WGS Statement on Equity, Inclusion & Diversity
WGS Statement on Equity, Inclusion & Diversity
Inclusion, equity, and diversity are fundamental to the WGS mission. Through teaching, research, and programming, we provide a structural framework that is specifically focused on examining and analyzing the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality. WGS values the diversity and inclusion of our students, faculty, and staff members with regard to their backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We seek to embody the belief that not only should we impart critical academic tools, but that we should also serve students by providing community, resources, and emotional support.
In concert with MIT-wide efforts to build a more welcoming, inclusive community at MIT, we emphatically affirm that while the quality of our students’ work is important, their mental and physical health is most important. The mental and physical well-being of our students is essential to their well-rounded and holistic education. Recognizing this, we affirm that we value one another first and foremost as human beings, with all of our distinctive differences. And we believe that, consistent with our individual strengths and abilities, we should help each other sustain the physical and emotional well-being that is vital to our success in learning, inventing, solving problems, thinking boldly, discovering new truths, growing as individuals, mentoring others, and collaborating effectively as team members. The scope of MIT’s mission – bringing knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges – compels us to seek, welcome and join forces with talented people from everywhere, to create a stronger MIT. In pursuit of that mission, we also strive to create a community with equal access and opportunity, where we take care to treat one another with fairness, openness, respect, and kindness.
As part of our long-term commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, we have implemented initiatives such as My Sister’s Keeper, the re:Vision Women Writers Reading Series, and programming that serves and supports underrepresented minority and lgbtq members of the MIT community. We pledge to continue working with the Office of Minority Education, the Institute Community & Equity Office (ICEO), the Office of Multicultural Programs, and student groups, and we pledge to encourage, through our curriculum and our programming, attention to and activism on social and racial justice issues. And although WGS is a program, rather than a department, it pledges to support the hiring of underrepresented faculty members by departments and the recruitment, acceptance, and support of underrepresented minority graduate students. WGS pledges to continue to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion among our students, and our academic and administrative staff members.
For more on well-being, diversity, and inclusion at MIT see the MIT Black Student Union’s Recommendations, and the home page of the ICEO.