Centennial College, along with its consulting partners Stratcom and Evenings & Weekends, launched the Understanding Our Centennial College Culture initiative in August 2022, which is a multi-pronged research and consultative initiative consisting of three distinct phases of work. Each phase was designed to understand community members’ inclusion and belonging-based experiences with the culture of Centennial College. Insights from the initiative will inform strategic and operational planning and other institutional interventions while serving as a benchmark for future efforts to understand and measure institutional progress.
We are pleased to share the text of the executive summary of the consultants’ study entitled, Understanding Our Centennial Culture. The executive team is currently considering employee-related Recommendations. Recommendations respecting students will be developed and approved subsequently.
This body of work consists of both qualitative consultations and quantitative survey research with community members across the broad spectrum of Centennial’s employee and student body populations, along five domains:
- Executive Team’s engagement with and commitment to IEDI at the College. This dimension was ultimately expanded to include employee experiences with people managers to better understand the day-to-day experiences of community members at all levels in the organization;
- Experiences of belonging and inclusion:
- Fairness in access to opportunity;
- Effectiveness and fairness of processes designed to mitigate bias, harassment, and discrimination; and
- Awareness of College IEDI initiatives and their perceived sufficiency.
This body of work leans upon the important feedback and contributions from Centennial’s IEDI Culture Assessment Project Working Group whose members lent their insights and expertise to the initiative at key milestones.
Project Working Group Regular Members
- Michael F. Charles, Associate Vice-President, Innovation, Inclusion, Reconciliation and Healing (IIRH)
- Lauren Wolman, Manager, Research and Strategic Initiatives, EDI, IIRH
- Prerna Bhasin, Director, Data Analytics and Research Office
- David Ip Yam, Dean of Students
- Lisa White, Associate Vice-President, Enrollment Services
- Gina Marshall, Associate Vice President, Learning Innovation, Teaching Excellence and Academic Quality
- Cary DiPietro, Dean Teaching, Learning and Scholarship
- Seán Kinsella, Director, the Eighth Fire, Innovation, IIRH
- Miriam Ibrahim, Associate Vice-President, Strategic Talent Management
- Julie McFayden, Director, College Communications
- Tima Shah, (Former) CCSAI President
Project Working Group Ex-Officio Members
- Lynn Ardizzi, Vice-President of People & Equity (Executive Sponsor)
- Jonathan Hack, Dean Applied Research, Innovation & Entrepreneurship Services
- Amy Morrell, Associate Vice President, Institutional Effectiveness
- John Tziortzis, Associate Vice-President, Information Technology and Chief Information Security Officer
FAQS
An IEDI culture assessment is an exploration of an organization’s members’ perceptions of the values, beliefs and behaviours related to Indigeneity, equity, diversity and inclusion that animate the community.
All Centennial College students and employees will be asked to participate.
The following are consultation activities that will run from Fall 2022 to Summer 2023 that will shape this work:
- Interviews
- Interviews will be conducted with employees and students with IEDI responsibilities and experience. Additionally, they will provide valuable insight into effective approaches to engagement with Indigenous and equity-deserving groups, as well as the wider college community.
- Group Consultations
- Four group consultations will be conducted with students and employees to deepen and expand the issues outlined in the interview phase. Participants’ confidentiality will be carefully maintained.
- College-Wide Surveys
- All Centennial College employees and students will be encouraged to participate in online surveys seeking to probe the five domains by uncovering community members’ related experiences and perceptions. The surveys will also ask for demographic information (e.g. Indigeneity , gender, racialization, sexual orientation, disability, creed, etc.) The collection of demographic information will provide a sophisticated analysis of community members’ perceptions and experiences.
Insights from the survey will enhance outcomes for our teaching, learning and ways of working, inform program design and improve institutional effectiveness. A small part of the survey asks for voluntary demographic information (e.g., Are you a student or employee? What is your gender or racial identity?) Answers to these questions are important to understanding community member experience and to prevent research assumptions. Key findings will be published and shared with the community.
External consultants, Stratcom and Evenings & Weekends Consulting will collect, protect and house community information. Centennial College will only receive research results in aggregate form, meaning results will be anonymous with no identifying information. The consultants are bound by federal privacy rules, regulations and standards imposed by Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC) and the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR).
Stratcom will collect and store all the data from the on secure, encrypted drives contained within the locked server cages at its Toronto data centre. Confidential client data is stored within a three-tiered structure of layered encryption that is available to authorized personnel only. Any databases used in the research will not be kept or reused for purposes aside from this project. Stratcom has a data destruction policy in full compliance with PIPEDA, and all Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is removed from files and databases within six months of the completion of a project. Research databases are kept indefinitely, but all PII such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, etc., will be removed.
For more information on Understanding our Centennial Culture, please contact Lauren Wolman, Manager, Research and Strategic Initiatives, IIRH by email at lwolman@centennialcollege.ca.