Our EDI Commitment
- Developing a respectful, diverse and inclusive culture is key to ensuring everyone who passes through our doors feels safe, welcome, valued and heard. At the Desautels Faculty of Management, we are committed to advancing equity, diversity and inclusion to better serve our community.
- EDI should be infused throughout the organization
- Every student, faculty and staff member, recruiter, alum should do their part
Through months of consultation with groups representing our students, staff and faculty we have come to find that we at the faculty face certain challenges across several areas with respect to equity, diversity and inclusion. We are already working hard on addressing these issues and have been for quite some time. To view a detailed list of action items and their status, please visit our EDI activity tracker.
With this in mind, we present our strategic plan for equity, diversity and inclusion, which is built on four overarching operational principles:
- Commitment to action
- Transparency created through frequent communications
- Accountability through reporting
- Re-evaluation and course adjustments as needed
Equity, diversity and inclusion is a strategic priority at the Desautels Faculty of Management. Our primary goals for this strategy are as follows:
- Strengthen Desautels EDI culture and infuse EDI values through all aspects of the faculty.
- Build and maintain structures and processes that reflect and support our EDI values.
- Create knowledge and provide thought leadership on EDI.
It is our hope that by achieving these goals, we will be able to increase representation at Desautels, provide better experiences and feelings of belonging for everyone at Desautels, and create greater understanding of the role and importance of EDI.
EDI Action Plan
Following months of consultation with students, staff, faculty, alumni and community members, the Desautels Action Plan was developed to inform and support the enactment of the Strategic Plan, as well as the University’s EDI Strategic Plan and Action Plan to Address Anti-Black Racism. The Desautels EDI Action Plan aims to ensure a more equitable and inclusive educational learning environment.
Quick Links
Culture and Values
A cultural shift at the faculty will stem from the following:
- Changes in processes and structures for hiring of faculty and staff
- Increased opportunities for knowledge and learning through facilitated workshops and other activities
- Leaders who embody our EDI commitment
- The creation and execution of shared EDI goals with students, staff and faculty, with appropriate accountabilities, timelines and metrics for each goal
- Increased and transparent communication of EDI goals and initiatives through multiple formats, to and from multiple stakeholders
Structures and Processes
Putting the right structures and processes in place is a steppingstone to altering culture and meeting EDI goals, for instance by creating and improving processes around:
- Hiring faculty and staff
- Recruitment of students to all programs
- Workload assignment
- Annual reports for faculty and staff
We must create and implement guidelines for these processes and regularly review processes for equity, for instance:
- Staff workload, promotion and salary
- Faculty service assignments, stipends and salary
- Career Development
Finally, we must make these processes transparent.
Knowledge and Overall Training
Provide training opportunities to increase level of knowledge and awareness around EDI and consistent use of our processes and structures:
- Aimed at all populations
- Focus on behaviour and processes
- Leverage existing training at the University level and pilot and add new ones as needs are identified
- Draw on our own expertise to augment this.
Thought Leadership, Research and Knowledge
- Encourage and provide resources for faculty to do EDI research
- Translate our EDI research to thought leadership
- Share this knowledge throughout the University
- Infuse the curriculum with EDI in approach and content including EDI-specific elective offerings
Who will lead and support this work?
Our core EDI team, which includes:
- Dean of McGill Desautels, Associate Director of EDI and EDI Associates
- Marcel Desautels Institute for Integrated Management (MDIIM) Fellow(s)
- Working and advisory groups
Desautels EDI “affiliates”
- Desautels Executive Committee
- Teaching and Learning Services
- Marketing and Communications team
- Academic Affairs
- Human Resources
- Program leaders
- Student leaders
University Support
- Office of the Provost and Executive Vice-President (Academic) Equity team
- EDI Advisors
- McGill Teaching and Learning Services
