Equity Liaison Initiative

Equity liaisons can be selected by unit directors/chairs based on individual willingness and capacity to serve. While continuity is important, there is no fixed term for the equity liaison role. Units are encouraged to establish fair and transparent processes for internal selection and rotation of equity liaisons. Units may also establish an equity committee which collectively performs the liaison duties.

Vice Chancellors and Deans should support equity liaisons in their Division/College by:

• holding Directors and Chairs accountable for their unit-level equity efforts;
• helping to link Directors, Chairs and equity liaisons to other resources on campus;
• communicating to wider audiences about the importance of equity issues to the Division/College/University mission;
• in cases where an equity liaison does not feel supported by their Chair or Director, advising and lending authority/protection/support as needed to ensure that the liaison has the ability to be an effective advocate and change agent.

The members of the Equity Liaison Steering Committee will support all equity liaisons by:

• providing and helping to contextualize data;
• providing opportunities for liaisons to connect to one another and to campus resources;
• identifying and responding to training needs of liaisons;
• keeping campus leadership informed and advocate for ongoing needs of the ELI to upper administration;
• reporting more broadly to the campus community about the initiative’s progress;
• integrating ELI to other strategic planning efforts/committees on campus;
• providing feedback to liaisons on IE and Equity Plans;
• providing professional development for equity liaisons by securing resources, bringing outside speakers to campus, and organizing workshops;
• collaborating with Vice Chancellors/Deans to facilitate division/college/university-wide dialog regarding equity issues;
• serving as a sounding board for liaisons to help develop effective strategies to address emerging challenges.

STUDENT DATA – UWL DATA

• UWL Academic Department Equity Liaison Data
  • Access to data (requires UWL NetID) on academic departments
    • Profiles of lower division courses (percentage of first generation, Pell Recipients, Gender, and Race/Ethnicity) by department
    • Retention rates by department
    • Grade profiles in lower division courses by department
    • Enrollments by major
• UW System Accountability Report - UW System performance measures across campuses
  • • Information on student access (total enrollments, where students come from, participation of Wisconsin high school graduates, new transfer students, and access for underrepresented and lower-income students). 

FACULTY/STAFF - UWL DATA  

• UW System Accountability Report
  • Includes system and campus specific information on faculty and staff (number of employees, employee diversity, faculty compensation, faculty turnover, and instructional workload)
• UWL Human Resources
  • UWL specific data associated with headcounts, demographics, pay, etc.
• AAO (Affirmative Action Data)
  • Affirmative Action summary tables show race and gender data across all UWL employees with breakdowns by rank for faculty - 2022 Affirmative Action Summary.
    
  • 2021 Affirmative Action Summary
  • Past data (years 2015, 2016, & 2017 available)
  • Due to a mismatch between current and past data coding and concerns regarding inaccuracies in data, AAO data is unavailable for the years 2018-2020. 
•  Recruitment & Applicant Data
  • On the Canvas site associated with bias training for Search & Screen committees, there is an AAO/EEO dashboard associated with utilization goals indicating areas of growth, recruitment associated with UWL’s diversity plans. These data are based on Federal comparisons and provide a high-level overview by job category.
  • Applicant data. Traditionally fewer than 20% answer the EEO/AAO demographic data on the application form. Once hired, employees are strongly encouraged to provide the data to enhance EEO/AAO data reporting. Therefore, analyzing the diversity of application pools is challenging. 
• Exit Interview Results
  • When an employee leaves UWL they are provided a link to an online exit interview. If an individual chooses to complete the measure (~50% complete the form), the results go to HR and Affirmative Action. If there are climate concerns raised in the comments, the AAO may choose to share the concerns with the appropriate offices (such as supervisors, dean/directors, and/or the division vice chancellor). This is confidential data that cannot be provided if requested.  

Additional data questions?  

• Requests regarding faculty/staff data are considered with attention to concerns regarding personal identification information. Identification concerns affect the level of detail we may be able to provide in requests for faculty and staff data. Requests for unit-level data should come from a recognized faculty committee or be associated with a research project. IRB review is needed if data is requested for research purposes. We will abide by the following general guidelines for providing unit-level faculty and staff data:
  • Data that will identify individuals will not be provided (names, ID numbers, departments).
  • We can only provide college or school level data if the combination of other data items does not potentially identify individuals.
  • In general, gender data can be provided at the level of college/school.
  • College/school data might not be provided by race/ethnicity due to variation in size. When racial/ethnic data is provided, due to small sample sizes, we may not be able to disaggregate specific racial/ethnic groups.
  • Beyond demographic variables, employment or career-related data requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and will be limited to standard faculty/staff career data maintained by HR. 

• IE Planning Scorecard

Equity Liaisons are encourage to begin compiling a Resource File on issues of equity and inclusion in your department/unit.