In the wake of the government dismantling the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion [DEI] program, Bethel University and those involved in the DEI program on campus, known as Inclusive Excellence, are reevaluating its policies on who is included as well as making sure no laws are violated.
An executive order was issued January 20, 2025 by the White House and stated that institutions needed to dismantle their DEI programs within sixty days. For institutions such as Bethel, this meant that no discriminatory practices could take place, and opportunities had to be accessible to every student. An example of this would be that spaces previously made for a certain race or ethnic group to come together now must be open to everyone.
The Inclusive Excellence program at Bethel focuses on groups within the university who are experiencing difficulty based on identity and where less success is seen in retention, graduation rates and Student Satisfaction Index, according to collected data. Some of these groups include first-generation students, multilingual students, students from different racial or ethnic backgrounds and Pell grant-eligible students.
“If we are seeing results in any space that is differentiated based on an identity, we are going to lean into that to ensure that the people who are made in God’s image are capable of thriving, capable of belonging and becoming in our space,” Vice President of Inclusive Excellence Dr. Rahn Franklin Jr. said. “We believe that’s what being about God’s glory and our neighbor’s good really means.”
The data Bethel collects is currently being put into a database to be compared to other institutions. Dr. Sara Shady, the Associate Dean for Academic Inclusive Excellence, looks at this data herself to determine how the university can move forward supporting the students who need it.
By looking at these areas, Shady works with the academic programs at Bethel to evaluate how they are handling these three areas to move forward successfully. They are evaluated on how well they include those with different backgrounds, how welcome students feel and if physical spaces are welcoming and inclusive, among other things. If these needs aren’t met, each academic department has the opportunity to make changes.
“I meet with those departments,” Shady said. “[And I] introduce them to what inclusive excellence is and our composition, character and climate measures, and then help them start looking at what they’re already doing well and what their growth areas are. Then at the end of the year, those departments submit what’s called an Inclusive Excellence action plan to me to review.”
Bethel Sophomore Ileene Amayarapalo has found both community and purpose in the Inclusive Excellence program as the leader of the Latinx group, Voz Latinx, on campus. She works to create a space where Latinx students feel safe to grow together and have conversations.
“I really love when people come to our events,” Amayarapalo said. “I hope that everyone gets to walk with something new or something that they experience that’s different to their own culture.”
After the dismantling of the DEI program in the government, Bethel University President Ross Allen and Franklin assessed what the university was doing in the Inclusive Excellence program and how the program would be affected by national policy changes.
Allen and Franklin met with their leadership teams and cabinet members to evaluate what they were hearing and how other organizations were responding. They met with legal counsel and walked through current processes and approaches. From there, they communicated that the university would be continuing the Inclusive Excellence program to the community.
“We followed the data and the news reports,” Allen said. “Our interpretation has been that you can’t stipulate that a recipient of a scholarship has a certain skin color or ethnicity, and so we were already covered there. We went back through again and assessed [and] made sure that our activities and practices are consistent.”
Through these evaluations, they concluded that Bethel’s Inclusive Excellence program was lawfully sound.
“We are not doing anything that violates the executive order… because we already have been very careful about the law to make sure that things are open to everyone,” Shady said. “Scholarship programs are more about students who are under-resourced than about specific categories of students. So there hasn’t yet been anything that we need to stop doing now.”
Those involved in the Inclusive Excellence program have high hopes for the future of the program in bringing the students, faculty and staff not only equal opportunities, but also closer together.
Shady hopes that the program expands more in the future to include groups of students that the university doesn’t have much data on yet, such as LGBTQ+ students, to give all students equal opportunities and a sense of belonging.
Leaders within the Inclusive Excellence program want to hear students’ perspectives and any areas for improvement. Students can reach out to the associate deans with concerns or questions.
