Practices and typologies for using organizational data to identify potential leaders for equity, diversity, and inclusion within institutions

ABSTRACTColleges and universities increasingly aim to change their cultures to be more equitable, diverse, and inclusive (EDI). They often pursue large change-management programs that partly aim to canvass their institutions to identify potential EDI leaders and brokers amongfaculty, staff, and organizational units. Organizational data are good resources for EDI canvasses, but they can be difficult to collect, organize, and analyze. Poor data canvasing can forestall EDI canvasses and ultimately change-management programs. To address that problem, we used qualitative coding to iterate a set of data canvasing tools as we conducted EDI change-management programs at a large public university. We present here two typologies and four practices to help canvassers search for, organize, analyze, and interpret organizational data to quickly identify and iterate pools of potential EDI leaders and change agents further supportable as communities of practice. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThe work was supported by the National Science Foundation [1812428].Notes on contributorsSteve ElliottSteve Elliott is Affiliate Faculty in the Center for Gender Equity in Science and Technology at Arizona State University. His research focuses on the interrelations between scientific reasoning, organizational practices, and institutions for funding research and development.Michael SimeoneMichael Simeone is an Associate Research Professor in the School for Complex Adaptive Systems at Arizona State University, where he co-leads the Information Competition Lab. His research includes multidisciplinary data science, analysis of human-technology networks, data visualization, and data-driven collaborations that bridge environmental sciences and humanities.Kimberly A. ScottKimberly A. Scott is Professor in the School of Transformation and the Founding Executive Director of the Center for Gender Equity in Science and Technology at Arizona State University. Her current research explores how social systems constrain or afford girls/women of color to become technosocial change agents in STEM.Elizabeth WentzElizabeth A. Wentz is the Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate College and a Professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on the design, implementation and evaluation of geographic technologies with particular emphasis on how such technologies can be used to understand urban environments.