Bethlehem Gebre
Problem Statement/Research Objectives The client, American University’s School of Communication Diversity Committee, exists to create an atmosphere that supports and encourages diversity within the school’s student body, staff, academic programs, and service. However, the problem is that the committee is not well known. As a result, the School of Communication would like to increase awareness for the community to allow students to not only know about the committee, but also encourage them to engage with it to promote inclusion.
The School of Communication has a page on the American University website that presents its Diversity Committee. It highlights the strategic plan for diversity using six principles:
“1) A diverse academic …show more content…
The video shows a professor from the School of Communication lecturing students about the relevance of diversity in the real world. At the end, the professor challenged the students to imagine what it would be like to be the “other” in any given situation (i.e. being a white student in a room full of black students). Both of these existing examples serve as primary research since they come from the client. However, for the purposes of this project, examples of primary research that can be collected in this research include focus groups with SOC students and surveys that quantify student attitudes about SOC diversity on a scale from 1 to …show more content…
Although American University is ranked among the top 75 in the nation (http://www.american.edu/about/rankings.cfm), its student body is not particularly diverse, excluding gender (http://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/american-university/student-life/diversity/). While the Diversity Committee exists to help ameliorate that problem, there needs to be further secondary research available for the School of Communication’s Diversity Committee to monitor whether its initiatives are working or not. This can come in the form of reports on the SOC’s Diversity Committee in newspapers as well as any other ranking publications (such as US News) outside of American University that discuss the School of Communication. This research aims to accomplish three main objectives. First, it will highlight what SOC students believe are the greatest diversity-related issues in SOC. Next, it will determine the most efficient way to spread the message to students and staff about the SOC Diversity Committee. Lastly, this research will illustrate which methods the Diversity Committee can utilize to make SOC students feel the most included in the
Problem Statement/Research Objectives The client, American University’s School of Communication Diversity Committee, exists to create an atmosphere that supports and encourages diversity within the school’s student body, staff, academic programs, and service. However, the problem is that the committee is not well known. As a result, the School of Communication would like to increase awareness for the community to allow students to not only know about the committee, but also encourage them to engage with it to promote inclusion.
The School of Communication has a page on the American University website that presents its Diversity Committee. It highlights the strategic plan for diversity using six principles:
“1) A diverse academic …show more content…
The video shows a professor from the School of Communication lecturing students about the relevance of diversity in the real world. At the end, the professor challenged the students to imagine what it would be like to be the “other” in any given situation (i.e. being a white student in a room full of black students). Both of these existing examples serve as primary research since they come from the client. However, for the purposes of this project, examples of primary research that can be collected in this research include focus groups with SOC students and surveys that quantify student attitudes about SOC diversity on a scale from 1 to …show more content…
Although American University is ranked among the top 75 in the nation (http://www.american.edu/about/rankings.cfm), its student body is not particularly diverse, excluding gender (http://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/american-university/student-life/diversity/). While the Diversity Committee exists to help ameliorate that problem, there needs to be further secondary research available for the School of Communication’s Diversity Committee to monitor whether its initiatives are working or not. This can come in the form of reports on the SOC’s Diversity Committee in newspapers as well as any other ranking publications (such as US News) outside of American University that discuss the School of Communication. This research aims to accomplish three main objectives. First, it will highlight what SOC students believe are the greatest diversity-related issues in SOC. Next, it will determine the most efficient way to spread the message to students and staff about the SOC Diversity Committee. Lastly, this research will illustrate which methods the Diversity Committee can utilize to make SOC students feel the most included in the