FOREWORD The Context When we were approached by President Anderson in June, 2020 about Co-Chairing a task force on diversity and inclusion, it was during a national health pandemic and a period of city-wide “stay-at-home” order from the governor. It was, also, following the conclusion of a Spring semester that had made a unique and abrupt switch to totally remote working, teaching and learning because of the threat of infection from the COVID-19 virus that was quickly spreading across the nation causing vast amounts of illness and deaths. But, more important, it was at a time in the nation when the country was reeling with thousands of protests. The catalyst for these protests was an outrage of disbelief from the murder of an African American man, George Floyd. The nation watched a horrifying recording that was televised as a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee to Mr. Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes while he was handcuffed and lying face down. What is even more disturbing is that the nation was made aware that approximately 1,100 people had been killed annually by the police’s use of similar force with a disproportionate number of the people killed being African American. All of these events and others set in motion a need for our entire university to situate itself into a place of examination, identification, and reconciliation around our value of “intentional inclusion.” At this time in our history, colleges and universities are experiencing perhaps the biggest upsurge of student activism since the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. And Trinity is not immune to these issues as students, faculty and some staff are actively organizing around issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. While “diversity” can be perceived as increasing the representation of underrepresented students, faculty, and staff populations, “inclusion” takes the next step of striving for involvement of all underrepresented populations by providing equitable access to opportunities, influence, and engagement across all areas. Using an analytical framework, inclusion can be defined as considering several dimensions: access, quality, relevance of the living-learning experience, and equity for all student success through the comprehensive commitment of all university structures. Simply put, “intentional inclusion” means including groups of people who have been historically excluded and marginalized.
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