Progress Updates
IMSA’s mission prioritizes the well-being and success of our students. This pillar focuses on creating a space where every student feels safe, recognized, and supported. By fostering a sense of belonging, strengthening relationships with teachers, and ensuring students feel secure in their identities, IMSA helps students reach their full academic, social, and personal potential.
First Quarter 2025
Academic Deans and the TCs are reviewing class schedules through a lens of equity by focusing on quality vs. quantity. Based on the results of the Challenge Success survey, the Support & Engagement period has provided time for all students to reach their faculty members and support team daily.
The team is considering how to build a structure around various non-traditional modalities and is also thinking about how to incorporate new ideas like evening classes, seminars on I-days, and weekend classes This year, Fine Arts, Wellness, and Computer Science are piloting different structures including asynchronous time. We look forward to more of these opportunities in future years.
Academic professional development is focusing on three tracks this school year: Responsive Teaching for Diverse Learners, Assessment Practices and Processes, and Curricular Design and Delivery for Various Course Modalities & Structures. This focused professional development is providing our academic team additional resources to provide responsive teaching and learning to our students.
A cohort of sophomores took the Intercultural Development Inventory Assessment this fall. The score will provide IMSA with a baseline from which to measure their cultural competency over the next two academic years.
IMSA is incredibly diverse, which creates great opportunities for our students to understand and appreciate differences among their classmates. Celebrating through culture shows is one way IMSA showcases its diversity. October 3-4, Asian Students in America (ASIA), one of IMSA’s four culture clubs, celebrated the heritage of Asian and Pacific Island countries with their show. November 7-8, ISA (Indian Student Association) celebrated Diwali with their performance. The Black Student Union Cultural Show is scheduled for February 27-28, 2026 and the Alma Latina Cultural Show will be held April 24-25, 2026.
DEI, History/Social Science, and Science departments collaborated on our Equity and Excellence Scholars Series to feature a conversation with environmental justice expert, poet, and musician, Mr. Marcus Sibley.
A Race Talks program featuring Dr. Courtney Wilkerson was held on November 13. The event aimed to build a positive racial identity, find solutions to racial injustice, improve race relations at IMSA, and bring IMSA closer together with mutual understanding and respect. Race Talks was sponsored by: DEI, BHSC, CCE, Poetic Justice, and FOCUS.
