Welcoming Campus Initiative

What is a welcoming campus?

Launched in spring of 2016, the Welcoming Campus Initiative has provided a springboard for transforming IUPUI into a more inspiring destination for faculty, staff, students, and visitors.

With taskforces, focus groups, and town hall meetings, we have sought to answer the question, “How can we make IUPUI a more welcoming campus?”

We are excited about the changes that are underway, from dramatic updates to campus landscaping to our Welcoming Campus Innovation Projects that are being driven by people from across IUPUI.

The Welcoming Campus Initiative is tied to IUPUI’s strategic goals outlined in Our Commitment to Indiana and Beyond: IUPUI Strategic Plan, especially our efforts to support student success, faculty and staff development, and community engagement.

Your gift to the Welcoming Campus Initiative supports campus transformation. For IUPUI faculty & staff, payroll deduction makes giving easy.

Payroll deduction

Initiative Objectives & Leadership

Objectives

The five principal objectives of IUPUI’s Welcoming Campus Initiative are to:

Seek input on what it means for IUPUI to be a truly welcoming campus for students, faculty and staff, alumni and community members, and in our physical environment.
Identify how peer and aspirant institutions foster welcoming campus environments and investigate how to adapt or replicate such practices at IUPUI.
Determine what is presently driving us toward and what is holding us back from being a more welcoming campus.
Develop preliminary recommendations for how IUPUI can become a more welcoming campus, including indicators we can use to gauge our progress and effectiveness.
Use the recommendations to improve our culture, both centrally and throughout IUPUI, in order to be a welcoming campus.

Executive Committee

The executive committee will meet regularly to ensure that there is coordination and clear communication among the various task forces and the steering committee, to review progress and to help ensure that deadlines are met. The executive committee also will prepare updates to various stakeholders through formal informal communications.

Members:

Kathy Johnson, Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Academic Officer – Chair
Christine Fitzpatrick, Chief of Staff, Office of the Chancellor
Stephen Hundley, Special Advisor to the Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives
Becky Wood, Assistant to the Chancellor for Communications

Steering Committee

The Steering Committee will be broadly inclusive, will provide connections between and among groups, and will offer overall direction, leadership, and coordination of the Welcoming Campus Initiative. Steering Committee members will include co-chairs of each taskforce, members of the Executive Committee, as well as select taskforce members.

Task force co-chairs serve as conveners to facilitate discussion, synthesize information, liaise with the Steering Committee, and develop a preliminary report with recommendations for IUPUI.

Members:

Kathy Johnson – Chair
Rachel Applegate, President of Faculty Council
Robin Hughes, Interim Executive Associate Dean, School of Education
Jim Klenner, President of Staff Council
Robin Newhouse, Dean, School of Nursing
Marianne Wokeck, Chancellor's Professor of History
Representatives of the Undergraduate and Graduate Student Governments
Task Force Co-Chairs:
- Chancellor’s Task Force on IUPUI as a Welcoming Campus for Students: Tralicia Lewis and Cathy Buyarski
- Chancellor’s Task Force on IUPUI as a Welcoming Campus for Faculty and Staff: Simon Atkinson and Juletta Toliver
- Chancellor’s Task Force on IUPUI as a Welcoming Campus through Cultural Climate and Multicultural Competence: Karen Dace and Lori Patton Davis
- Chancellor’s Task Force on IUPUI as a Welcoming Campus for Alumni and Community Members: Amy Warner and Monica Medina
- Chancellor’s Task Force on IUPUI as a Welcoming Campus in our Physical Environment: Camy Broeker and Aaron Hart

Task Forces

Each task force has one co-chair who is a member of the Chancellor’s Cabinet as well as a co-chair with specific expertise in the task force subject. Each taskforce also includes one dean, and, where appropriate, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members have been included. The composition of task forces provides a broad range of input by individuals with knowledge and experience working in each respective area.

Student Task Force

Faculty & Staff Task Force

Alumni & Community Task Force

Task Force on Cultural Climate

Physically Welcoming Campus Task Force