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Academic Vision 2016

God-honoring Diversity

Azusa Pacific University scholars view creation as a reflection of God-honoring diversity, and draw upon the full spectrum of human knowledge and methods of inquiry developed across centuries. As an academic community, we examine our life together and determine the attributes, assumptions, and practices that promote or inhibit a full reflection of truth and life.

God-honoring diversity serves not only as a value of our Wesleyan heritage, but also exists as a kingdom principle, which includes an embrace of the broader community and the application of scholarship to service the woundedness of the world.

Our policies and curriculum evidence this principle as does faculty recruitment, hiring, and development programs. Hallmarks of this commitment to a diverse community include sustained scholarly dialogue around difficult issues marked by respect, openness, civility, and active listening. Faculty members stand equipped to engage diverse learners and utilize pedagogical practices that support diversity.

Current Five-Year Goals (PDF)

A. Recognition and valuing of structural and interactional diversity
  1. Develop a plan for faculty and student recruitment designed to diversify the pool of applicants. This plan must be proactive and flexible in seeking out promising prospects for positions and enrollment to reflect the diversity of the surrounding communities
  2. Commit to weighting most heavily in admissions standards those factors that are predictive of success among diverse students
  3. Expose all students to diversity issues in the curriculum, including content in each discipline related to diversity, cultural competency, and issues of social justice
B. Faculty and student scholarly development in diversity
  1. Promote cultural competency through workshops, seminars, diversity mentors, and access to resources to assist in the implementation of diversity in the curriculum.
  2. Enhance faculty preparation to teach to diverse learning styles, strengths, anc cultural norms through institutional support of faculty learning activities, experiences, and scholarship.
    • The Office of the Provost has continued to establish and support opportunities for learning around Diversity and instruction for faculty.
    • Presently a faculty program called Imago Dei in the Curriculum (IDIC) is projected for development by the Office of Diversity Planning and Assessment. The two-day summer workshop serves to equip faculty to engage diversity in the classroom.  IDIC is an interdisciplinary approach taught by faculty from various disciplines to provide resources for participants.
  3. Recruit and retain faculty members who engage in a program of research and publications that contributes to knowledge development and dissemination of scholarship in areas of diversity.
C. Funding
  1. Expand and increase allocation of scholarship funds for students of cultural or ethnic minority populations entering the university.
    • Scholarship increases have taken place in the Multi-Ethnic Leadership Scholar program over the past five years.
  2. Develop and fund cultural immersion activities (including language acquisition) designed for faculty, staff, and students to engage in cross-cultural and interdisciplinary scholarship and studies.
    • The Ethnic Studies Minor was established in 2007, and recently completed its first three-year program review reporting positively in enrollment growth, faculty quality, and student satisfaction.
    • Diversity workshop and training opportunities for students, staff, and faculty engagement around issues of diversity have continued to expand.
  3. Establish a website and online resources on diversity for knowledge development within the academic community and opportunities for interactive dialogue.
    • Web resources have been established for diversity knowledge, which is specific to faculty. These pages provide aid for faculty to engage diversity in both their curriculum and the classroom. In addition, an online diversity-training tool is presently being developed by the Office of Diversity Planning and Assessment, which will be accessible to all university faculty as a resource for learning.
    • Opportunities for interactive diversity-related dialogue have yet to be established via the web, this is an area of needed development. The planned revisions being made to the Office of Diversity Planning and Assessment website for the 2010-2011 academic year will perhaps afford opportunity to implement communication tools and a web forum for dialogue.     
D. Evaluation for structural and interactional diversity
  1. Conduct annual institutional research on, and analysis of, the composition of student, faculty, course offerings, and scholarly activty related to both structural and interactional diversity.
    • The Office of Diversity Planning and Assessment has worked in conjunction with the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment to identify and collect relevant data concerning both structural and interactional diversity. In addition, the development of the Academic Vision Diversity Assessment Tool (AVDAT), has greatly aided these efforts.
    • In the 2008–09 academic year, the Office of Diversity Planning andAssessment generated a special Board Diversity Report, which was presented before the Board of Trustees at the January 2009 meeting. This report was then converted to the Annual Diversity Audit which is a comprehensive report of all structural and interactional diversity data collected. The first annual edition of this report will be generated Summer 2010 and utilized for future strategic diversity planning.
  2. Assess and evaluate the diversity of our academic curricula and programs as well as the implementation of diversity recommendations based on the annual institutional assessment.
    • The Office of Institutional Research and Assessment has effectively integrated diversity into the Program Review report template as to improve assessment.