Departmental Blueprint
OMSA 2010-2011 Blueprint
Mission
The Office of Multicultural Student Affairs offers a myriad of Cultural Support Services, Diversity Education Initiatives, and Multicultural Programming that focus on the development of all students at the University of South Carolina.
Vision
Promote an accepting environment, and to assist in fostering an appreciation for each of our culturally diverse populations.
Goal 1: Promote awareness, appreciation and respect for culturally diverse populations.
Initiative
Develop and create Black History month programs, Hispanic Heritage month and Native American month programs through collaborations that demonstrate Latin, Native and African American cultures.
KPI
collaborate with at least 25 campus and community constituents to result in successful programs.
Update: A total of 66 programs with collaborations between 33 outside offices and community constituents took place during 2010-2011 academic year.
Black History Month had 33 programs, an 8 program increase from last year. 26 campus and community collaborations including Campus Wellness, Carolina Productions, Leadership Programs, USC NAACP Chapter, and others. The best-attended programs included The 2011 Gospel Extravaganza, Spoken Word Featuring Shanelle Gabriel, and Prospective on Integration at USC which featured Harold White.
Hispanic Heritage Month had 19 programs with 7 co-sponsorships including Student Health Services, Carolina After Dark, Carolina Productions, and student groups. The best-attended programs included Kick off Event, and Salsa Night, co-sponsored with Carolina After Dark.
Native American Heritage Month 14 programs with 3 co-sponsorships; the most notable being with the Circle of Native Americans. The best-attended programs included The Circle of Native Americans Demonstration and the Native American film series.
Goal 2: Facilitate support services that foster multicultural students’ leadership, academic and social development.
*Initiative
Enhance students’ social and intellectual development by facilitating multicultural competencies through diversity education programs.
KPI
Utilize the EMPOWER program to create a variety of opportunities for awareness of diversity and social injustices for all students on campus.
Update: EMPOWER led 10 Diversity Dialogues within residence halls throughout campus with 502 participants. EMPOWER Diversity Peer Educators delivered 71 presentations on diversity and social justice to University 101 classes, student organizations/groups, and community groups with more than 1,500 participants. EMPOWER also hosted the annual Diversity Retreat and Creed & Diversity Week, which provided in-depth training and exploration of multicultural competencies linked to our Carolinian Creed. 25 university constituents attended the retreat, 18 were current students ranging from freshmen to 2nd year graduate students.
KPI
Require 100% of EMPOWER Diversity Peer Educators to complete pre/post test to measure multicultural competencies for optimal learning experience.
Update: Bacchus &Gamma Peer Educator Training pre/post test was utilized. Tests are in the workbooks and linked with final certification. 90% completed pre test, 50% completed post test. This is not a good measure of multicultural competence, however, an improvement in facilitation skills was noted.
*Initiative
Enhance educational training opportunities to help student attain skills and personal development beyond the classroom experience.
KPI: 75% of EMPOWER Diversity Peer Educators (DPE) will complete BACCHUS & GAMMA Certified Peer Leader training
Update: 100% completed training. 5 DPEs completed the national certification training test. Students report that the material is helpful, but they do not require a certificate to motivate them to participate in the program. Several peer leadership groups within the Peer Leadership Advisory Network (PLAN) will look in to offering training together in a shorter time frame. Certification will be given as an optional incentive for 2011-2012.
KPI
100% of DPE’s will complete the Peer Leadership Survey for lateral comparison.
Update: 60% completed the Peer Leadership Survey. Results show an improvement on individual focus from 2009-2010 to 2010-2011.
Initiative
Enhance and provide educational opportunities to promote student success and personal growth for the retention of minority students.
KPI: Host two annual multicultural student organization workshops
Update: Two workshops were offered for 2010-2011 multicultural student organization leaders. One on the fall (August 17, 2010) with 18 in attendance and one in spring (April 17, 2011) with 26 in attendance.
KPI
Student leaders will participate in other leadership, academic and social opportunities
Update: Student leaders were encouraged to attend Clemson’s Fall for Leadership Conference, which was free, in the fall. No students from USC participated. Student leaders were also offered free registration for up to one person from each organization to attend the Student Leadership and Diversity Conference. 8 students attended USC’s SLDC and several others paid $20 to attend on their own.
Initiative
Develop a stronger training program and assessment practice for the EMPOWER Diversity Peer Educators in order to enhance their peer leadership experience.
KPI
Modify and assess training program of DPE’s to determine learning and enhancement of peer leadership experience.
Update
The Bacchus & Gamma Peer Educator Certification Training was tested this year, but needed a great deal of supplemental information to help peer educators relate to the topic of diversity and social justice. Only one chapter of the entire text focused specifically on discussing or working with diverse groups. After a discussion on the effectiveness of the material, it was decided the material was helpful in learning to facilitate dialogue during presentations, but it should be supplemented with individual lessons on diversity topics and from experience shadowing/observing presentations. An informal text poll showed that many would take the certification test if offered, but did not desire to make it a formal part of the curriculum.
Several peer educators opted to participate in the Peer Leadership Advisory Network and other campus partners’ skill building workshops. These workshops were well-received and encouraged networking with other peer leaders.
Initiative
Provide through MAPP, workshops and small group discussions that encourage students to access resources of key offices that play a role in encouraging retention and academic success.
KPI
Collaborate with TRIO programs, OSP, Minority Recruitment in Admissions and the Hispanic Advisory Committee.
Update
MAPP collaborated with 7 campus partners, including Moore School of Business, Office of Greek Life, OSP, Counseling Center, Campus Wellness and Sexual Health and Violence Prevention for a total of nine workshops and small group discussions.
KPI
MAPP participants will receive information and resources on retention and academic success throughout the semester-long program.
Update
The MAPP participants were provided information and resources throughout the year from various offices such as the Counseling Center, Campus Wellness, Sexual Health and Violence Prevention.
KPI
MAPP advisory board will attend the Student Leadership and Diversity Conference
Update: Two of the advisory board members attended the conference.
KPI
Implement MAPP curriculum, including service projects that will challenge personal growth, for conduciveness, collaboration and general meetings.
Update: This was the first- year of the new curriculum and it was well received however we are looking into restructuring the Spring part of the curriculum. MAPP participated in the Adopt A Highway program through Keeping the Midlands Beautiful: Oct 2, 2010, Nov. 21, 2010 and Jan. 22, 2011.
KPI
Offer three MAPP counselor development meetings.
Update: The following three sessions were offered: MAPP Spring Training Workshop April 9, 2010, MAPP Fall Training Workshop August 17, 2010, Appreciative Advising Inventory (Dr. Jenny presented) November 3, 2010.
KPI
Utilize Data Mart System to determine matriculation, academic success and retention rate of minority students who participate in multicultural programs and services.
Update: A excel spreadsheet, complete with formulas for assessment reports, has been created to track students involved in multicultural programs with the capability to also track student leaders.
KPI
At least two service projects will be done through MAPP
Update
MAPP participated in the Adopt A Highway program through Keeping the Midlands Beautiful: Oct 2, 2010, Nov. 21, 2010 and Jan. 22, 2011.
Initiative
Execute the 4.0 and Celebration of Excellence programs that recognize minority students
KPI
Recognize at least 100 students during annual Celebration of Excellence program who have excelled academically and who have demonstrated exemplary leadership and at least 20 students who have achieved 4.0.
Update
103 students of color achieved a GPA of 3.5 or higher, 33 achieved a 4.0. 62 students were recognized at the Celebration of Excellence on April 19, 2011, and 11 students were recognized at the 4.0 Luncheon on April 14, 2011.
Initiative
Offer leadership workshop for minority students to advance their personal, professional and leadership skills
KPI
Two multicultural student organization workshops will be offered throughout the academic year.
Update: Two workshops were offered for student organization leaders and future leaders; one in the fall on August 17, 2010, with 18 participants and one in the spring on April 17, 2011, with 26 participants.
Initiative
Enhance AAMI to better attract more AA males into the program
KPI
AAMI will be enhanced based on data from the previous year
Update
We used the book The Black Male Handbook by Kevin Powell this year for discussions at our weekly meetings in the Fall and in the Spring semester we moved to bi-weekly meetings. We had a total of 8 freshman participate this year. We had a 100% retention rate and a cumulative 3.277 average GPA for our participants.
Goal 3: Advocate for equity and inclusion through diversity education and social justice education with participation at all levels of the Carolina community.
Initiative
Increase the quality of services and programs on campus to improve satisfaction and campus climate.
KPI
Survey Hispanic Advisory committee for feedback regarding programs and services for Hispanic/Latino community.
Update
Through recommendations of the committee and the previous year’s focus group, a brochure is in the works as well as translation options with websites. The committee also assisted a newly formed student organization, SABIO (Students Allied for Better Immigrant Opportunities), in recruiting/advertising within our areas.
KPI
Collaborate with academic units throughout the year in offering Diversity Network, promoting the discussion of minority retention efforts.
Update: Calls were made which returned interest from a total of 52 individuals within academic departments and administrative offices. Only 10 actually participated in meetings with many participating through email conversation. The group will be polled for better meeting times for 2011-12 since there are only 2 meetings a semester. Many talks for collaborations took place as well as use of available services leading to expansion of those requesting SAFEZone training and diversity education materials as well as the MOSAIC Symposium conference, which was lead by Study Abroad with assistance from many of the Network members.
Initiative
Target Columbia community resources to provide programs for students and to encourage student involvement in the community.
KPI
Collaborate with at least at one local organization to maintain an updated database of available services.
Update
The Black Pages (for African-American community resources in Columbia), Hispanic Pages (for Hispanic and Latin-American community resources in Columbia), and Target (for general diversity programs) were sought out to provide resources for students. Community resources were also sought after and offered to us as part of the OMSA Resources website at http://www.sa.sc.edu/omsa/resources/.
KPI
Serve on various committees as they relate to student success and retention.
Update: The office staff serves on several campus and community committees: Universitys’ Diversity Committee, Provost Advisory Committee for Women’s Issues, Sexual Assault & Relationship Violence Prevention Committee, Peer Leadership Advisory Network, Student Leadership and Diversity Conference Planning Committee, Chi Sigma Alpha Student Affairs Professional Honor Society, Hispanic Advisory Committee, Diversity Network, Housing Diversity Committee, Black History Month Planning Committee, Carolina Judicial Council Faculty/Staff Associates, SC Commission for Minority Affairs, University Retention Committee, University Religious Committee.
OMSA Departmental Assessment Plan 2010-2011
2010-2011 Departmental Objective/Action Item
2010-2011 Key Performance Indicators
Departmental Objective/Action Item
Promote awareness, appreciation and respect for culturally diverse populations.
- Develop and create Black History, Hispanic Heritage month and Native American Heritage Week programs through collaborations that demonstrate both, Latin, Native and African American cultures
Facilitate support services that foster multicultural students’ leadership, academic and social development.
- *Enhance students social and intellectual development by facilitating multicultural competencies through diversity education programs
- *Enhance educational training opportunities to help students attain skills and personal development beyond the classroom experience.
- Develop a stronger training program and assessment practice for the EMPOWER Diversity Peer Educators in order to enhance their peer leadership experience.
- *Enhance and provide educational opportunities to promote student success and personal growth for the retention of minority students.
- Provide through MAPP, workshops and small group discussions that encourage students to access resources of key offices that play a role in encouraging retention and academic success.
- Facilitate service projects through MAPP that will challenge student’s personal growth. (i.e. soup kitchen, K-12 school mentorship programs, service Saturdays)
- Produce both the 4.0 and Celebration of Excellence programs that recognize minority students who have excelled academically and specific students who have demonstrated exemplary leadership.
- Offer leadership workshops and other opportunities for minority student to advance their personal, professional and
leadership skills - Enhance AAMI to better attract more AA males into the program
Advocate for equity and inclusion through diversity education and social justice education with participation at all levels of the Carolina community.
- Increase the quality of services and programs on campus to improve consumer satisfaction and campus climate.
- Target Columbia community resources to provide programs for students and to encourage student involvement in the community.
- Serve on various committees as it relates to student success and retention
Key Performance Indicators
- Collaborate with (at minimum) a combination of 25 campus and community constituents to result in successful cultural months and week.
- Utilize the EMPOWER program to create a variety of opportunities for awareness of diversity and social injustices for all students on campus.
- Require 100% of EMPOWER Diversity Peer Educators to complete pre/post test to measure multicultural competencies for optimal learning experience.
- Encourage 75% of EMPOWER Diversity Peer Educators to complete Bacchus and Gamma National Peer Leader Certification.
- Require 100% of EMPOWER Diversity Peer Educators to complete the Peer Leadership Survey for lateral comparison.
- Maintain two annual multicultural student organization workshops while encouraging leaders to participate in other leadership, academic and social opportunities.
- Collaborate with other departments with OSP, TRIO Programs, Minority Recruitment in Admissions, and the Hispanic Advisory Committee
- Require MAPP Advisory board to attend the SLDC conference hosted by Leadership Programs and the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs.
- Implement the MAPP Curriculum for conduciveness, collaboration, and general meetings.
- Offer three MAPP Counselor development meetings.
- Continue to serve on Peer Leadership Advisory Network. Begin to serve on Hispanic Advisory Committee, (Minority Admissions Committee)
- Recognize (at minimum) 100 students during the Celebration of excellence ceremony and (at minimum) 20 students for 4.0 achievement celebration.
- Utilize the Data Mart System to determine the matriculation, academic success, and retention rate of minority students who participate in multicultural resources and programs provided by the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs.
- Use evaluations from last year cohorts to make changes to AAMI
- Enlist the Hispanic Advisory Committee for advice and ideas in order to provide a minimum of two programs per year for the Hispanic/Latino population on campus.
- Collaborate with academic departments 1-2 times a semester to offer dialogues, entitled Diversity Network, that promote discussion of minority retention efforts.
- Collaborate with at least one Columbia resource per group serviced through OMSA to maintain an updated database of available services.
OMSA Departmental Assessment Plan 2009-2010
2009-2010 Departmental Objective/Action Item
2009-2010 Key Performance Indicators
2009-2010 Final Updates
Departmental Objective/Action Item
Continue to increase OMSA visibility to minority and majority populations.
- Market the office through accessing creative ways of advertising (i.e. table tents, media resources, and web pages)
- Promote the office through volunteerism projects such as lectures, workshops and presentations for the USC community as well the Columbia community
- Attend various student group and department meetings to inform them about OMSA
- Create and sustain current collaborations with other departments and student groups
- Update and improve current materials distributed by OMSA to promote a multicultural environment
Increase opportunities to develop multicultural competencies through diversity education programs.
- Engage students by offering a wide variety of events and activities through EMPOWER; including the monthly Diversity Dialogue Series, Diversity Retreat, Diversity Week, Unity Meetings, U101 and Peer Group presentations, and co-sponsorship of the Student Leadership and Diversity Conference
- Train EMPOWER Diversity Peer Educators to provide more presentations for all levels/types of learners
- Continue the availability to request a diversity workshop via the OMSA website
Provide and enhance educational opportunities to promote student success and personal growth for the retention of minority students.
- Provide through MAPP, workshops and small group discussions that encourage students to access resources of key offices that play a role in encouraging retention and academic success.
- Facilitate service projects through MAPP that will challenge student’s personal growth. (i.e. soup kitchen, K-12 school mentorship programs, service Saturdays)
- Collaborate with other departments with a mission of retention and educational promotion for minority students such as OSP, TRIO Programs, Minority Recruitment in Admissions, and the Hispanic Advisory Committee
- Serve on various committees as it relates to student success and retention
- Offer leadership workshops and other opportunities for minority student to advance their personal, professional and leadership skills
- Enhance AAMI to better attract more AA males into the program
Key Performance Indicators
- Maintain a record of marketing efforts
- Attend four out of seven organization meetings a month promoting the role of the OMSA office and encouraging communication between the two parties.
- Surveys/Evaluations of every event/presentation
- Review of attendance by event sign-in
- Regular meetings with student executive boards
- Continue the use of surveys/evaluations
- Record use of website request for presentations
- Establish at least one new initiative or partnership with another department or student group
- Co-sponsor at least one community event per academic year
- Record attendance and email address of attendees at all events/programs
- Increase the number of trainings workshops and group peer presentations
- Provide opportunity for DPE’s to assess personal multicultural competence at least twice a year to monitor growth through pre-and post tests
- Revamp the current EMPOWER presentation evaluation to reflect achievement of set learning outcomes.
- Record number of requests made via the OMSA website
- Provide at least two opportunities a month for students to attend programs that enrich both academic success and awareness of campus resources.
- Review attendance by event sign-in
- Record the number of programs, the number of attendance, and success rate of collaborations done in conjunction with other offices.
- Report the number of minority students enrolled each Fall
- Report retention rate of minority students each year and compare to those involved in OMSA programs
- Increase minority participation in University sponsored events; such as raising overall minority participation in the Student Leadership and Diversity Conference
- Request demographic information for all co-sponsored events/programs
- Document various committees that each individual staff member serves on to promote student success and retention
- Record attendance at the OMSA Leadership workshops and President’s meetings; request open and written feedback from attendees
- Assess feedback from the previous AAMI participants to improve the program; improve our brochure for AAMI
Final Updates
- Marketing campaign has been enhanced through public signage for Diversity Dialogues.
- Materials have been updated to include all programs and currently being reviewed for Spanish translation.
- OMSA professional and graduate staff has attended all organization meetings at least once each month.
- There has been a surge of increased communication with OMSA by organizations.
- Evals distributed at every Dialogue and presentation. Results have been recorded.
- Sign in sheets at events proved there was an increase in event attendance.
- Presentation requests through website were tracked and recorded.
- Established partnership with the SC Commission for Minority Affairs.
- Co-sponsored and hosted the SC African-American Summit and the SC Native American Conference.
- Our Diversity Dialogue program has continued to include community partners to create a stronger learning relationship with the academic community.
- Event sign-in sheets captured bulk of attendees and their email addresses.
- 32 U101 Presentations by DPE’s; other requests from Professional Housing Staff, Housing RM consult, Greek Life, MAPP, OSP, SG, Chi Sigma Alpha, Olympia Learning Center, USC-Sumter, and SC Federal Credit Union.
- Will begin Bacchus and Gamma training with pre, post test, and certification.
- Incorporated mock presentation requirement.
- Kept same evaluation with original LOs, but have made improvements for 2010-2011 evaluation based on new LOs.
- 23 student presentation requests were made via the website request form. Only 1 request was received through the faculty/staff request form. All other requests were emailed or came through other OMSA professional staff involvement. In the future, we must route all presentations through online request forms in order to get an accurate count.
- SLDC minority involvement appeared higher; demographic information was not collected on the individual, but we will be able to provide minority organization membership count.
- Difficult to gather demographic data for co-sponsored events unless Carolina Card was swiped.
- Associate Director’s committee involvement for student success and retention – HAC, PACWI, PLAN
- The Fall OMSA Leadership Workshop had participants from all Multicultural Student Organizations and Programs; feedback on evaluations proved that information provided was useful. Participants especially found the group calendar planning useful, which prevented no overlap in student organization meeting times.

