Infusing Race and Equity Into the Evans School MPA Curriculum.Pdf

Infusing Race and Equity into the Evans School MPA Curriculum Andres Sheikh, Anna Kelsey, Charmila Ajmera, James Siap, Jenny Six & Stephanie Budrus Marababol, J.E. (2016). [Photograph of glass window.] [digital image]. Retrieved from https://unsplash.com/photos/_t9CapyAPmc Infusing Race and Equity into the Evans School MPA Curriculum Andres Sheikh, Anna Kelsey, Charmila Ajmera, James Siap, Jenny Six & Stephanie Budrus June 11, 2020 University of Washington Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy & Governance INFUSING RACE AND EQUITY INTO THE EVANS SCHOOL MPA CURRICULUM 1 Acknowledgements The University of Washington, as well as the Evans School, exists on indigenous land. We acknowledge and thank the Coast Salish people who have lived and cared for this land for generations. We also acknowledge the role that our discipline, public policy, has played in the genocide, forced removal, and continued disenfranchisement of the Duwamish, Suquamish, Snoqualmie, Puyallup, Muckleshoot, Tulalip, other Coast Salish peoples, and their descendants. It is incumbent upon us as public servants to actively partner with, amplify, and share power with Native peoples and choose a different path, a more equitable path, than our predecessors. We would also like to thank our advisor, Steve Page, for his partnership, guidance, and willingness to engage with us and with the Curriculum Advocacy Team (CAT) over the past two years. Similarly, we thank Interim Dean Alison Cullen who has been an ally in furthering equity work at the Evans School and has helped lay a foundation for change. We are equally grateful for the many Evans School faculty and staff who have partnered with us and who continue to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion work at our institution. Finally, we cannot thank the generations of Evans School students who came before us enough for their advocacy, disruption, ingenuity, engagement, and stalwart commitment to equity in public policy. They cracked open a policy window that we have every intention of climbing through. To current, former, and future CAT members: we hope that this work serves as a guide as you continue to forge the path towards a more equitable world. Positionality Statement The six authors of this report are graduate students at the University of Washington. Though we come from different backgrounds and hold different identities, we share the immense privileges of those who can both access and function within institutes of higher learning. We also recognize the specific power inherent in the role of ‘policymaker.’ Policies have the power to transform lives, cultures, societies, and futures. It is incumbent upon us to approach this work with humility, awareness, and a commitment to partnering, elevating, and amplifying the voices of the diverse populations we serve - particularly those that have been historically and currently excluded from the policy process. As founding members of the Curriculum Advocacy Team, our vision is to co-create an intersectional, antiracist, anti-oppression graduate policy education with the goal of transforming public policy and creating a more just and equitable world. INFUSING RACE AND EQUITY INTO THE EVANS SCHOOL MPA CURRICULUM 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 2 Positionality Statement 2 Table of Contents 3 Glossary of Terms 5 Executive Summary 9 Chapter 1: Introduction 11 Chapter 2: Context & Background 16 2.1 Historical and Current Racism in U.S. Public Policy 16 2.2 History of Graduate Public Policy Education 18 2.3 Race and Equity in Graduate Public Affairs Education 22 2.4 Organizational Change 32 2.5 Gaps in Existing Literature 38 Chapter 3: Research Methods & Limitations 40 3.1 Survey as a Research Method 40 3.2 Semi-Structured Interviews as a Research Method 43 3.3 Review of Evans School historical documents as a research method 45 Chapter 4: Findings and Analysis 47 4.1 History and Evolution of DEI work at the Evans School (detailed in Appendix C) 47 4.2 Findings and Analysis (detailed in Appendix E) 48 4.3 Findings and Analysis Summary 67 Chapter 5: Recommendations 68 5.1 Revise the Evans School MPA curriculum and courses 70 5.2 Prioritize creating a diverse slate of candidates for faculty and staff hiring and promotion 77 5.3 Support course instructors’ integration of DEI into their teaching 78 5.4 Institutionalize DEI Efforts 83 Chapter 6: Conclusion 88 References 91 Appendices 99 Appendix A: Survey Instruments 99 Appendix B: Interview Scripts 103 Appendix C: History of DEI Work at the Evans School 116 INFUSING RACE AND EQUITY INTO THE EVANS SCHOOL MPA CURRICULUM 3 Appendix D: Sampling of Public Affairs Graduate Program Requirements 131 Appendix E: Complete Findings 132 Appendix F: Current Student Survey Findings 163 Appendix G: Curriculum Advocacy Team June 2020 Memo: 167 Appendix H: Sample Mid-Quarter Feedback Form 172 Appendix I: Evans People of Color June 2020 Memo 173 Appendix J: Continuous Course Feedback Toolkits 174 Appendix K: Report Out from CAT/Faculty Workshop on June 5, 2019 178 INFUSING RACE AND EQUITY INTO THE EVANS SCHOOL MPA CURRICULUM 4 Glossary of Terms Antiracist: Antiracist has been defined as “the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably.”1 Author Ibram X. Kendi’s well-known discussion on antiracism includes the elaboration that, “one either endorses the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist or racial equality as an antiracist ... it isn’t possible to be simply “not racist.”2 Bright Spots: Positive outliers; the first signs that things are working; the response to “what’s working and how can we do more of it?”3 Continuous Change: “The dynamic, interactive, and bottom-up processes”4 that come from individuals and groups of employees which are then institutionalized by managers or taken up by adjacent work groups which lead to “substantial changes at the organizational level.”5 Unlike episodic change, “continuous organizational change consists of a series of changes over time that may make it difficult for observers to identify their sources.”6 Colorblind: The idea that race and ethnicity should not be taken into account during the decision-making processes. Community of Practice: A Community of Practice refers to an innovative learning framework characterized by a group of people interested in a particular domain who engage in collective learning.7 Diversity: Representation of various personal and group characteristics and identities, specifically those that have been traditionally excluded and marginalized.8,9 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Efforts (DEI): Throughout this paper you will see reference to Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) as well as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). It is important to note that while these terms are often used interchangeably and refer to the same general concepts of promoting diversity in institutions and organizations and fostering inclusion and belonging of people of all identities, DEI adds the consideration of equity. Equity is related but distinct from another common term, ‘equality.’ In its simplest form, equality means giving everyone the same thing regardless of their identity or position in society, whereas equity means giving people what they need, with full consideration to their multiple identities and the concurrent historical and modern experiences and context they exist in. The inclusion of the ‘E’ for equity in DEI denotes a 1 Anti-Racism Defined. (n.d.). http://www.aclrc.com/antiracism-defined 2 Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be an antiracist. New York: One World. 3Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2010). Switch: How to change things when change is hard. Crown Publishing Group. pp. 27- 48. 4 Ibid., p.1 5 Ibid., pp. 1 6 Ibid., p. 7 7 Wenger, E. (2018). Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 8 Center for Diversity and Inclusion. (2020). Glossary of bias terms. Washington University in St. Louis. https://students.wustl.edu/glossary-bias-terms/ 9 Ford Foundation. (2020). Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Ford Foundation. https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/people/diversity-equity-and-inclusion/ INFUSING RACE AND EQUITY INTO THE EVANS SCHOOL MPA CURRICULUM 5 recognition that equity is foundational to creating an inclusive and welcoming society and supporting rich diversity within it and its institutions and structures. Driver: Person or team who is responsible for initiating and setting the direction of a project or task. Episodic Change: Episodic organizational change is “triggered by identifiable intentional major interruptions”10 and “usually consists of changes that can be identified by a specific major disruptive event as the source.”11 Equity: Giving people what they need, with full consideration to their multiple identities and the concurrent historical and modern experiences and context they exist in. Equality: Giving everyone the same thing regardless of their identity or position in society. Evans Community: This term refers to the all current and former Evans School staff, faculty, administrators, MPA students, Ph.D. students, concurrent students, EMPA students, and alumni Faculty: Includes professors and lecturers. Institutionalize: To designate formal ownership for previously informal, or student-led, initiatives, projects, and events within Evans School faculty, staff or administration. Inclusion: Culture of belonging and power sharing with traditionally excluded groups.12,13 Incorporating

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