Purpose

The College of Medicine is committed to fostering diversity and inclusion among its faculty, senior academic leadership, and staff in order to advance culturally competent care, education, and high-quality research.

“The terms Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) are used together because of the recognition that simply having diversity isn’t enough.” (Intercultural Development Inventory, Hammer 2016)

Diversity means having a broad range of characteristics across our faculty, senior academic leadership, and staff represented through our people, perspectives, policies, programs, and practices.

“Inclusion is also needed whereby people can bring to the table their unique experiences, preferences, and strengths without sacrificing and minimizing core aspects of their identity, background, or perspective. Inclusion is leveraging differences in a way that increases contributions for all. Inclusion is the goal.” (Intercultural Development Inventory, Hammer 2016)

The College of Medicine supports a climate of respect: people are valued for their contributions in the workplace, and individuals feel safe, welcome, and free from harassment and discrimination. 

"All persons, regardless of disability mental or physical, religion or religious creed, family status, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, race or perceived race, nationality, place of origin, ancestry, colour, receipt of public assistance, and gender identity…” (Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission) are valued for their individuality and contributions to the diversity and functions of the College of Medicine.

Diversity and inclusion are valued and demonstrated within the College of Medicine where a wide breadth of difference in people, ideas, perspectives and experiences is respected, affirmed, and actively supported.  The inclusion of individuals, social groups, and communities that identify with one or more elements of diversity enriches environments and enables an appreciation of, and respect for, the complexity of lived experiences of societal members.

In light of the above, the college is moving forward with Diversity and Inclusion Guidelines outlining our goals and procedures to proactively increase the diversity of our faculty, senior academic leadership, and staff.

Policy

The University of Saskatchewan is developing a policy on diversity, which will be shared here as soon as it is completed.

Guidelines

The College of Medicine has developed guidelines for diversity and inclusion. An overview of these guidelines is provided below.

Guidelines review - The college's diversity and inclusion guidelines shall be reviewed annually after adoption. Reviews will be informed by metrics collected up to that point. Reviews may also be informed by extant literature or changes in policy at the university level.

Goals and measurement - The designated groups for staff, faculty and senior academic leadership are Indigenous people, women, visible minorities and persons with a disability. All faculty, academic senior leadership, and staff have the opportunity to self-declare in a confidential process that is guided by the university policies and procedures around data collection.

Recruitment and outreach - Through a number of procedures, the college endeavours to recruit diverse candidates. These include language in employee job postings, advertising job postings via designated groups, transparency, diversity anmong the members of our search, tenure, hiring, merit and promotion committees, through partnerships, and with our commitment to host one diversity stakeholder meeting every year and publish a progress report on diversity annually.

Retention and advancement - Among steps the college will take in this area, we will introduce a mentorship program for faculty and staff to build on inclusion, refine onboarding processes appropriately, and incorporate diversity and inclusion in communications and training initiatives.

Diverse Committee Representation - We will regularly review committee and working group membership with a focus on ensuring diverse representation.

Education and Training - Regular and ongoing professional development opportunities will be offered to promote diversity and inclusion, and these opportunities will be promoted to our faculty and staff, and will provide training in recruitment and retention of diverse employees.