Social Impact

Texas Woman’s University envisions a transformative approach to amplify the social impact aspects of our mission and brand. We commit to mitigating injustice through educating, supporting, centering, and empowering women and marginalized voices. We prioritize documenting and boosting existing social impact initiatives as well as investing in the collective well-being of our institutional members and external community. Leveraging interdisciplinary and collaborative education, research, and service opportunities, we bridge academia and practice, addressing societal challenges while highlighting system strengths. Our unwavering commitment to socially responsible change encompasses the active involvement of both our internal and external communities. Through systematic initiatives, we will serve alongside our communities, enhance student prosperity, support and retain our employees, and strive for educational excellence. We will foster transparent and honest partnerships, nurturing collective endeavors toward an equitable and sustainable society rooted in restorative justice and accessible information. Embracing diverse experiences, perspectives, ways of knowing, and paths to acquiring knowledge, we cultivate a culture that values diversity, fosters a sense of belonging, promotes inclusivity, and empowers individuals. With these collective efforts, we aim to contribute to a more just, inclusive, and sustainable world.

At Texas Woman’s University, we are driven by our institutional mission to advance education and our historical strengths of empowering women and those traditionally marginalized. We aim to create a positive social impact by proactively supporting, affirming, exhibiting, and leveraging our institution’s ability to transform lives. Centering diverse internal and external voices, Texas Woman's serves as a pillar of progress through the amplification of education, research, and knowledge for a better, more sustainable society.

Objectives:

• Incentivize collaborations between Academic Affairs and Students Affairs.
• Strategy: Acknowledge, incentivize, and reward collaborations between Academic Affairs and Student Life to more effectively problem-solve issues tied to community wellbeing.
• Support faculty innovation through our policies and processes.
• Strategy: Look for ways faculty (at all levels) can be supported/rewarded for social impact efforts such as service-oriented projects, research tied to community wellbeing, or the prioritization of open access resources.
• Strengthen our capacity for ongoing training and professional development.
• Strategy: Build in more extensive onboarding for faculty and staff that better connects them to student resources, such as basic needs, financial assistance, etc.
• Strategy: Support grant funding for PhD students to mentor undergraduate students.
• Support work/life/school balance through policy and resource development.
• Strategy: Develop stronger collaborations between Human Resources and the Health and Wellbeing Initiative to broaden wellness resources for the entire TWU community.

Objectives:

• Identify strategic community organizations and stakeholders to collaborate with on our prioritized social impact initiatives. 
• Strategy: Create a task force or committee responsible for identifying key areas of social impact, setting goals, and implementing strategies. 
• Strategy: Establish measurable targets for the number of social impact programs and initiatives to be developed and implemented each year. 
• Strategy: Seek input and feedback from external stakeholders through surveys or focus groups to ensure their perspectives are considered in decision-making processes. 
• Strengthen current and/or establish new collaborations with a focus on transparent and honest partnerships that benefit both our students and the outside community.
• Strategy: Establish clear expectations, ethical guidelines, and deliverables for each partnership, including defined roles, responsibilities, and timelines and assess our success by our ability to meet these.
• Strategy: Regularly assess and report on the progress and outcomes of partnership projects, addressing successes, challenges, and lessons learned.
• Strategy: Organize community forums, town halls, focus groups, or public discussions to foster open and honest conversations on social impact topics and measure responses to our efforts. 
• Prioritize, acknowledge, and reward service completed by our students, faculty, and staff.
• Strategy: Reward TWU members for social impact work (e.g., inclusion in promotion and tenure standards)

Objectives:

• Build on existing communication channels to allow for more effective funneling of information
• Strategy: Explore using chat boxes and other mechanisms for quick communication around basic process and services
• Create an institutional hub for sourcing Texas Woman's research and service
• Strategy: Create an institutional hub for faculty research and publications - ideally a webpage. Use Sedona to automatically collect research publications
• Strategy: Publicize stories of work done by faculty, staff, and students that aligns with social impact on TWU communication platforms
• Develop strategies and resources to improve the promotion and visibility of faculty, staff, and student work, including research
• Strategy: Support the Texas Woman's QEP
• Strategy: Track the number of research publications, conference presentations, and media engagements related to social impact issues. 
• Expand open access and other innovations for making academic resources and research more accessible

Promote research and knowledge dissemination on social impact topics.