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School of Communication and Journalism

DEI Plan

Revised and formally re-adopted on November 2, 2023, by the School of Communication and Journalism (COJO) faculty, staff, and administrators to affirm our collective commitment toward equitable inclusion and dignity of diverse cultural and societal identities. This commitment occurs in three inter-related areas: 1) Optimizing the inclusivity of our school’s climate and culture; 2) Cultivating our curriculum and employee development efforts to enhance diversity, equity and inclusion; and 3) Recruiting, retaining, developing and providing accessibility to students and professionals who represent and augment voices from a variety of socio-cultural backgrounds and identities. 

Diversity Statement

South Dakota State University’s School of COJO’s mission emphasizes fostering the development of culturally proficient communicators as industry and civic leaders, scholars, professionals and educators in a diverse society through innovative curricula, research, practice and opportunities. Through our tripartite mission of teaching, research and service, COJO faculty, staff and administration cultivate, advance and exemplify an environment of diversity, equity and inclusion in the following ways:

  • Teaching invites and challenges students to respectfully and intentionally engage in difficult dialogues about complex issues connected to social justice, privilege, intersectionality, inequity and difference as they relate to communication and mass media disciplines.
  • Research and creative activities honor and elevate diverse perspectives through innovative intellectual contributions, harnessing the unique opportunity we have as communication and media scholars and practitioners to honor, empower and elevate diverse voices.
  • Service leverages the privilege of the school to create spaces of access to knowledge creation, engagement and empowerment toward equity enhancement.

COJO faculty, staff, and administrators hereby affirm our commitment to the aforementioned principles and practices. We will work collaboratively to implement the plans outlined herein.

Key Performance Indicators

The School of COJO will center our DEI efforts in the following three areas and measure them based upon the key performance indicators (KPIs) indicated below. 

1. Climate and Culture: Achieving a supportive climate for working and learning and for assessing progress toward achievement of the DEI plan

KPI 1.1: We will measure faculty and staff perceptions of the inclusivity of our climate.

  • We will measure COJO faculty and staff perceptions of inclusivity of our climate based on the Nishii (2013) Climate for Inclusion Scale.
  • The benchmark across all of the faculty and staff-related measures is a 4.0 on a 5.0 scale.
  • We will complete this assessment every odd spring semester (e.g., 2025; 2027).

KPI 1.2: We will measure student perceptions of the inclusivity of our climate.

  • We will measure COJO students’ perceptions of inclusivity of our climate based on the Nishii (2013) Climate for Inclusion Scale.
  • The benchmark across all of the student-related measures is a 4.0 on a 5.0 scale. We will complete this assessment every odd spring semester (e.g., 2025; 2027).

2. Curriculum and Instruction: Achieving an inclusive curriculum

KPI 2.1: Students will demonstrate an understanding of the multicultural history and role of professionals and institutions in shaping communications (SLO 2).

  • We will measure this KPI through direct and indirect assessment measures (e.g., annual senior exit survey, annual internship supervisor and student surveys and the professional project reviews of capstone projects every two years). The benchmark across all of those measures is a mean of 4.0 on a 5.0 scale.

KPI 2.2: Students will demonstrate culturally proficient communication that empowers those traditionally disenfranchised in society, especially as grounded in race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and ability, domestically and globally, across communication and media contexts (SLO 3).

  • We will measure this KPI through direct and indirect assessment measures (e.g., annual senior exit survey, annual internship supervisor and student surveys, and the professional project reviews of capstone projects every two years). The benchmark across all of those measures is a mean of 4.0 on a 5.0 scale.
  • We will measure CMST students’ response to SLO 5 in communication studies major outcomes, which is similar to this item (“Prepare for ethical public influence that embraces differences”). Every spring, we will measure this SLO via an indirect measure used in CMST 465: Capstone in Communication Studies. The benchmark is that 75% of Capstone students will report that they perceive their level of mastery to be between levels 4.0 and 5.0 on a 5.0 scale.

3. Recruitment, Retention, Access, and Professional Development: Achieving a diverse, culturally proficient faculty, staff, and student population

KPI 3.1: Increase amount and/or evidence of effectiveness of COJO recruitment, retention, access and professional development efforts.

  • The School of COJO’s Director will gather data from the university tracing the trajectory and monitoring the success in recruitment and retention. This data will document COJO’s diversity in recruitment and retention. School administration will gather and aggregate Ally data on accessibility of our courses within the online learning management system, which is D2L. Ninety percent of COJO faculty will score at or above 67% via Ally in their courses, which is the benchmark set by the university for the 2022-2023 academic year.
  • The DEI committee will document annual DEI-related professional development efforts via the COJO faculty/staff DEI self-reports. COJO faculty/staff submit these reports at the end of every spring semester.

KPI 3.2 Increase faculty, staff and students’ cultural proficiency.

3.2.a. Faculty and Staff

  • Faculty and staff will be assessed regarding their cultural proficiency based on Hammer, Bennett, & Wiseman’s (2003) Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI).
  • The benchmark is for 80% of COJO full-time faculty and staff to complete the IDI and to increase COJO’s group mean on the IDI by 5% the next time we complete the IDI in Fall 2024.

3.2.b. Students

  • We will measure students’ intercultural competence based on ADV, PR, and JOURN assessment measures for SLO 3 (“Demonstrate culturally proficient communication that empowers those traditionally disenfranchised in society, especially as grounded in race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and ability, domestically and globally, across communication and media contexts”). We will do so through direct and indirect assessment measures (e.g., annual senior exit survey, annual internship supervisor and student surveys and the professional project reviews of capstone projects every two years). The benchmark across all of those measures is a mean of 4.0 on a 5.0 scale.
  • For our CMST program, we will measure students’ intercultural competence through Chen and Starosta’s (2000) Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS), which is assessed every four years through communication studies program assessment in CMST 470: Intercultural Communication. The benchmark is a 5% increase in intercultural sensitivity scores from the pretest to the posttest for CMST majors enrolled in CMST 470.

DEI Professional Development Commitment

Every academic year, COJO’s DEI Committee is responsible for the planning and implementation of at least one DEI-related professional development opportunity for faculty and staff.

DEI Committee Responsibilities

COJO’s DEI Committee is responsible for tracking and assessing accomplishments in DEI-related activities across the three inter-related areas noted above. COJO’s faculty and staff will submit supporting materials and documentation of metrics that assist the committee with DEI-related initiatives. The committee will draft a year-end report detailing these accomplishments, which will be presented to the Director, Associate Director, faculty and staff.