Building Communities
T
Fostering
inclusivity in higher education
Softulka/iStock/Getty Images
creates a welcoming and motivating environment.
10 JULY/AUGUST 2021
he role of higher education in fostering student opportunities for success rests in the need to promote cross-cultural respect and appreciation through structural, psychological, behavioral pedagogy, infrastructure and activities. Within higher education, the moral imperative is to create inclusive learning environments yielding equitable opportunities for academic and lifetime success. To achieve that level of success, we must believe that the institution is no better off than the worst experience of its worst-off community member. As in the words of the poet John Donne, highlighting the importance of community, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” In 2015, students from across the campus of Brandeis University demanded the institution address issues of structural, psychological and behavioral discrimination. They requested the school create the post I currently hold, Associate Dean for Equity, Inclusion and Diversity (EID) at Brandeis’ Heller School for Social Policy and Management for graduate students. Within this role, I work across the community to promote belonging and inclusion through education, training, curriculum and cultural
awareness events and courses. We strive to create a community that mirrors the diversity of the broader world. We track our progress through climate surveys, course evaluations and faculty activity reports. Our philosophy is that everyone at the school is a member of the EID council. Every academic program within the school needs to have a standing agenda item advancing routine discussion on contextualizing and embedding antidiscrimination pedagogy, research and policy. Creating a pluralistic learning environment means providing a concierge service that says to individual students, “We’ve got your back, you belong, and you are reflected in the faculty, staff, researchers as well as in the syllabus.” The steps to achieve this inclusive culture include: 1) Defining community, 2) Creating a concierge of messaging, services and support, 3) Campus-wide cross-cultural trainings, including diverse conversation and communication styles, 4) Recognizing and reducing bias and learning how to respond to bias, 5) Diversifying syllabi and varying teaching and learning styles.
