Tracking Our Progress on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Performance Metrics

Queen’s is committed to building a campus that welcomes and reflects diverse identities, cultures, and perspectives. We recognize that our ability to enhance diversity and foster a culture of inclusion is directly linked to our ability to provide an exceptional learning experience, support an innovative and thriving research enterprise, and attract leading talent.

Interim performance metrics have been developed to help us monitor our efforts to increase the representation and engagement of students, faculty, and staff from equity-deserving groups:

• The diversity of Queen’s student body
• Retention rates of students from equity-deserving groups
• The diversity of Queen’s staff and faculty complements
• The diversity of Queen’s research enterprise

Equity-Deserving Groups

The most comprehensive data sets related to equity and diversity at Queen’s are those associated with equity-deserving groups, including Indigenous people, women, people with disabilities, and members of visible minority groups.

In addition to supporting members of equity-deserving groups, Queen's is also committed to welcoming and supporting students, staff, and faculty from a range of cultures, religious affiliations, socioeconomic backgrounds, gender identities, and sexual orientations. The university will continue to take steps to ensure relevant programs, support services, policies, and procedures are inclusive and meet the needs of all students, staff, and faculty.

Diversity of Queen's Student Body

Representation Rates of Equity-Deserving Groups

Students from across Canada and around the world come to Queen’s, and we are taking steps to ensure our campus continues to attract, support, and engage students from diverse backgrounds.

New measures have been put in place to enhance access to Queen’s, including broader outreach and recruitment activities, enhanced entrance pathways, new alternative admission opportunities and financial awards for Indigenous and first-generation students, and culturally customized student support services.

Retention Rates of Students from Equity-Deserving Groups

Providing an exceptional student learning experience is central to Queen’s identity and its mission. To assess our efforts to create a positive learning environment for students from equity-deserving groups, we have begun to track indicators of their academic engagement and success.

Available data currently allow us to track the percentage of undergraduate students from equity-deserving groups who return to Queen’s for their second year of study. Over time, we hope to be able to enhance this data and track areas like self-reported ratings of student engagement, and graduation rates by equity-deserving group.

Diversity of Staff and Faculty Complements

Queen’s success is dependent on our ability to attract and retain top talent from around the world. Recent initiatives designed to attract a diverse group of faculty and staff to Queen’s include broadening our recruitment efforts and implementing new processes to strengthen participation in, and oversight of, employment equity practices for staff and faculty hiring.

There are strong indications that our efforts are on the right track. Queen’s recently received an Employment Equity Achievement Award in the Innovation category from the federal government. The Innovation Award recognizes employers who have been innovative in the implementation of employment equity, and Queen’s was recognized for our Accessibility Framework, the Employment Equity Framework, and the Diversity and Equity Assessment and Planning (DEAP) Tool.

Faculty Representation Rates of Equity-Deserving Groups

Staff Representation Rates of Equity-Deserving Groups

Supporting an Inclusive and High-Performing Research Enterprise

In 2017, the Tri-Agency Institutional Programs Secretariat (TIPS) directed all universities with five or more Canada Research Chairs (CRCs) to create a CRC Equity Action Plan and address any underrepresentation within their institution.

At Queen’s, the number of female CRCs is currently below our target. The Queen’s CRC Equity Action Plan was posted on December 15, 2017, and commits the university to recruiting three women CRCs in 2018 and four in 2019. We have met our target for 2018. The information in the table above reflects the number of individuals who self-identified, using the I Count Queen’s Equity Census, as members of the Four Designated Groups, as of January 1, 2019.