Diversity
At the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, we believe that the richness of our activities and the strength of our community require participation of individuals that bring diverse viewpoints and experiences, and that we can best promote excellence by recruiting and retaining diverse voices. Therefore, we welcome individuals of all races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and physical abilities to our programs. We strive to provide a supportive environment for all students, faculty, and staff by creating a climate of respect that is supportive of everyone’s success, and that incorporates each individual’s unique experiences. This climate for diversity, inclusion and excellence is critical to attaining the best research, scholarship, teaching, and other strategic goals of the Department.
Equity
We firmly believe that our collective practices and community are only strong if all members of the Department are treated equitably. Thus, we seek to actively identify, examine, and decenter activities that have disproportionately excluded, subjugated, oppressed, and /or invalidated BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and other historically marginalized community members. We strive to amplify these voices to correct structural inequity in our departmental activities, including seminars, panels, recruitment efforts, etc. as we understand that diverse voices bring creative solutions to the most pressing problems in Public Health.
Inclusion
We prioritize a safe working environment for all. Thus, we pledge to uphold a safe, respectful, and supportive space for all voices in our classrooms, our departmental and program activities, and our hiring and programming practices. To this end, we welcome and rely on honest feedback and open dialogue from our students, faculty, and staff to ensure justice for historically silenced voices. We also encourage a climate of respect for all members of our community, by supporting their physical, emotional, and mental safety and wellbeing. We acknowledge the additional physical, mental, and emotional burden of oppression that our BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, neurodiverse, and disabled community members experience, and we pledge to ensure that everyone in the Department has agency over their own personal wellbeing.
