Loyola University > Anti-Racism Initiative > About > Overview
Overview
The Evolution of the ARI Goals and Strategies
After numerous meetings and conversations through the summer and early Fall of 2020, the Anti-Racism Initiative (ARI) was launched with three overarching goals and eight embedded strategies as a beginning to systemic change for racial justice at Loyola. Once the strategies were finalized, Loyola staff, faculty, and administration were identified to serve on strategy teams to plan implementation and monitoring of each strategy. After implementing a racial justice Examen (Goal 3) across all academic units in the Spring of 2021, it was determined that a 9th strategy was needed in order to support systems-change towards institutional inclusivity and anti-racism. The nine strategies of the ARI include:
Goal 1: Create a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment for students, staff, and faculty of color.
- Strategy 1: partner with campus safety to create innovative models of safety procedures.
- Strategy 2: revisit student, staff, and faculty conflict and dispute resolution procedures.
- Strategy 3: Develop a framework and structure for learning and professional development for students, staff, and faculty that supports the interruption of bias and the development of empathy and self-awareness.
Goal 2: Facilitate Black student, staff, and faculty success.
- Strategy 4: establish an office of Black Student Success.
- Strategy 5: establish consistent inclusive practices and procedures for hiring new faculty.
- Strategy 6: implement evidence-based practices for retaining faculty of color.
- Strategy 7: ensure that Black students, staff and faculty have access to wellness resources from an intersectional lens and with cultural humility.
Goal 3: Enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion in academic affairs
- Strategy 8: develop a structure for continuous reflection and improvement towards anti-racism.
- Strategy 9: provide coaching and support in leadership for racial justice and systems change.
Each goal and the corresponding work of the embedded strategies are described further on each goal page. As the work is defined and updated by the strategy teams, they will be updated with the scope of work and the planned outcomes for progress monitoring.
