Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Audit

Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (EDIA) can be experienced differently for everyone. In the context of the audit, it’s about examining how people feel that they are treated within the NU community.

For example, experiences of EDIA at NU could include being treated fairly, being supported, or feeling welcome at the university. EDIA experiences could also include feelings of discrimination or harassment based on who you are, or feeling excluded or forgotten.

Equity is about fairness and justice. It is about taking deliberate actions to remove systemic, group, and individual barriers that hinder opportunities, disrupt well-being and create and reinforce unfair outcomes. Although both equity and equality promote fairness, equality achieves this through treating everyone the same, regardless of need and circumstances. Equity achieves this through treating people differently dependent on need, circumstance and consideration of historical and systemic inequities. Adapted from Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Benchmarks.

Diversity refers to the variety of similarities and differences among people including but not limited to: gender, sex, gender identity and expression, ethnicity, race, native or indigenous identity/origin, age, generation, disability, sexual orientation, culture, religion, belief system, marital status, parental status, pregnancy, socio-economic status/caste, appearance, language and accent, mental health, education, geography, nationality, work style, work experience, job role and function, thinking style, and personality type. Representation of various diversity dimensions within organizations may vary by geography, time, or organization. Adapted from Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Benchmarks.

Inclusion is a dynamic state of feeling, belonging, and operating in which diversity is leveraged and valued to create a fair, healthy, and high-performing organization or community. An inclusive culture and environment ensure equitable access to resources and opportunities for all. It also enables individuals and groups to feel safe, respected, heard, engaged, motivated, and valued for who they are. Adapted from Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Benchmarks.

Accessibility is the quality of being able to be entered or used by everyone, including people who have a disability, reflected in the design and implementation of products, devices, websites, and communication, services, vehicles, facilities, or environments. ParriagGroup.

This EDIA audit will also examine Indigenization and decolonization at NU, as described below.

Indigenization has not been defined by Nipissing University. A possible definition for the purposes of this FAQ is provided here. The term Indigenization has emerged since the early 2000s to signal the process of increasing the presence of Indigenous peoples and knowledges in traditionally Euro-Western institutions. https://indigenous.uwo.ca/assets/docs/pdfs/Indigenous-Initiatives-Key-Terms.pdf

Decolonization has not been defined at Nipissing University. A possible definition for the purposes of this FAQ is provide here. The term decolonization can describe an ongoing process that aims to deconstruct settler colonial ideologies such as white supremacy, give value to Indigenous knowledge, and dismantle power imbalances. Decolonization is the active work to give back the colonized territory’s independence and undo the effects of colonialism on the social, political, and economic aspects of a people’s life. Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion

An Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (EDIA) audit is comprehensive way of measuring how well an organization takes EDIA into account. This could be within policies, practices, programs, and organizational structures.

Research within audits can include looking at important documents, and hearing the perspectives from diverse people across the organization. Audits often conclude with actionable recommendations for the organization to make change, alongside capacity-building to make sure that any future work in EDIA measurement can be supported.

Nipissing’s EDIA audit is important because the faculty, staff, students, and Nipissing community deserve to be in a space with each other where they are all included. Having a third party – ParriagGroup - lead the audit, allows a fresh perspective on the Nipissing community’s way of being and doing.

This website is a great source of information about the audit and ways to get involved. Please also keep an eye on your Nipissing University email and social media accounts for updates. Questions or concerns can also be directed to ParriagGroup at parriaggroup@gmail.com or to the Equity Action Planning Taskforce at eapt@nipissingu.ca.

ParriagGroup has a list of principles on their website. These guide their work in a good way. Their clients understand that the team will be trauma-informed as they collect facts, listen to stories, speak truth and support ways forward. Clients know that we want to support them in their EDIA journey. We know that the journey to making positive change can be a challenge.

Please check your Nipissing email and/or this website for more information on upcoming engagements sessions and other ways to participate.

Ensuring a safe, inclusive, and supportive environment is essential for meaningful engagement in the EDIA audit. Discussions related to systemic barriers, lived experiences of discrimination, and accessibility challenges can bring up complex emotions for participants. To foster psychological safety and well-being, below are a list of confidential counselling supports that can be accessed.

Supports for Students

Mental Health & Wellbeing is located in Student Development and Services in room B210, Monday to Friday 8:30 - 4:30 pm (last appointment begins at 3:30 pm)

Book an appointment

E-mail: mhwellbeing@nipissingu.ca, Phone: 705-474-3450 Ext: 4507

Therapy Drop in: Students can drop by B210 to register for one of the possible available daily drop-in appointments to discuss ‘What’s Important Today’ with a counsellor

Peer Support: Peer Support Drop-In:  Offered 4 days a week, Monday – Thursday, 12:30 -3:30 pm. Students can complete a quick sign-up with a Peer Supporter the first time they stop by the Drop-In or have their first one-to-one meeting. Please see details at: https://www.nipissingu.ca/departments/student-development-and-services/counselling-services/therapy-options/peer-support

More student supports

• Self-Help Resources
• 24/hr Support and Helplines (including for Indigenous, racialized, and 2SLGBTQIA+ students)
• Racialized students mental health and wellbeing

Supports for Faculty and/or Staff

Employee Assistance Program: Provides free short-term confidential counseling and consulting services for all employees and their dependents.

First Nation and Inuit Hope for Wellness Help Line: Service is available in Cree, Ojibway, Inuktitut, English and French: 1-855-242-3310

Sunlife group benefits: For those who have benefits, there is $500.00 of combined annual coverage for psychological paramedical services, which includes social worker, psychologist and psychotherapist.

Employee Wellness: NU provides a range of supportive resources, information, and assistance to all employees to support work-life balance.

The ParriagGroup team takes data security and confidentiality very seriously.

If you decide to take part in an engagement (in-person or online), you will be asked if you consent to data collection. This can take the form of typed notes, transcripts, or recordings, but participants have the option to consent to whichever data collection feels safest for them.

If you share in a group setting, know that we have community guidelines that participants must agree to, which includes: "what is said in the room, stays in the room."

If you send us an email with your thoughts, or you participate in the upcoming survey, your data and personal information will not be shared with anyone.

Any answers you provide will remain confidential. This means that only the ParriagGroup team members will have access to your data.

In our reports, we will never use anyone’s name or other personally identifying information. All data will be summarized and presented at a high level in the final report.

All data will be saved on our secure server and will be destroyed at the end of the project.

Participants always have the opportunity to email the ParriagGroup team if they want their data removed from the audit before the report is finalized.

ParriagGroup follows all guidelines outlined in the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), and the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA).

The ParriagGroup can be reached directly at parriaggroup@gmail.com.