Diversity Committees

As part of the Accessibility Advisory Committee, the Digital Accessibility Subcommittee will work on digital accessibility issues.

The charge is to consider digital accessibility tasks and challenges including:

• forming recommendations for the President’s Cabinet on digital accessibility topics affecting the majority of campus
• drafting policies regarding digital accessibility
• confirming updates to the TU Accessibility Strategic Plan prior to publishing to the university website
• participating in high level planning for digital accessibility standards expressed by the University System of Maryland
• participate in information gathering and response to any university level official digital accessibility complaints

Formed to support Accessibility | Albert S. Cook Library (towson.edu) to further the University’s culture of accessibility through tasks and challenges.

• Creating and maintaining accessible web content to implement web accessibility best practices where they select, administer, or contribute content to the library's web presence.  This includes content published on the library website, the consideration of web accessibility when purchasing electronic resources, and the production of documents shared internally (between library employees), to the best of our ability.
• Prioritize work to achieve the greatest impact relative to the effort of its staff. To focus these efforts, the library will revise workflows that will inform future decisions and work. It will prioritize current and future content, over content created in the past, as well as resources, platforms, and services that are critical to student success.
• Maintain and enhance physical and academic accessibility at and around the Library through the use of a report form,  report an accessibility barrier.

The Campus Climate work group of the institutional Diversity Action Committee will support the establishment and maintenance of a campus climate that is welcoming and inclusive by:

• Reviewing existing data sets related to campus climate and making recommendations of future climate study needs.
• Developing a multicultural conference for faculty and staff.
• Developing and implementing programming for cultural competency across the campus.

The Education and Scholarship Work Group of the institutional Diversity Action Committee has a mission to:

• Increase diversity and inclusiveness across the curriculum, in individual courses, and in extra- and co-curricular settings. 
• Encourage diversity and inclusiveness in faculty teaching, scholarship/creative activity, and service, and the involvement of undergraduate and graduate students

In order to accomplish these goals, it is necessary to encourage and support increased diversity and inclusiveness in the composition of the students, faculty, staff, and administrators of colleges and departments, with particular attention to underrepresented racial minorities. The committee will fulfill its mission by:

• Review and recognize evidence of each college’s and unit’s diversity and inclusiveness efforts through mission and/or vision statements, how each department/program addresses diversity and inclusiveness through its curriculum, and how faculty address diversity and inclusiveness in individual courses as well as within their scholarship, creative activity, and service. These materials will be reviewed by the Office of the Provost and the Office of Inclusion and Institutional Equity. 
• Review and recognize what specifically is being done by academic units and individual faculty to increase the enrollment, involvement, and graduation of students from underrepresented groups.
• Review, recognize, and share, as appropriate, the strategies and programs currently employed by colleges and departments to support diversity and inclusiveness and support the assessment of programs.
• Coordinate with the Office of the Provost to review current best practices in faculty recruitment and retention. 
• Promote faculty involvement in TU's annual Multicultural Conference.

The Representation work group of the institutional Diversity Action Committee will support the university’s ability to seek and maintain fully represented populations within the student body, and faculty and staff bodies by:

• Supporting implementation of new and existing outreach efforts to increase representation of underrepresented groups of students, faculty, and staff.
• Promoting access, retention, and success of students, faculty, and staff from underrepresented groups.

The Hate/Bias Work Group provides a coordinated multi-disciplinary university response to hate crimes and/or bias incidents by:

• Meeting on a periodic basis to review reported instances of hate crimes and/or bias incidents;
• Identifying any patterns, trends, or upsurges in hate crime and/or bias incident activity;
• Advising TU's University Diversity Council of such patterns and making recommendations related to action-oriented steps to address identified patterns; and
• Supporting the implementation of university-wide initiatives to curtail hate crimes and bias incidents.

The University Diversity & Inclusion Awards recognize individuals and departments that have made efforts to foster greater awareness, understanding and advancement of diversity and inclusiveness at Towson University.

The Key Goals Are:

• Developing tools for marketing the University Diversity & Inclusion Awards Program;
• Ensuring that marketing tools are posted and/or distributed across campus;
• Collaborating campus-wide to secure nominations for six award categories (student, faculty-general, faculty-research, staff, academic and administrative department); and
• Overseeing the review of nominations and selection process.