University of Richmond
PA-4: Diversity and Equity Coordination

The Office of Common Ground is charged with overseeing diversity and inclusivity for the University. The office spends about 75% of its time supporting students through trainings, workshops, programs and policy recommendation, and approximately 25% of its time with faculty support. Student oriented programs include leading a twice-yearly social justice weekend retreat, training student leaders on diversity and inclusive community building, supporting lgbtq and first-generation students through programs, and making policy recommendations on best practices for transgender students across campus functional areas. Faculty support includes a multi-year project to bring faculty who teach race together across their curricular areas, training faculty advisors in how to work with underrepresented students, and training diversity advocates on faculty search committees on how to optimize the likelihood of recruiting a diverse faculty. In addition, the Assistant Vice President for Human Resources is responsible for advising on and implementing policies, programs, and trainings related to diversity and equity for faculty and staff.

Safe Zone educates members of the University community about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues to create a network of allies who, together with members of the LGBT community, work to create a community of safety and full inclusion for all its members. Faculty, staff, and administrators may all access workshops through Human Resources on Diversity in the Workplace, and Communicating Across Cultures, and faculty advisors may all access annual workshops on working with underrepresented and first-generation students. All students are welcome to apply to the enVision social justice retreat which is offered twice annually, and Common Ground provides training for hundreds of student leaders attend mandatory training on diversity every year, including all resident assistants, orientation advisors, international orientation advisors, and cultural advisors.

http://hr.richmond.edu/, the Human Resources website lists courses in the Talent Web section of its website that employees must log into. The course descriptions for the courses listed above are here: Communicating Across Cultures, Online Class SkillSoft Communicating effectively across cultures can be very difficult. Not only must you pay attention to the cultural distinctions of your audience and adjust your style to them, but you also need to adjust your style to different forms of communication. Diversity on the Job: Diversity and You Online Class SkillSoft Just as organizations must respond to demographic and social changes that introduce new languages, cultures, values, and attitudes to the workplace, so must you as an individual. To understand and appreciate diversity, you must develop an understanding of yourself and the ways in which you and others view the world. Your ability to use a variety of strategies to effectively deal with diverse situations in and out of the workplace is very important. Equally important is the ability to share these effective strategies openly, to leverage the diversity that exists within the organization.