College of the Environment: Sharing web services

Posted on October 19, 2017October 22, 2017

The challenge: Updating websites in units without web designers

What do you do when nearly every one of your websites is dated, unstable, off-brand or all of the above? In 2013, this was the situation for the College of the Environment’s many schools, departments and research units. From academic program homepages that didn’t mention the University of Washington to unstable, inaccessible websites that couldn’t be updated, the problems were varied and complex.

To add to the challenge, a number of the college’s units lost some or all of their web staff during the last economic downturn. Some units relied on a rotating group of graduate students to create and maintain their web presence; very few sites had an optimal number of visitors.

The solution: A centrally-supported website framework

After the marketing and communications team assessed the diverse communication needs of the college’s schools and departments and the resources available to help, they decided that updating the websites of units in the college was a major priority. An investment was made in 1.5 full-time staff members in the dean’s office. Without centralized investment, this change could have required each unit to hire a vendor or add a web professional to their staff.

“None of our websites were representative of the quality and unique character of our people or our work,” says Molly M. McCarthy, managing director of marketing and communications for the college. “We had an opportunity to make a huge impact in the way our units tell their own stories, share important research and recruit students.”

Joe Eastham, associate director of online communications, joined the team to develop the college’s unit website framework to meet these needs. The team chose WordPress to support the framework, which keeps the effort and cost of building, maintaining and hosting dozens of websites reasonable. Eastham can build carefully chosen features such as news sections and faculty profiles and then share them seamlessly with all websites in the framework.

Benefits: Independence, time-savings and improved services

“We wanted to respect the independence and expertise of each unit, while recognizing that some aspects of the process are more efficient when managed centrally,” says Eastham. “While each unit has a distinct voice, they all need human-friendly web design, development and support. Using a standard framework saves time and allows us to constantly improve our visitors’ experience and add new features, like searchable faculty directories and custom news categories.”

Next steps: Meet the growing demand

McCarthy, Eastham and team members Drew Collins, Cole Bessee and Jack Stoller have completed websites with 13 units, and are working on five more sites. After some initial hesitation, almost every major unit in the college has opted to participate, and smaller groups such as individual labs and faculty members have requested a future version of the program suited to their needs, as well. Initial fears about lack of control over content and design have calmed over time as more sites have launched, seamlessly blending the unit’s unique identity and the UW brand.

The marketing and communications team members continue to work toward bringing more UW environment sites into the framework, improving overall user experience and making the system easier for content editors. Someday, they hope to offer a limited version of the framework to a broader range of college projects and programs.

Lessons learned: Unit-led, with clear expectations and constant improvement

Several factors have been key to successful partnerships between the college team and individual units:

Taking the time to understand the priorities and culture of each unit allows the team to build sites customized to their needs.
Recognizing the subject matter expertise in each department or school, and giving them full control over web content is key.
Being clear from the start about expectations and scope of work, such as the college’s focus on externally-facing content, keeps the size of each project manageable.
Scheduling annual updates encourages a process of constant improvement and helps ensure that sites don’t fall into disrepair.

Examples of unit websites:
School of Environmental and Marine Affairs
Friday Harbor Laboratories
University of Washington Botanic Gardens
School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences
Earth Lab
Environmental Studies

The College of Arts & Sciences: Sharing business services for efficiency and support

Posted on October 19, 2017October 23, 2017

colleagues — Members of the CAS Shared Services (CASSS) team, from left to right: Fiscal Specialist Supervisor Felix Velasco, Fiscal Specialist 1 Natalie Bissiri and CASSS Manager Heidi Tilghman. Photo: Elizabeth Lowry

The challenge: Departments doing more with lessThe challenge: Administrators’ time eaten up by transactional work

In 2011, the College of Arts & Sciences was seeking ways to address growing administrative workloads. Within departments, high-level administrators — hired for their special knowledge in, for example, Anthropology programs — were spending time on increasingly complex transactional tasks. For example, the move from paper to online travel expense reports made those processes more efficient overall, but relied on department administrators learning the new web systems, their complexities and any changes in processes. And when many individuals performed a task infrequently, compliance suffered. What should be standardized processes (such as filling out travel expense reports) became harder to manage and control for minor errors.

The solution: Move work out of departments to experts who do it best

The college launched its shared services center as a pilot, to see whether the model would relieve some of the pressure on administrators. And it has. The current team of five staff members serves approximately 1,500 employees across 24 college units, and executes transactions in 20 distinct areas such as travel and purchasing reimbursements, invoice payments, honoraria and awards, foreign national payments and visas, Human Resources and payroll. Administrators have more time for department priorities, and shared services team members are more efficient in the transactional work — because they do it all the time.

To get started, and to ensure the center would meet the needs of individual units, a group of department administrators first brought projections to the dean: which schools needed which transactional services, how much efficiency could be gained and how many new hires might be needed. Rather than consolidating existing administrators (a common way to form shared services centers), the college invested in new staff specifically for shared services: one manager and two fiscal specialists. As work volume increased over time, the team hired two more.

The benefits: Compliance and efficiency — plus freedom

Sharing services has sustained the creative energy and individuality of each department in Arts & Sciences. The team members provide technical expertise in university-level business practices while, at the same time, personally getting to know each unit’s culture and needs. But the team also helps to standardize practices when more efficient and assure compliance across the board.

Administrators are freed up to do more mission-focused, custom work, such as the administrative end of curriculum design, in direct support of professors in their teaching and research. The shift to shared services has also freed up funds for some departments.

As no funds were needed from department budgets to create the center, newly available funds can be re-allocated toward other staffing needs.

And, the whole college has benefitted from faster, more reliable services. The team has implemented an online ticketing system for intake of service requests — for example, a travel reimbursement request from a faculty member — that routes the request directly to the right person for the job. The system increases both efficiency in turn-around times and accountability. Customers can view the status of their requests in one online record. The system’s success has led the team to offer its web intake tools as templates for other communications across Arts & Sciences.

Next Step for CASSS

As CAS Shared Services continues to evolve, a few key goals are guiding their plans for next steps. One of these is to evaluate the impacts of Workday, the new HR/Payroll system, on member department’s business needs and on the team’s workload. They’re asking: how best to serve departments as they get used to Workday, how to set submission and turn-around standards, and how to manage the semi-annual system upgrades to make the changes as seamless for departments as possible.

More broadly, CASSS is also considering how their Shared Services model might be useful in addressing other needs across the College. They’re looking to identify those non-member units who might want to tap into an area of the team’s expertise, and figuring out how to best provide the desired services. Relatedly, they’re evaluating whether there are transactional areas they want to add to their portfolio, given potential member units’ needs and goals.

Lastly, says Tilghman, they will continue to fine-tune the workflows, policies and goals they’ve already established. “This is the real work of continuous process improvement,” she says, “and will always be a priority.”

Lessons learned: Build trust and establish networks of mutual support

Active, consistent, on-the-ground support from both administrators and executive sponsors was crucial to the transition, says Heidi Tilghman, manager of the College of Arts & Sciences Shared Services (CASSS). “They made this growth possible,” she says, “as we created — primarily from scratch and involving multiple and ongoing iterations — our intake forms and step-by-step workflows, as well as our overarching goals, standards and tools for measuring success.”

Trust and communication have been vital to securing buy-in across units. Building trust takes time, notes Tilghman. To this end, she says, “careful staff recruitment is absolutely key — and we have been fortunate to attract eager, innovative and highly competent staff from the beginning, who not only learn new systems quickly, but who are deft communicators.” They’ve also made use of Lean methodology to help create a spirit of collaboration, inclusivity and shared responsibility with participating units.

A continuous cycle of feedback and improvement

As the team’s track record grew — of accurate, efficient and responsive work — so did demand for services. In spring 2016, the team re-evaluated: How could they manage increasing demand and maintain their service standards, without adding to staffing?

Working with an advisory group (seven volunteer administrators from member units), the team considered the widely varying needs and resources of participating departments. They recommended returning specific tasks to units and staff equipped to handle them. The shared services team decided to return reimbursement processing to the School of Art, Art History and Design (a large unit with its own well-supported processes) and return payroll processing to the English department (the unit with the largest number of employees).

These changes reduced turn-around times, and even allowed the team to add several small, understaffed units in the college to their service group. With some month-to-month variability, the team’s work volume is trending consistently upward — while maintaining a steadfast error rate of less than 2 percent.

The shared services center regularly asks for feedback from all participating units, to stay flexible in responding to changing needs and goals. In response to an informal survey, a staff member from the Dance program said that to have access to the center “feels like such a wonderful luxury.” A School of Music staff member put it more simply: “We are successful because of you.”

The School of Medicine’s Administrative Business Center (ABC): Committed to customer service

Posted on October 19, 2017November 1, 2017

kudos — ABC makes use of an Idea Board to capture suggestions and ideas for continuous process improvement from staff. Photo: Shelley Prosise.

The challenge: Departments doing more with less

Between 2009 and 2011, the School of Medicine was facing new challenges in the areas of visas and grants administration. Budget reductions and changes to compliance rules prompted administrators to review their processes — and they noticed inefficiencies. At the time, each department managed its own visas for foreign visitors and grants administration, two complex areas requiring expertise that takes time to develop and maintain. In some departments, staff had to know a little bit about everything; for example, payroll specialists would spend time learning grants administration, a process they would only do infrequently. Other departments would invest time to develop one staff member’s expertise — and if that person left the position, the department was back to square one. In all cases, individual departments were doing more, with fewer resources, leading to staff turnover, inefficient processes and potential compliance risks.

The solution: A team of experts to partner with departments and faculty

In 2012, the dean’s office created a work group to consider implementing shared services, composed of department directors and administrators, dean’s office staff, campus partners with shared service experience and Lean methodology facilitators.

First, they outlined four primary goals: increased efficiency, compliance, customer service and overall value. Then, they defined criteria for departmental activities that would benefit from shared services, processes that are:

common to all departments (excluding clinical and academic activities)
transactional or common but infrequent
reliant on specific expertise
marked by clearly defined stopping and starting points
key business processes
drivers of customer satisfaction

Based on the criteria, two processes emerged as prime candidates for shared services: grants administration and visas for foreign visitors. Both are common but complicated processes, requiring extensive training and upkeep to stay on top of rules and guidelines. They are also high-stakes processes for applicants — making attention to customer service extremely important.

In July 2013, the School launched shared services in the form of a new Administrative Business Center (ABC), with grants and visas as the first two services to units. Staffed by a combination of redeployed departmental administrators and new hires, ABC offers resources to manage these processes more efficiently: namely, a team of dedicated experts providing one-on-one service. The model gives time back to administrators and allows the faculty recipients of grants and visas to focus on their research.

ABC Shared Services Values

Customer Focus: We seek to understand our customers and focus on our shared success. We provide accurate, flexible and responsive service with the goal of exceeding expectations.

Accountability: We are proactive, reliable and trustworthy project managers who take ownership of projects from beginning to end. We produce accurate results by staying up to date on regulations, following best practices and continuously learning.

Effective Communication: We believe that effective communication is the cornerstone to building strong relationships and trust. We demonstrate this by providing timely, concise, respectful and transparent communication.

Continuous Improvement: As a team we are empowered to change our processes and tools to create efficiencies and add value for our customers.

A collaborative, customer-driven approach

ABC functions through shared governance: a model in which customers (departments and individual grant and visa recipients) work in partnership with ABC staff to determine values, establish goals and carry out processes. The emphasis that ABC places on customer service means that staff are empowered to address issues as they arise, and customers feel listened to and valued.

The system relies on close one-on-one relationships between ABC and its customers: department chairs, faculty and PIs of research grants. It also relies on open lines of communication and regular feedback via customer surveys.

And the system works. According to surveys, customer satisfaction has been rising steadily — with 99 percent “satisfied” by the end of 2016, up from 79 percent the previous year.
“ABC has been terrific to work with,” says Cecilia Giachelli, professor of Bioengineering. “Their efficiency has allowed us to spend more time working on the grant science instead of worrying about the administrative pieces.” Says Wyeth Bair, associate professor of Biological Structure, “I would not have been able to submit [my] proposal on time without my grants administrator’s constant help. She seemed genuinely invested in the success of the proposal, which conferred a team mentality to the process.”

A team mentality applies to ABC’s administrative partnerships as well, including their Faculty Oversight Committee (FOC), the Administrative Business Leadership Enterprise (ABLE) committee and School of Medicine leadership. “All are essential for our functioning, and for high-level strategic guidance and perspective,” says SoM Director of Business and Operations Marie Carter-DuBois.

Lessons learned

Prosise notes several lessons that ABC has learned along the way, that apply to shared services centers in other units and contexts:

Define the mission and vision: Understand and articulate why shared services will have value for customers
Communicate and build trust with customers — those who use or benefit from the service — from the very beginning, and incorporate the “customer voice” into goals and values
Build a robust governance structure — make sure you have support
Invest heavily in staff hiring and training upfront, and involve unit staff in planning processes as soon as possible
Invest in the right tools and have them ready (ABC uses SharePoint)
Determine metrics for measuring success (and collect baseline data, if possible)
Stay flexible: Ask for feedback and be prepared to change processes, policies or procedures as necessary

Next steps

ABC is currently in the process of launching new services in human resources and payroll, working closely with a newly formed HR/Payroll committee. To coincide with the launch of Workday and ease the transition for departments, they began offering payroll services in June 2017. As for next steps, says Prosise, ABC is committed to continuous process improvements and making sure new services are responsive to departments’ needs.

View graphic as a PDF

What does it mean to share services?

Posted on October 19, 2017October 24, 2017

In many areas of the UW, if you don’t know how to get something done — post a graduate student assistant position, buy a new laptop, reimburse an expense or track the status of grant funding, for example — it can take time to figure it out. Unit administrators often wear many hats and process countless types of transactions. Many wish they could do less paperwork and devote more time to efforts that more directly benefit the faculty and students of their department, school or college.

Sharing staff across units to improve service for everyone

Shifting to a shared service model is a way for participating groups to simplify processes for the faculty, staff and students who use common services. Groups can share resources and funding across units, departments, schools or colleges by forming a team to improve service to all participating units. Units usually opt in to a shared service model and choose from a menu of services. The shared service center staff are accountable to the participating units to perform work based on agreed upon measures such as turn-around time and quality. Ideally, the result is quicker, better, more reliable service.

Economies of scale, even for small units

By sharing, smaller units can benefit from economies of scale without losing local control and accountability to their unique needs. The primary goal of shifting to this model is to improve service, not to cut costs, although efficiencies sometimes generate savings or opportunities to redeploy funds.

A single “front door”

In a shared service model, there is one starting place for a wide range of work. An email, phone call or log in prompts shared service center staff to direct requests to the person who can best respond. By having one “front door,” staff can also triage requests, ensuring that a grant with a looming deadline, for example, is attended to before a less urgent request like finding a research-sponsor contact.

Best suited to transactional work, but not exclusively

Highly transactional work, especially that which occurs less frequently in the individual units, is well suited to shared services. Work that is compliance-focused, infrequent but specialized, or supported by systems is also a good fit. Many shared service centers tackle routine business functions such as travel planning and voucher reimbursement, purchasing and payroll. Standard communications efforts such as web design or marketing can also work well when shared. Even advancement functions can be shared if units have common or overlapping goals and donor bases.

Often frees up local administrators to focus on mission-specific work

Moving to a shared service model can allow units to create a tiered model of service. Participating units can send transactional work to the shared service center to be done more quickly at higher volume. This frees up the unit administrators to specialize or do more mission-specific, complex work such as advising or curriculum support.

More accountability than with purely centralized services

Participating units usually sign agreements to form shared service centers. These “service-level agreements” include details about what exactly the shared service group will do for the unit and clarify expectations around performance. In contrast, centralized units set agendas centrally and are less accountable to groups who use their service.

Rethinking the work, not just moving it

A shift to shared services usually entails rethinking both the work itself and how the team handles work coming in. It also may involve training all members of the team on a range of tasks so that any employee in the shared-service unit can work on any transaction. Once established, teams focus on continuously improving their services based on staff input and customer feedback.

View table as a PDF

Additional Resources

Groups at the UW are employing a range of shared service models. Some examples include:

For communications/information
College of the Environment
Foster School of Business

For business functions
College of Arts & Sciences Shared Services
School of Medicine’s Administrative Business Center (ABC)
UW HR, payroll and benefits Integrated Service Center
Enrollment Information Services

For advancement
Academic & Student Affairs
College of Engineering

If your group is interested in exploring shared services, contact a colleague from one of these UW units, learn more about other universities using shared services, or email tapteam@uw.edu.

UW Bothell fiscal and audit services: Transforming eTravel and eReimbursement

Posted on October 19, 2017November 1, 2017

Bothell campus — UW Bothell’s use of shared services for business practices has resulted in more efficiency, accuracy and accountability.

At UW Bothell’s Fiscal and Audit Services (FAS), an innovative model for sharing services has taken time to develop but has yielded transformative results.

The challenge: Too many “experts,” not enough expertise

Bothell’s FAS unit used to provide etravel and ereimbursement services for the entire Bothell campus: entering all documentation, and staying on top of all rules and guidelines, for all faculty, students and staff. Anyone traveling — for example, a faculty member traveling for a conference — would complete their own forms when they needed reimbursement, and then submit to FAS to process and check for compliance.

In theory, this centralized model worked efficiently — that is, if documentation arrived to FAS in perfect shape from individual travelers, every time. In reality, travelers were not necessarily familiar with all the rules and steps of the process; receipts were lost, lines on forms were overlooked, and guidelines often changed. FAS staff needed enough expertise in every unit’s distinct processes to handle all contingencies, in every case. And travelers were spending time learning and performing the processes — more often than not, they only used that knowledge once or twice per year.

The solution: Local experts to serve as point people

In 2016, when UW Bothell leadership asked FAS to launch shared services for the schools and major units, the areas of etravel and ereimbursement seemed like perfect candidates to re-structure for greater efficiency. Working with administrators at UW Bothell-IT, the School of STEM and the School of Nursing and Health Studies, they developed and launched a “point person” model.

The new model is a way to maintain the efficiency of centralized services, while making use of individual unit staff’s existing expertise. Each school and program chooses one point person in their unit — usually, a fiscal specialist or program administrator — to complete and submit all reimbursement documentation. Rather than, for example, a faculty member having to negotiate the steps of ereimbursement for travel expenses, their department’s point person fills out the forms, attaches receipts, makes sure everything is correct, and then submits completed paperwork to FAS.

As a “local expert”, the point person is familiar with etravel and ereimbursement processes, including updates and changes to travel rules. They also know the customers themselves: the faculty, staff and students seeking reimbursements.

FAS reached out to others for ideas and support. The team at the Seattle campus College of Arts & Sciences Shared Services Center, which was in its early phases at the time, was an enormous help, says FAS Manager Jenny Albrecht. “They told us, ‘Hey, we’re doing this ourselves and it’s all new, so use us as a resource,’” she says. Some of the college’s experiences proved valuable for understanding how to approach the transition (for example, that they sought advice from experts in Lean methodology) and to set realistic timeline expectations.

The benefits: A relationship-driven, customer-focused model

That the point person has a relationship with the people in their unit and with FAS is “key to a positive shared service,” says FAS Director Kendra Yoshimoto. “It’s a partnership.” Each point person has a quarterly meeting with FAS partners to share updates and feedback, fostering open lines of communication and continuous improvement.

The more standardized model has meant more timely and streamlined reimbursement processing for travelers, as well as more confidence that everything will be processed correctly the first time. They can also be confident that their documentation is being managed by someone who cares: a point person they know, in their own unit. Further assurances are provided by FAS staff, who are themselves subject matter experts and provide the final compliance check.

The point people share mutual accountability with FAS staff — who also support one another. In addition, FAS has a strengthened relationship with the UW Travel Office, helping to ensure accurate and efficient processing.

Lessons learned: Communicate, and don’t rush the process

Yoshimoto stresses the importance of communication and setting clear guidelines for all partners. Strong partnership agreements with the units being served are a hallmark of shared services, she says, and should outline specific expectations for roles and responsibilities, how communication will be established, and metrics for measuring success. “It’s also about educating people that this is going to take time,“ she says. The transition to a new model is a process, involving some trial and error; but as long as partners share common goals and stay mutually supportive, the process is a rewarding one.

Next steps for FAS

In early 2017, UW Bothell leadership asked FAS to expand shared services, to further free up staff in other units to focus on their own priorities. Says Albrecht, “We’re asking, what can we do in our office that takes burden off administrators — that is transaction-based, that we can learn?” Once again, they are turning to other units and institutions — including the College of Arts & Sciences, the School of Medicine’s Administrative Business Center (ABC) and University of California, Davis — for resources, best practices and advice on moving forward.

FAS also wants to inspire and support other units that are interested in shared services. In Spring 2017, they held a retreat, inviting representatives from units across the UW Bothell campus to attend presentations by Arts & Sciences’ Heidi Tilghman and UC Davis shared services expert Sarah Reid, among others. The retreat resulted in the formation of a shared services launch committee, which currently working on “durable” ways to expand shared services on the Bothell campus. As FAS shared services continue to gain momentum, the time and effort devoted to their transition — by FAS staff and those who supported them — translates into impact, experience and knowledge to be shared across all three UW campuses.

UW Bothell’s FAS developed a new, shared travel reimbursement process

View table as a PDF

Tips for moving to shared services

Posted on October 18, 2017October 24, 2017

Ask for help. Find out who else has done this before and what they suggest. Support from others who use or provide shared services can be an invaluable resource. After you’ve made the move, share ideas and experiences with others.

Create goals together and set clear expectations. Involve all those involved or impacted — service partners, team members and leaders of all levels — in setting goals and expectations of service. This builds buy-in and ensures the new model meets unit needs.

Prioritize communication. Draft partnership agreements, often known as “service level agreements,” to clearly communicate what the shared service is and is not. Develop a plan to roll out the new service model and ongoing feedback loops to hear from and communicate with partners. Prioritize communication skills when deciding who will be on the shared service team.

Respect individuality. Honor and make use of the unique cultures, processes and expertise in each of the participating units. Shared service is about meeting their individual needs better not a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach. While the shift may involve change, this change needs to help the unit accomplish its own goals better.
Choose tools, platforms and processes carefully. Moving to a shared service often involves sharing a new tool, system or process. Experiment and invest time in choosing, for example, the right new web platform or a new ticketing system to triage requests. Choosing the wrong system can waste time, money and the good will of participating units.

Improving service is an ongoing process. Create avenues for gathering input from participating units and tackle, as a team, one or more continuous improvement projects each year.

It takes time. Set realistic timeline expectations for moving to a shared service and reaping the benefits. Manage expectations of participating units so they know how soon to expect improved results.

Measure impact. Look for ways to measure success in comprehensive ways. Start with the performance expectations set in partnership agreements. Conduct regular surveys of partner satisfaction. Remember to count as cost-savings funds that were redeployed to more mission-specific work.

The diversity blueprint: From planning to action

Posted on May 4, 2017May 8, 2017

“Attract, retain and graduate a diverse and excellent student body” is one of six goals in the Diversity Blueprint. Photo: University Marketing & Communications.

The University of Washington is an enormous — and complicated — organization. As such, any high-priority campus-wide goals require flexible plans; a one-size-fits-all model simply won’t do. In terms of diversity, every unit on campus — from academic programs to administrative offices — has its own priorities and resources. That’s why the new Diversity Blueprint is structured as a framework of goals that allows each unit to tailor its own action plans, and to approach those goals in individualized ways.

Compared to plans that hold all participants to the same metrics, framework models are flexible and spark the local conversations needed for measurable progress across such a large organization. The focus moves to, “what will it look like to achieve this goal in our unit?”

“That was a lesson we learned from the previous Diversity Blueprint,” says Chadwick Allen, associate vice provost for Faculty Advancement, who explains that more localized and more flexible plans can lead to more meaningful accountability. “Unfortunately,” he adds, “when everyone is considered responsible, no one is really responsible.”

A flexible framework

“We want to ensure [the Blueprint] is grounded in everyone’s reality.”

— Chadwick Allen, associate vice provost for Faculty Advancement

When the time came to draft a new five-year Diversity Blueprint for the UW, Allen, who co-chairs the UW Diversity Council, knew the plan could benefit from a modified approach. Ultimately, the council developed the current framework which still lays out big-picture goals with recommended actions but leaves the individual methods and metrics up to each unit.

Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President for Minority Affairs & Diversity, Rickey Hall, joined the UW in 2016 during the final stages of the drafting process and now co-chairs the new blueprint’s adoption going forward.

“The Diversity Blueprint is a framework model, which I prefer to a more prescriptive plan,” says Hall. “This way, everyone can see themselves in it.”

Hall points out that the ultimate success of the blueprint relies on inclusivity, buy-in and open communication across multiple stakeholders. “These issues are complex, often emotionally laden, so it takes time,” he says about the difficult conversations that are part of diversity planning.

Guiding a shift in culture
The Diversity Blueprint allows more space for individual units to make decisions about priorities and actions.

“We all know it’s important to have leadership buy-in from the top, but we also know people don’t like being told what to do,” says Allen. The plan should help units to “think across goals,” he says, and to take ownership of ensuring diversity throughout their programs. For example, a college that has made progress on student diversity may still struggle with faculty diversity. By considering how faculty diversity relates to larger pipeline issues, that college could prioritize plans to create a more inclusive pipeline for future faculty.

Diversity Blueprint Goals | 2017-2021

Goal 1: Cultivate an inclusive campus climate
Goal 2: Attract, retain and graduate a diverse and excellent student body
Goal 3: Attract and retain a diverse faculty
Goal 4: Attract and retain a diverse staff
Goal 5: Assess tri-campus diversity needs
Goal 6: Improve accountability and transparency

Broad input and representation
The blueprint was developed by the Diversity Council, which is made up of two representatives from each school, college and administrative unit, as well as the Bothell and Tacoma campuses. Multiple student and faculty representatives also sit on the council.

The UW charged the council with soliciting ideas from across campuses about goals and priorities, and consulting with experts in the field and at other universities. Over the course of the 2015-2016 academic year, the council developed, revised and reviewed the Diversity Blueprint, which was endorsed by the president and provost. The blueprint received approval from the Board of Regents in January 2017. “Part of why we asked the whole Diversity Council for their input rather than, say, simply have the chief diversity officer write it on his own, is because we wanted to ensure it’s grounded in everyone’s reality,” says Allen.

Workshops for next steps

““The new blueprint represents a more tricampus effort than we’ve ever had in UW history.”

— Terryl Ross, director of Diversity at UW Bothell

To guide units through the planning and action phases of implementing the blueprint, the Diversity Council has organized a series of workshops for unit leaders. Each session focuses on practical ideas for developing concrete plans under a specific goal area, as well as for identifying relevant metrics to track.

“The flexible framework provided by the Diversity Blueprint will help all of us in setting both near-term and long-term priorities for improving diversity in our units,” says David Eaton, dean of the Graduate School. “The support of workshops and resources allows each of us to determine plans for action in a way that is right for our area and the university as a whole.”

By helping to personalize priorities, the workshops are intended to empower and support each unit and campus in creating its own plans.

Staying nimble for the future
The Diversity Blueprint has a specific five-year time frame because, as Allen points out, “things can change, so it doesn’t make sense to create plans to enforce for the next decade.” The cyclical process allows the UW to self-reflect and adjust more regularly. Although it can be challenging for such a large institution to be nimble over a relatively brief five-year period, UW leaders believe the effort will pay off as the culture keeps shifting towards greater accountability — and dedicated action.

Forging An Inclusive Tri-Campus Vision

UW Bothell and UW Tacoma representatives on the Diversity Council helped write the UW’s overarching Blueprint and developed customized campus action plans that reflect individual campus priorities around diversity.

In Bothell
Director of Diversity Terryl Ross is helping the campus to finalize its current Diversity Action Plan and to reassess future steps to align with the UW’s Diversity Blueprint. In the next planning cycle, Ross recognizes the importance of balancing autonomy with a shared tri-campus vision. He also highlights the Diversity Council’s inclusive structure as a place to coordinate, advise and share best practices. “For me, the most important thing is that we [as diversity officers] have a common place to go with more of a tri-campus effort than we’ve ever had in UW history,” says Ross.

In Tacoma
A coordinating committee of representatives from across the Tacoma campus developed Strategic Impact Goals in light of Chancellor Mark Pagano’s priorities for diversity, community feedback and the UW’s Diversity Blueprint. “We identified six ‘wildly important’ goals that consider the needs of our student body, community, culture and growth,” says Sharon Parker, then assistant chancellor for Equity and Inclusion at Tacoma. The process included creating a committee with representatives from across the Tacoma campus who solicited ideas and input and led the work towards each goal, and who now track progress. “We’re educating the campus,” says Parker. “We’re at the point where we’ve succeeded in seeding issues of diversity and equity throughout campus, and now we’re looking at specific ways to implement plans.”

Fostering excellence: Faculty recruitment and retention

Posted on May 3, 2017May 12, 2017

The University of Washington makes it a priority to recruit and retain faculty whose research, teaching and service enhance diversity, and in turn bring excellence. Already, schools and colleges across the three campuses recognize the importance of diversity in prioritizing faculty recruitment and advancement, and overcoming external and internal barriers to hiring.

Rickey Hall, vice president for Minority Affairs & Diversity and chief diversity officer

“We are living in an increasingly global, multicultural world and it’s important to see people of color in many different positions within an organization,” says Rickey Hall, vice president for Minority Affairs & Diversity and chief diversity officer. “It’s especially important for a research-intensive institution.”

Hiring and retaining a diverse and inclusive faculty is a complex undertaking that does not occur in a vacuum. It is influenced by national contexts, including pipeline issues, applicant pools and fierce competition for top candidates, as well as internal search processes and implicit biases.

The hiring process, if left unexamined, can be stuck in ways that perpetuate institutional racism. Creating a welcoming climate that encourages potential candidates to accept an offer and stay at the UW takes continual commitment and work — but our students demand it, our faculty want it, and it’s the right thing to do. This commitment is also paying off in the progress made across all three campuses to increase diversity through past investments from the Faculty Advancement Initiative and other efforts. 18 faculty whose research, teaching and service contribute to diversity were hired in 2015-2016, for a total of 47 new faculty members over the last four years.

See Infographic: How Does a Faculty Member Get Hired?

While we cannot change the faculty’s composition as rapidly as students, faculty and administrators would like, academic units can access existing tools to ensure consideration of diverse candidate pools, mitigate implicit bias in the hiring process and foster welcoming climates that ultimately encourage new hires to stay.

Taking advantage of the Office for Faculty Advancement

Chadwick Allen, associate vice provost, Faculty Advancement; Norma Rodriguez, director, Faculty Advancement. Photo: Leilani Lewis.

As a federal contractor, the UW is obligated to use best practices that increase the diversity of candidate pools for all hiring opportunities — and our commitment remains strong. This work stems from a nearly 50-year legacy of leadership, catalyzed by student demands in 1968 that led to the formation of the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity (OMA&D). Faculty advancement efforts have been moved forward through the decades by Samuel E. Kelly, the first vice president for Minority Affairs; Luis Fraga, the first associate vice provost for Faculty Advancement; and many unsung heroes at all levels of the UW. In 2012, the Office of the Provost began directly investing in improved recruitment processes by offering supplemental funds to units recruiting faculty whose research, teaching and service contribute to the UW’s diversity profile. Today, student activists have reenergized the call for inclusive hiring. President Ana Mari Cauce and Provost Jerry Baldasty are joining staff, faculty, department and dean leadership by renewing the University-wide commitment to faculty diversity. This includes additional funding to bring the Office for Faculty Advancement’s budget up to $1 million for recruitment and retention efforts.

The Office for Faculty Advancement also works with colleges, schools and campuses on long-term planning that considers the changing demographics and research interests of academic fields, and, in departments, teaching and research needs and anticipated retirements.

Using existing tools to recruit and assess applicants

The University stands ready to assist units in meeting the challenge of diversity in recruitment and retention. Key things to consider include the following:

Search committees can create opportunities for reflection on their unit’s hiring processes before recruitment begins, by asking: “Are we advertising where diverse candidates look for jobs and tapping into the right networks? Is there a plan for personal outreach to highly qualified candidates whose academic work, mentoring and outreach reflects the diverse issues and ideas that will benefit our unit?” Faculty Advancement can help guide committees through these considerations to ensure the best possible recruitment process.

Combat implicit bias in hiring by using tools in the Handbook of Best Practices for Faculty Searches located on the Faculty Advancement website, including recommendations for creating job descriptions that appeal to diverse faculty applicants, and many other new online resources.

“We know that student demographics will continue to be more diverse over time,” says Chadwick Allen, associate vice provost for Faculty Advancement. “As a university, we need to regularly ask ourselves: Are we meeting the needs of the students we have now and, as important, those we hope to recruit in the future? We’re always striving toward that goal.” Faculty diversity is an important part of creating a culture that is more welcoming to students, so Allen and the Office for Faculty Advancement recommend using multiple strategies to attract highly qualified faculty candidates.

Strengthening your offer beyond the benefits package

Often, highly rated prospects field multiple offers from institutions across the nation, including private universities that can bring more financial incentives to the table. In this context, it’s imperative to assemble a hiring package that explicitly recognizes the candidate’s broad needs and how the UW can address them.

Share specifics such as the UW’s Diversity Requirement, Diversity Blueprint and unit-level diversity commitments to demonstrate that candidates will be working in a supportive, connected and collaborative environment.

Identify the prospective hire’s allies on campus — and across all three UW campuses — to show visiting candidates that networks of support already exist. This may include offering faculty mentorship, resource support, coaching and clear prospects to work with faculty from other departments who share similar research interests. Faculty Advancement and OMA&D can work with committees to identify and articulate these opportunities.

Request supplemental funds from Faculty Advancement to make a more attractive offer and strengthen the potential for innovation and interdisciplinary scholarship. These Faculty Recruitment Initiative funds also provide symbolic support by showing candidates that the University and provost are invested in their hires. Since becoming available four years ago, the funds have contributed to 47 successful recruitment efforts in 30 units across the three campuses.

Maintaining a continuous cycle of recruitment and retention

“The Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity and Faculty Advancement want units to think not only about recruitment, but also about how to create an environment that supports retention,” says Norma Rodriguez, director of the Office for Faculty Advancement.

Once hires are made, the work to promote diversity and inclusion must continue. Retention requires ongoing effort, especially since competing universities will notice the work of talented junior faculty members. The best defense against poaching is showing commitment to faculty by proactively identifying and building connections to ensure the UW is a supportive environment where all faculty can thrive.

View “How does a faculty member get hired” as pdf

Committing to inclusive teaching at UW Tacoma

Posted on May 2, 2017May 8, 2017

Making a positive impact on an inclusive campus climate often begins in individual classrooms. Yet, as instructors well know, adapting teaching practices to meet the needs of a diverse student body is sometimes easier said than done. Such work involves critical self-reflection and attention to forms of systemic oppression, such as racism or sexism, that impact the learning and retention of so many students. At UW Tacoma, faculty recognized the need to learn about and adapt practices toward anti-bias instruction for their increasingly diverse students, and in 2015, launched the Strengthening Educational Excellence with Diversity (SEED) Teaching Institute.

Better supporting students through faculty development

Sharon Parker, assistant chancellor for Equity and Inclusion, UW Tacoma

The annual institute kicks off with a four-day summer residency, immersing a cohort of faculty participants in the study and practice of inclusive teaching. The participants develop action plans to “increase access, rigor and engagement of students through inclusion and anti-bias education,” says Assistant Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion Sharon Parker. She and other UW Tacoma faculty facilitate the institute.

The goals and values of SEED are built around four cornerstones: developing student voice, creating an inclusive classroom, enhancing critical thinking and analysis, and nurturing personal cultural competency.

To implement those goals, participants work together to critically examine and redesign their pedagogy including everything from syllabus construction to curriculum choices and grading criteria. For example, the 2015 cohort of 15 faculty developed strategies to incorporate student input into assignment design, integrate diversity into course discussions and select course texts from diverse authors. “I always understood most of the ‘why’ behind incorporating inclusive excellence,” notes one participant of the institute’s action-oriented approach. “But I was stumped on the ‘how,’ and that is what I learned from SEED, from both presenters and peers.”

SEED participants learn to:

develop student voices

create an inclusive classroom

enhance critical thinking and analysis

nurture personal cultural competency

Participant-driven model is critical to success

The success of SEED is largely due to its emphasis on self-reflection, feedback and accountability. During the summer residency, faculty regularly reflect on their learning and their own biases to develop personal cultural competencies. The group shares and receives input on their work every day, and contributes feedback to the program to benefit future cohorts of faculty. That these activities are mostly led by UW Tacoma faculty with expertise in anti-bias teaching increases the impact of the institute. The peer-driven model contributes to participant buy-in.

Activities in the institute are also designed to bring awareness to forms of systemic oppression that affect students — and to then turn that awareness into action. For example, two faculty changed their assessment strategies after reflecting on the potential for bias in grading. They redesigned their curricula to de-emphasize grades and place more value on course learning outcomes. As the instructors implemented the new practice, they found alternative grading allowed for more equitable, holistic student assessment.

Building a community with lasting impact

SEED’s intensive summer residency impacts faculty teaching — and by extension, UW Tacoma students. Faculty share the progress of new curricula and have the opportunity for more peer feedback at a September showcase. Later in the fall, they reconvene for an assessment session to report the impact of revised practices on student learning. The group then attends quarterly check-ins throughout the year to extend opportunities for collaboration, mentorship and input. As many participants reported, one of the primary values of SEED lies in its creation of a professional learning community, which continues to build over several quarters. The institute also fosters connections across cohorts. The 2015 group created a final showcase to inspire and encourage the incoming 2016 faculty.

Participants in the SEED Teaching Institute redesign their courses during a four day residency to meet the needs of the increasingly diverse UW Tacoma student body. Photo: UW Tacoma.

SEED is now in its third year. It is led by an interdisciplinary steering committee that is comprised of Parker; Julia Aguirre, associate professor in Education; Ariana Ochoa Camacho, assistant professor in Ethnic, Gender & Labor Studies; Linda Ishem, senior lecturer in Urban Studies; Nita McKinley, associate professor in Psychology; and Sushil Oswal, associate professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. SEED’s organizers remain committed to the institute’s cornerstone values, as well as to continued adaptation. The 2016 summer residency was restructured toward an even more comprehensive approach to anti-bias instruction.

For Parker, a major goal of the UW’s Race & Equity Initiative is that as soon as students enter UW Tacoma, they know that they are welcomed, respected and valued. This means deliberately creating an inclusive campus climate — beginning in the classroom.

Curriculum transformation: Fostering inclusive classrooms

Posted on May 1, 2017May 8, 2017

Curriculum transformation is a process that asks faculty members to take a critical stance on power and difference in the classroom, interweave multiple perspectives and integrate student voices and knowledge into the learning process. “The Diversity Blueprint and the Diversity Requirement set goals for change at the university level, but within each classroom, curriculum transformation is an opportunity for each instructor to create a thoughtful and equitable space for learning, with support from instructional experts,” says Ed Taylor, vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs.

Curriculum transformation has a long history at UW, including the Center for Curriculum Transformation which aided faculty from 1993 until 2013, largely under the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity. Today, the Center for Teaching & Learning in offers guidance in areas of inclusive teaching and other best practices.

Now, as then, academic units come to curriculum transformation with different needs and levels of understanding. Individual professors may vary in how comfortable they feel discussing racial equity or connecting it to their course topics. There are many ways to enact real change on a departmental level. As the School of Public Health and the iSchool demonstrate, open communication and mutual respect are key ingredients.

The School of Public Health: Adding a core competency on race and equity

In 2016, the School of Public Health passed a new school-wide competency specifically addressing the effects of racism on public health. India Ornelas, assistant professor of Health Services and chair of the School of Public Health Diversity Committee, dates the origin of this competency to a 2014 workshop that challenged participants to undo institutional racism. Many began looking critically at the school’s curriculum.

India Ornelas (far right), chair of the School of Public Health’s Diversity Committee, says that passing the new core competency was a collaborative effort involving many meetings, presentations and informal conversations to communicate the importance of the proposed addition. Photo: Filiz Efe McKinney.

The first result was a one-credit course that addresses the effects of race, power and privilege on public health — which remains popular, with a wait-list every quarter. Soon it became clear that a greater commitment was needed as Public Health students in the course advocated that the concepts in the class were equally vital to the school’s broader curriculum.

For more than a year, multiple committees vetted several draft proposals of the new competency. The process required stakeholder involvement at every level. In a coordinated leadership effort, the school-wide Diversity Committee and Curriculum Committee worked together for the first time.

“The big leap was going from something that was voluntary and largely master’s students to having all degree plans required to meet this [competency],” says Ornelas, who cites three key factors that helped the School of Public Health approve the competency.

Earn departmental buy-in by listening, educating and asking questions:
“It’s really important to bring people in from the beginning, and get the whole community behind you,” says Ornelas.

The school needed approval from all departments to pass the competency. Diversity Committee members met with departments, committees and individuals at every unit level.

Ornelas says, “We talked through all of these issues and asked departments, ‘Do you want your students to be able to work across difference? Do you want them to be able to understand racism as a social determinant of health? Do you want them to be able to work with diverse research teams?’ No matter what environment you’re working in, race and equity issues are happening, and your students will have to understand how racism works.”

““Recognize the means by which social inequities and racism, generated by power and privilege, undermine health.”

— School of Public Health new core competency

Involve students leaders as activists and counselors:
Students drove the work at all levels. Schoolwide activism helped push the competency forward, while individual student representatives advocated within department committees. In addition to higher-profile actions, many students provided feedback in discussions with staff and faculty.

Communicate about progress:
With five departments, the school’s approval process can be long and cumbersome. Ornelas recommends designating a web page to regularly update internal stakeholders. Colleges and schools undertaking similar efforts can provide transparent communications in-person and online to build trust in the process.

In the end, the school became one of the nation’s first public health programs to enact such a requirement. “I’m very proud of the stand that people in the curriculum committees and diversity committees took, saying that the importance here is naming racism, power and privilege,” says Ornelas.

Creating a National Impact

The work done in the UW School of Public Health influenced the Council on Education for Public Health, the accrediting body for schools that offer the master of Public Health degree. Now, as a requirement, all graduates of accredited schools will be able to “discuss the means by which structural bias, social inequities and racism undermine health and create challenges to achieving health equity at organizational, community and societal levels.”

The iSchool: Partnering For Inclusive Teaching

Cynthia del Rosario, diversity, equity and access officer, and leader of the iSchool’s Curriculum Transformation Project

Cynthia del Rosario, diversity, equity and access officer, leads the iSchool’s Curriculum Transformation Project. Undoing institutional racism requires honest self-reflection. Del Rosario knew that faculty would need trusted partners to turn to for support. As a result, she based the program around fostering mentoring relationships.

The project builds partnerships between faculty and community members who have expertise in diversity practices, using the iSchool’s alumni and network to identify potential experts. Each quarter, del Rosario recruits three to four experts who can help faculty integrate diversity into curricula, and she matches each expert with one or two faculty members based on areas of expertise and compatible learning styles.

Over the quarter, expert partners support faculty in planning and implementing ways to diversify their curriculum and make their classrooms more inclusive spaces. “We try to keep partners consistent [from year to year], so they understand our culture,” says del Rosario.

To create supportive partnerships:

Get everyone on the same page: Del Rosario schedules time for people to connect before the quarter and organizes activities to introduce concepts of microaggressions and privilege. This helps everyone develop shared understanding and common ground, even if participants have been through the program before. Then, instructors meet with their partners to look at how syllabi, course content, pedagogy, assignments and evaluation can be more inclusive. Together, they create an action plan and discuss potential challenges and opportunities.
Offer regular feedback: Partners observe the faculty twice, near the beginning and at the end of the quarter, and sometimes participate in class if the instructor agrees it’s appropriate. Throughout the quarter, partners are available to answer questions or discuss emerging situations. “If something happens in a class, the partners already have context,” says del Rosario, and together with the faculty member they can discuss issues that arise. That it’s a consistent partnership means that “if something happens in a class, the partners already have context.”
Reflect on lessons learned: At the end of the quarter, the partners and instructors discuss lessons learned. They can base their reflection around guidelines del Rosario developed, but she emphasizes flexibility and freedom. “We say: ‘Do it how it’s going to work for you.’ It’s not about what it looks like on paper, it is about how the partners can best work together to create a learning environment that engages diversity and fosters inclusive thinking.”