Ivey’s goal in fostering an inclusive culture is to create a community where members feel they belong and contribute to our mission. A big part of our culture work has been to put the School’s new values into daily practice. Another piece of our work is to increase the diversity of our faculty, staff, and student body – broadening diversity of thought, geography, and demography. Ivey has developed a series of community learning programs that have fostered/created growth opportunities for staff and faculty to extend their tremendous contributions to our mission.
Setting the foundation for an inclusive community
Building an inclusive culture at Ivey is a constant journey, but also a journey that continuously reaps rewards.
Since we launched our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Action Plan in 2020 and subsequently created a Culture and Inclusion pillar in the Ivey Next strategy, we have gained a much better understanding of our community members’ experiences in relation to Inclusion and Culture at Ivey. A key resource for this was the Community Diversity (2021) survey that provided insights on our community and a series of 11 recommendations. Our recent work has sought to act on those insights. In addition to efforts to gauge and improve gender and racial representation, and geographic diversity in our staff, faculty, and student body through changes to recruitment processes, we have curated and delivered numerous culture and inclusion learning opportunities to the community focused on embracing our values.
Progress highlights
Values studios
In January 2023, the Culture and Inclusion team launched the Ivey Values Studio, a community project dedicated to transforming our values from concepts we think about to actions we undertake as practices. Between January 2023-March 2024, 150+ staff members and 45 faculty members participated in the values studios in their respective groups. Additionally, 1,000+ students from the HBA, MSc, and MBA programs participated in separate student-focused values studios.
There was a lot of positive feedback on the sessions with participants commenting that they appreciated the interactivity and meaningful discussion as well as the chance to gain new perspectives from fellow Ivey community members.
As part of the values studio work, each staff team created a poster that distills the actions the team has committed to and an additional poster was created for the faculty values. The student sessions have now produced more than 100 unique cohort posters from HBA, MSc and MBA programs.
Next steps include delivery of values practice sessions with each community group and the release of an Ivey Values graphic novel later this spring.
Ivey Values – Moving from concept to practice
Click on each image to view the full-size version.
Courage
We pursue ambitious goals through our commitment to academic and research excellence and believe that, through an entrepreneurial spirit and capacity to act, we can achieve meaningful outcomes locally and globally.
Community
We see strength in positive and supportive interactions, take pride in our collective accomplishments, and have confidence in our long-term success.
Integrity
We expect honesty and accountability in our actions and decisions, seeking to inspire ethical and responsible leadership.
Inclusivity
We respect diversity of thought, identity, and perspective, recognizing that inclusive communities foster innovation and creativity.
What's next
Student/faculty representation
Continue to collect data on the representation of our identity and target recruiting and support on areas where we have gaps.
Sense of Belonging
Repeat the Sense of Belonging survey every two years so that we will have fresh data to inform our actions as an institution going forward.
Sense-making workshops
As a follow up to our Sense of Belonging insights, we are launching a series of sense-making workshops with community members to help us to create some recommendations. We are also beginning a community storytelling, story-collection, and story-caretaking project, which will help us to continue to better understand and respond to stories of sense of belonging within our community.
Outcome Harvest
Repeat the process every three years to give us a better sense of how the Ivey community is moving toward inclusivity, continuously adapting and responding proactively to the changing needs of our community.
Curriculum
Continue to assess and evolve our Culture and Inclusion curriculum based on student feedback, and the needs of our student community.
Values Studio
Complete the Ivey Values Practice graphic novel and share it with the Ivey community. Begin Values Conversations and learning, an upcoming learning workshop series for the Ivey community to practice the skills and actions that were defined through the initial Values Studio.
University Pathways Program
Continue mentorship of the UPP students as they transition to university. Work with campus partners and the Ivey community through partnerships with staff, faculty, students, and alumni on ways we can continue to increase sense of belonging and success for Black students.