UTSA begins inclusive excellence listening tour

Editor's Note: UTSA President Taylor Eighmy, UTSA Provost Kimberly Andrews Espy and UTSA Vice President for Inclusive Excellence Myron Anderson sent this email to faculty and staff today.

(Jan. 29, 2019) -- Dear Roadrunners,

At its core, inclusive excellence promotes an environment where people from all backgrounds and diverse points of view can engage, learn and thrive.

Reinforcing a culture of inclusive excellence must start with leadership, inspiring us to write this joint message to you, our Roadrunner community. Together with UTSA’s entire senior leadership team and deans, we are 100% committed to embracing a framework of inclusive excellence here at UTSA and eager to embed practices and philosophies that encourage all forms of diversity into every aspect of our university.

With our new Office of Inclusive Excellence launched this month under Vice President Myron Anderson, we’re taking a moment to acknowledge the importance of the pathway before us, recognizing that every step of the journey will make UTSA an even better place to study, work and live. Indeed, creating an inclusive excellence ecosystem—one that is woven into the very fabric of our institution—is fundamental to supporting the success of our students and achieving overall excellence as a university of the future.

To set things in motion, Dr. Anderson is embarking on a campus listening tour to gain a deeper understanding of UTSA and our current campus climate. Part of this process will entail gathering information about existing campus diversity and inclusion programs, community experiences, capabilities and initiatives. This audit will serve as the launching pad for developing opportunities to increase inclusive excellence delivery across all facets of our university.

These opportunities will be broad, covering a wide array of institutional fronts from our systems, policies and procedures to strategic initiatives, university committees and programs to increase our collective cultural intelligence.

Because this work will touch the entire Roadrunner community—students, faculty, staff and our community stakeholders—regular communication around these efforts will be important. You can expect to receive periodic updates from Dr. Anderson as our inclusive excellence framework comes together and specific projects get underway. 

As always, thank you for believing in UTSA and for joining us on the journey.

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