.
• Positive reviews in post-event surveys, and identify areas of improvement.
• Positive reviews related to the community in quarterly pulse surveys.

• Contribute to the health and growth of the K-12 pipeline.
• Enhance outreach initiatives to the Upper Valley community.
• Thayer is a recognized host of community outreach activities.

• Collect, communicate, and create transparency around community outreach that is already being done.
• Add a staff resource to assist with community outreach activities.
• Review and enhance outreach to high schools, 2-year institutions, and colleges, including historically black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions.
• Develop a community engagement plan informed by the interests of faculty, staff and students and by the community/population to be reached..
• Plan a series of community engagement events, informed by the community/population to be reached.
• Revive the Thayer Open House event.
• Build a Rube Goldberg machine for Thayer's entrance area (could be an 89/90 project).

TBD