Belonging
All members of our UMaine community should feel they belong. UMaine can and should more actively create and foster diverse senses and ways of belonging in our community.
Diversity, equity and inclusion are at the core of UMaine’s future. To thrive, UMaine must attract and support a diverse student body and also recruit and retain diverse faculty and staff. To do so, our community must face brave discussions about where we must change and grow; this is a time for honesty and action, not for gloss. UMaine’s greatest assets are its people; designing virtual and physical spaces and practices that create a sense of real community for its students, faculty, staff, and alumni will be the key to ensuring our community members thrive here. UMaine should foster a sense of belonging through programs that introduce, educate and celebrate diverse cultures; develop mosaic mentorship networks that connect people across UMaine and UMS; and strengthen partnerships for promoting racial justice and equity statewide.
Focus Areas
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Center
- Finding and Making a Home at UMaine for Students and Faculty
- Attracting and Retaining Talent to the State
- Connecting UMaine Alumni and Maine Communities
Recommendations
Create additional resource systems that can support health, mental health, economic well-being, and care-giving responsibilities in students, staff and faculty, especially those that can respond to disparities in these arenas.
Expect and support universal design in instruction, campus resources, and university activities.
Seek data and feedback on student experience for BIPOC student to make strategic choices that lead from their wants and needs and act with engaged and informed purpose and care.
Create virtual and physical spaces for students, student organizations, sites of learning, sites of research that are shaped with diversity, equity and inclusion as a key focus.
Support the visual and performing arts as critical in helping to weave diverse cultures into the DNA of the institution.
Develop mosaic mentorship and networking programs that partner with other UMS campuses and DEI-focused organizations in the state and nationwide.
Provide university-level training and support for increasing support for diversity, equity and inclusion across all stages of faculty and staff positions (from search to retention across a career).
Investigate key elements that will enable UMaine to attract faculty and staff who will “land and stay.” What lessons can we learn from 30+ year UMaine faculty? How do we create a tight-knit community and sense of belonging for an increasingly diverse workforce?
Encourage opportunities to create a continuum of undergraduate students becoming mentors — establish a virtuous cycle of near-peer mentorship (include graduate and post-grad students).
Expand tuition waiver program for Maine’s tribal nations to include housing, book allowance and stipend.
Recognize the importance of icons / visual symbols in raising consciousness and inculcating inclusivity.
Identify existing relationships that UMaine has with state government, tribal nations, public and private sector organizations. Foster further collaboration and partnership.
Support initiatives to diversify Maine’s workforce through student, staff and faculty recruitment efforts, training and streamlined certifications / licensure. Create opportunities for micro-credentials and work with Cooperative Extension.
Seek ways to communicate belonging at all levels (from Dining Services to spiritual practices to curriculum and senior leadership).
Deploy strategic investment and conscious incentives for recruitment. It will require time, effort and enhanced resources — potential for an opportunity hiring fund. It is imperative to address the problem of turn-over of mid-career leadership. Need to tackle faculty recruitment with a statewide, systemwide approach.
State government is struggling with many of the same issues around hiring, training and retaining employees. UMaine could help lead this initiative (a new commission is emerging).
A high level of investment now will yield long-term dividends for UMaine and the state in 2025 and beyond. Invest in physical spaces from a diversity, equity and inclusion perspective.
