Diversity

• Organizational commitment from all levels
• Internal education and training
• Increase scholarship opportunities and strategic partnerships
• Increase the percent of diverse students, faculty, staff and board members

Photo: Tracy Baynes

The Goal
NOLS’ students, faculty, and staff will come from more diverse backgrounds. It is a central objective of this plan for NOLS to broaden the scope of its focus beyond its traditional audiences.

We will enhance the strength, and breadth of appeal, of our current curriculum and programs by expanding and adapting them to address a student body, faculty, and staff from more diverse backgrounds. This effort will be additive—recognizing and maintaining the excellence and effectiveness of the program we currently offer.

We will maintain the current level of financial aid as a percentage of tuition revenue and distribute aid through a program managed to support our diversity goals.

Assuming continuing trends, and to implement our diversity efforts, we recognize that NOLS will need to further develop standards and tools for the selection of admitted students at times when the number of applicants exceeds the number of class spaces that we can offer. Our goal shall be to maximize the number of students most likely to benefit from a NOLS education.

Context
We believe that multiple perspectives and experiences are essential to learning. NOLS wishes to be an inclusive community and respects the differences that make each of us unique. We believe that our mission and values should be relevant and important to all people and that we will increase our impact by reflecting the perspectives and needs of diverse communities in our curriculum and program. By diversity, we mean differences encompassing ethnicity, race, socio-economic background, gender, sexual orientation, faith, age, and national origin.

We also believe that diversifying the markets from which NOLS draws students and faculty will reduce the volatility in applicant numbers, strengthen the school, and support our mission. Accordingly, this plan anticipates significant further growth at NOLS Pro, at WMI, and in admission of students from outside the United States.

We believe these initiatives will also increase the number of applicants to NOLS. We also anticipate that enhanced marketing by NOLS among students traditionally drawn to the school will generate additional demand. To accommodate increased demand, we expect over the term of this plan to increase student program days by nearly 20% from the start of 2008 to 2013. As detailed elsewhere, this is a rate of growth that we believe is prudent and can be achieved while maintaining our expectations for the excellence of a NOLS education.

It is likely that the demand for NOLS courses will, as it has in certain seasons of the past several years, exceed the supply. This is a dynamic familiar to leading educational institutions and now welcomed by NOLS. We recognize it will pose new challenges and promises to be an advantage we will seek to sustain. Properly managed, it should allow NOLS to admit students more likely to derive substantial benefit from our courses, to operate and grow with less risk, and, in time, to increase our philanthropic support.

Implementation
Achievement of this goal will require commitment across the school and the coordinated implementation of numerous enabling efforts. Admission and marketing, curriculum and course development, faculty and staff hiring and training, development, and finance will, for example, all need to involved. The responsibility for the implementation of this goal will rest with every department, the executive director team, and the board of trustees.

Under the direction of the executive director team, the diversity manager will work with each major department in 2008 to implement and/or define credible diversity objectives and necessary enabling programs. These objectives will be reviewed on an annual basis.

The executive director team and admission department, in periodic consultation with the board of trustees, will regularly review, beginning in 2009, NOLS’ admission criteria, marketing efforts, and admission outcomes in the context of these diversity goals and this plan taken as a whole.

Financial aid will be an integral part of our diversity plan. We believe that the inclusion in our educational programs of socio-economically less advantaged students and faculty, from urban and especially local wilderness environments, is important to fulfilling our mission. NOLS has only recently attained a scale of operations and level of philanthropic support to be able to offer significant levels of financial aid to students and for faculty training. It is a goal of this plan to sustain the current level of financial aid as a percentage of tuition revenue and to continue to develop and implement our program for the distribution of such aid among our students.

Further Goals and Tactics
1. Diversity in our student body is prioritized and supported by scholarships.

a. Scholarships will increase at a minimum as a percent of total tuition revenue for traditionally underserved communities.

b. Formalize our present partnerships and develop partnerships at each NOLS location.

c. Alumni of diverse backgrounds will serve as alumni reps.

d. The percent of ethnic, racial, and international catalog, NOLS Pro, and WMI students will increase 30%. (FY07 % x 1.30 = 2013 %).

e. Women students on catalog and NOLS Pro courses will increase to 40% by 2013.

f. WMI courses will aim for overall gender balance by 2013.

2. Staff Training

a. Develop diversity curriculum materials for the Wilderness Education Notebook.

b. Provide diversity training on the Instructor Course and at program supervisor meetings. Use these and other opportunities to educate and set clear expectations of working with a diverse audience.

c. Develop a train-the-trainer program for program supervisors and school directors so that they can be a training resource at our various locations.

3. Diversity is reflected in the membership of our board of trustees.

4. Diversity is reflected in our faculty.

a. The percent of ethnic, racial, and international faculty will increase by 20%. (FY07 % x 1.20 = 2013 %)

b. Women faculty will increase to 40% by 2013.

5. Diversity is reflected in our intown staff.

a. The percent of ethnic, racial, and international directors will increase by 40%. (FY07 % x 1.40 = 2013 %)

b. Women directors will equal or exceed 40% by 2013.

c. The percent of ethnic, racial, and international mid-level managers (Level E, D and DE or non-U.S. equivalent) will increase by 20%. (FY07 % x 1.20 = 2013 %)

d. Women mid-level managers will equal or exceed 40% by 2013.