Community Diversity

(updated January 2023)

Statement

As a service organization within the College of Communication and Information Sciences, Alabama Public Radio (APR) aims to promote intellectual, social, and cultural conditions of the regional, state, national and international publics. This aim is actualized through service that advances a vigorous exchange of ideas within a culturally diverse environment. Members of such a community – students, faculty, and staff – who learn together are better equipped to understand, appreciate, and contribute to a twenty-first century global society that emphasizes pluralism and freedom of speech.

To this end, Alabama Public Radio supports and embraces a student, faculty and staff community enriched by members of diverse genders, national origins, races, ethnicities, cultures, religions, socioeconomic conditions, geographic backgrounds, sexualities, ages, religious beliefs and spiritualities, abilities and political views. Alabama Public Radio is dedicated to sustaining diverse cultural events, service opportunities and other educational and professional initiatives that augment cultural awareness and appreciation, group and individual diversity, and the promotion of ethical and civically engaged societies.

Diversity Goals

Alabama Public Radio is licensed to the University of Alabama as part of the Center for Public Television and Radio (CPT&R), a service organization of the College of Communication and Information Sciences. APR follows University recruitment and employment policies with activities conducted in relationship with the University's Department of Human Resources. The public is invited to view WUAL's most recent Equal Employment Opportunity Public File Report on the APR website.

As part of the College of Communication and Information Sciences, APR has established the following objectives regarding the diversity of its workforce and community service:

Foster a supportive and diverse environment
Increase faculty and staff diversity

Increase student diversity
Maintain an inclusive curriculum
Provide diversity through research, service, and public events

Diversity Implementation

APR has reviewed the practices that are designed to fulfill the station's commitment to diversity and to meet the applicable FCC guidelines with APR's licensee official. Annual reports to that end are submitted to the Office of the Provost.

As of December 2022, 19 percent of CPT&R staff and student staff identify as Black, Indigenous or People of Color (BIPOC). The diversity breakdown at CPT&R is as follows:

Professional Staff

· 22 Staff Members for CPT&R

· 9 Female (41%)

· 3 BIPOC (13%)

Student Staff

· 20 Students

· 13 Female (65%)

· 5 BIPOC (25%)

Total CPT&R Staff

· 42 Total

· 20 Female (47%)

· 8 BIPOC (19%)

CPT&R has made slight progress toward increasing our staff and leadership diversity in the last year. Female representation increased from 45 percent of the entire staff to 47 percent. BIPOC representation increased 24 percent to 25 percent among the student staff. However, overall BIPOC representation decreased from 24 percent to 19 percent.

As part of CPT&R, Alabama Public Radio will continue to seek out diversity in hiring practices. APR participates annually in the Work Study Job Program Fair and the Career Fair, which attract a diverse group of students and recent graduates. Management at APR routinely attends diversity training programs offered by the University of Alabama. In the next year, CPT&R will strive to increase the BIPOC and minority representation of both the professional and student staff. While representation of difference among staff and leadership is not the only measure of our diverse community, it is a starting place for measurement.

APR must also strive for Alabama residents to hear and see themselves reflected in the content we produce. To that end, we produce APR Reports where we take the time to dig beneath the headlines to listen to the people of the state to learn more about what matters to them.  We produce special series of stories based on what we hear so you can listen to them as well. In 2022, APR produced the series No Stone Unturned: Preserving Slave Cemeteries in Alabama. No Stone Unturned is a nine-month investigation into the effort to find and preserve slave burial grounds in the state. Crunk Culture also returned to APR in 2022. Crunk Culture is a conscious, creative, and intentional commentary about amplifying perspectives that are often silenced or dismissed. APR will continue to provide content like the examples provided above that support the diversity of voices in the state of Alabama.