Strategic Planning Integration with Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Pima Community College created its first Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Plan 2017-2020 that created a framework for the DEI office and related initiatives. From 2020-2022, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an extension of the 2017-2020 plan. During this time Pima Community College increased the breadth of those initiatives and the resources to the DEI Office, and began work with various community focus groups and employee and student advisory bodies to identify ways to expand and improve on the DEI strategic plan and develop a new strategic plan. In 2023, after reviewing the input and with discussion with the community, employees, and students, the College administration and Board of Governors determined that integrating the plan into the College’s overall strategic plan would ensure that the concepts of equity, diversity, and inclusion were part of all strategies in the College. Other strategic planning areas such as enrollment, sustainability, and facilities were also to be integrated. This resulted in an extension of the current College Strategic Plan for 2024-2025.

For the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion a redesign was launched moving more of its work to operation and the strategic areas into the strategic planning cycle. The redesign was a multi-year project that involved embedding DEI initiatives, resources, personnel, data systems, and planning into all departments and into the Extended 2024-2025 College Strategic Plan. The plan also includes updating definitions and determining the College’s meaning behind being a social justice institution. These were added to the extended 2024-2025 Strategic Plan.

In 2024-2025 the College is initiating its new planning cycle and the principles of justice, inclusion, equity, belonging, and access will help ground all elements of the new plan as part of the new strategic plan framework.