360 Intentionality: Systematizing and Incentivizing DEI for Faculty, Staff, and Students at the University of Cincinnati

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have filtrated small pockets of higher education before the pandemic and resurged to the surface since (Flathearty, 2021). With great intentions to sustain the efforts to prioritize DEI, the University of Cincinnati has mandated that it be both acknowledged and rewarded as a part of its Rehire, Promotion & Tenure process. In addition, students are also incentivized to engage in this initiative through their core curriculum to receive their degree, a mandate beyond the required online training and webinar. The following analysis and visual demonstration of how the University of Cincinnati employs the Institutional Response Framework (Cho, 2018) a framework which, extends beyond organization theory to demonstrate how student activism attempts to catalyze institutions to act against ant-Blackness and acknowledge its historical impact on exclusionary practices (Cho, 2018).While the University of Cincinnati's RPT changes are, and should not be unique, the particular focus of this proposal is analyze the changes within the STEM department and its overall impact on student learning and inclusive changes within the College of Engineering.