In March, the Office of the Provost and the Division of Equity and Inclusion launched a new interactive analytics dashboard to share data on diversity in student, faculty, and staff at the university.
The dashboard provides an opportunity to take a fresh look at historical and current demographic data to observe changes over time with an eye toward future progress and accountability.
The dashboard is available on the provost’s website and allows a user to interactively collate and compare data points for the 2022 academic year, such as student enrollment by race and ethnicity, gender, first generation, and residency, and by college or department.
Undergraduate student retention and graduation data also are available, as well as faculty and staff data sortable by many of the same attributes. Similar data for graduate students will be available later this calendar year.
“The purpose of having a strong set of institutional metrics is to provide a quantifiable baseline of our campus with regard to faculty, staff and student diversity, climate and achievement in a holistic picture, not disparate data points,” said Kelly Pembleton, assistant vice president and chief of staff in the Division of Equity and Inclusion.
“The initial set of metrics was created by Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Alex-Assensoh and former staff Melanie Muenzer of the office of the provost,” Pembleton said. “We are confident that these dashboards will provide us with the data to ensure that the UO is a place where everyone can thrive, irrespective of a person’s demographics or background.”
While the information has always been public and accessible, it had not been available in a dashboard format. The collection of data points, design and interactivity of the dashboard allows university decision-makers to more easily assess any gaps in representation, achievement and university climate outcomes.
The dashboard will continue to be updated, with points of information being added as they become available. The full dashboard is expected to be completed by the end of the calendar year.
“We wanted users to be able to find answers on student and employee demographics and outcomes quickly, and the way to do this is on an interactive dashboard that you can access anywhere, from a laptop or phone,” said Sung-Woo Cho, associate vice provost for academic data analytics. “Accountability is important to us, of course, but we also want to show the trends that are moving in the right direction at the university, such as increased completion rates.”
Paulo Cobbe and Travis Shea, from Information Services and members of the team, drove the creation of the dashboard, the necessary data pipelines, and the web-based functionality.
The inception of the dashboard started in 2020 when the UO Board of Trustees asked for a way to accurately and easily monitor and report on data related to diversity, equity and inclusion so that schools, colleges and administrative divisions across campus could create quantifiable goals around academic achievement.
To satisfy the board’s request, the Division of Equity and Inclusion and Office of the Provost came together to build a framework that looks at diversity and achievement using a list of 30 indicators.
Once the framework and data points were established, the Office of Institutional Research collected the data from across campus, collaborating with partners in offices such as human resources, registrar and admissions; the Division of Graduate Studies; Division of Student Life; and Division of Undergraduate Education and Student Success. The data was then passed to the provost’s academic data analytics unit to create the interactive, publicly accessible online dashboard.
The dashboard is part of a commitment by the university to work openly on issues of diversity and inclusion, including evaluation of demographic and climate-related data. While the Division of Student Life and Office of Institutional Research regularly collect climate-related data for students, the Gallup survey that concluded last week is the first all-campus climate survey for faculty and staff. Information collected in the survey will help the university understand what is working and what is not and serve as a basis for determining what actions it can take.
“Having real-time and historical data that help us understand our campus climate, our students’ academic trajectory, and the decisions they make is critical to strategic planning and resource allocation,” said Patrick Phillips, provost and senior vice president. “But as important is that they help drive a culture of transparency and accountability that is central to fulfilling our institutional commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.”
—By Emmily Bristol, Office of the Provost