Missouri State University

The MSU Faculty Diversity Composition Initiative (FDIC) “is designed to help recruit and retain diverse faculty members at the university” and has helped to retain diverse faculty members at the university.

The University offers a Diversity Studies Minor program which is “an interdisciplinary program of study allowing students to develop a broad understanding of the components of diversity in society, which include race and ethnicity, culture, gender, sexuality, religion, language, social class, and aging and disability.”

As part of the Four Areas of General Education requirement towards a Bachelors degree at MSU, students are required to complete one course, 3 credit hours of a course in Diversity and Cultural Competence.

Missouri State University gave a researcher a grant to bring "anti-racism elements" into statistics courses and curricula.

The Sociology Department is now offering anti-racism modules to its courses and has received a $3,750 grant to promote curriculum changes.

The Facing Racism Institute at Missouri State’s Office of Inclusive Engagement is the “leading program for uncovering racism and understanding its impact.”

The Office of Inclusive Engagement at Missouri State is “charged with developing a University-endorsed inclusive community” through increasing “equity by attracting, retaining, and ensuring the success of all students, faculty, and staff from diverse backgrounds.”

As part of the University’s Office of Inclusive Engagement, the Bears LEAD program is “a three-day program for incoming freshman from diverse backgrounds to help in their transition to MSU.”

Giving Voice is a theater organization at MSU that “strives to represent the challenges of underrepresented, marginalized, and oppressed persons” that uses theater and a series of workshops and presentations for training “to address issues of oppression, microaggression, and discrimination.”

On April 27-28, 2023, MSU hosted the 2023 Collaborative Diversity Conference to “continue to build a sense of belonging across a diversity of spaces” and “cultivate community that will assist us in facing the challenges of bias, inequality, and systems of oppression.”

The Inclusive Excellence Scholarship Program at MSU is valued at $21,000 over four years in order to work with “diverse individuals and/or groups to promote principles of equity and inclusion.”

The Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Gerontology are “committed to diversity and making our department an anti-racist space” through a number of anti-racism and racial justice resources including resources for BIPOC students as well as resources for “Allies (or those striving to be).”

The university formally announced its commitment to Anti-Racism and provided students and faculty with resources in October 2021.

The Music Department created the Diversity, Inclusion & Anti-Racism Committee in January 2022. It plans on providing a list of resources and hosting a series of panel discussions in the future.

The Art and Design Department announced its commitment to DEI initiatives and offered students "Anti-Racist Curriculum Resources."

The theme for the Long Range Plan 2021-2026 at MSU is “Inclusive Excellence Driving University Success” which focuses on “active, intentional and ongoing engagement with diversity - in people, in the curriculum, in the co-curriculum and in communities.”

The College of Natural and Applied Sciences at MSU is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion and has their own anti-racism action plan.