The Corporation for Public Broadcasting requires public radio and television stations that receive its funding to engage in practices designed to reflect the communities they serve. Station grantees must:
- Review and make any necessary revisions to the station’s established representation goal for its workforce, management, and boards, including community advisory boards and governing boards having governance responsibilities specific to or limited to broadcast stations.
- Maintain a Community Representation Statement that defines how the station’s community is diverse; the extent to which the grantee’s staff and governance represent the community; and the progress made toward its representation goals. The statement must be on the station website or available at the station’s central office.
- Require all employees, officers, and interns to have training on harassment prevention and implicit bias.
Stations annually provide CPB with information and data that gives CPB a snapshot of the public media system’s financial health, operations, and the diversity of its leadership and staff.
Community Representation Statement
Ball State Public Media (Ball State PBS and Indiana Public Radio) is committed to becoming a leader in developing representative perspectives. This is essential in fulfilling our vision to connect people to educational experiences and trusted stories. We commit ourselves to this work by stating it clearly as part of our Vision Statement and doing the daily work to live up to moving ever towards that vision.
We acknowledge that representation is an organizational strength and imperative for us to remain relevant in our community. We recognize that this work has many facets. In our work, we will examine our content, staffing, activities, and business partnerships using a lens that will include race, gender, physical ability, ethnicity, national origin, nationality, religion, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identification, and age. We also recognize that this work also includes geographic location, work experience, family status, socio-economic class, and political thought.
We heed the call of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, the founding public media law that requires our work to be an alternative source of local communication specifically focused on serving the underserved and unserved. The Act also notes our important role in creating content for children and minorities in our communities.
Ball State Public Media established an Accessibility, Opportunity, and Equity Team (AOET) charged with monitoring and communicating our progress on our commitment to improving our work and our service to the community. The progress of the committee to reflect the community we serve is outlined in the charts below.
Ball State Public Media exists within the broader context of Ball State University. The university recognizes inclusive merit, excellence, and inclusivity as an integral endeavor to fulfill the University’s mission and strategic plan. Ball State University seeks to recruit, support, and retain a diverse population of students, faculty, and staff. We encourage and reward a diversity of thought. We promote a work environment that encourages and rewards innovation and creativity. We pledge to keep Inclusive Excellence at the highest level of institutional importance and as a foundation in all we strive to do.
Our over-arching goal for Inclusive Excellence is to adopt a university-wide Inclusive Excellence approach to academic, administrative support, and service functions of the university. We believe Inclusive Excellence must be infused in every step we take. Our strategic plan defines inclusiveness as a commitment “to respect and embrace equity, inclusion, and diversity in people, ideas, and opinions.”
BALL STATE PUBLIC MEDIA STAFF DIVERSITY 2023-24
DELAWARE COUNTY DIVERSITY 2024
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
