Student Affairs Diversity Statement

The Division of Student Affairs offers programs and services designed to support and enrich all aspects of student life at the University of Maryland. Our fifteen departments, comprised of a diverse and dedicated staff, are organized around a common educational mission: maximizing the potential of students by cultivating their personal, social and intellectual development. Our primary goal is to prepare students for the realities of living and thriving in an increasingly diverse global society by integrating in and out-of-classroom learning experiences and helping students build their capacities as leaders and citizens. We are committed to creating a campus climate that affirms the value of diversity and multiculturalism.

Diversity Defined

Diversity is more than a description of demographics, an element of the social climate, or an appreciated value. Diversity is a defining feature of our University and democratic society. It requires acknowledging and understanding the multifaceted, evolving nature of the human experience and the historically rooted societal structures and practices that shape such an experience. Diversity arises from the broad range of intersecting social identities present in our community including, but going beyond, race and ethnicity, age, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion and spirituality, national origin, ability/disability status, social/economic class and life experience. Diversity also encompasses group identity and membership and the vital sub-communities that exist within the whole of the University community.

How We Engage Students in Diversity

We promote students’ motivated engagement with others across differences in identity. We do so with the premise that the college years, unlike any period in their lives, will present our students with the most direct and frequent contact with others of varied identities. These interactions occur in our living areas, dining venues, classrooms, social and recreational activities, student organizations, and in student employment teams.

We provide constructive intercultural experiences that are available to and affirming of all invested students. We promote not just cordial coexistence but go further in fostering encounters that include deliberative dialogue experiences, leadership retreats, and training programs in which diverse groups of students collaborate on real life dilemmas and learn about each other’s perspectives and identities.

We offer, through distinct campus agencies, learning experiences for students in sub-communities of identity. These agencies engage directly with students, provide support for them, and facilitate their development through targeted programs and services designed to enable students to imagine their own futures and develop tools and experiential repertoires that maximize their individual potentials.

We concentrate on students’ education through leadership development. We promote an understanding of leadership that values diversity, fairness, social responsibility, and individual accountability for issues of equity and inclusion. This approach to leadership is accomplished through advising student governance organizations and other leadership bodies, providing a variety of training programs to students and student employees, and offering a range of credit and non-credit interdisciplinary courses. These programs teach about leadership skills and concepts that enable young leaders to create a foundation for capable leadership in a diverse society.

We encourage an active engagement in one’s own learning about diversity to help students articulate what they have learned and provide a frame of reference for a life-long process of learning about diversity and issues of equity. We assist students in ways that foster personal reflection on their learning about diversity, and enable students to describe their cumulative learning about identity and intercultural skills. This in-depth understanding and the ability to articulate what they have learned will be critical to students’ success in the job search process and in the world of work. This is an on-going process and must not end with the college years. One’s commitment to diversity is defined by life-long investment in habitual engagement with others, self-reflection, flexible and critical thinking, and the practice of well-developed communication skills that enable mutual understanding and collaboration.

What Students Should Learn from Our Diversity Programs and Services

Diversity challenges us beyond our comfort zones to consider the experiences of those whose perspectives may be profoundly different from our own. Learning amidst a climate of inclusiveness and acceptance is a right not a privilege and establishes a foundation for greater understanding, openness, and equity. The opportunities we provide for cross-cultural interactions, which enable transforming educational, interpersonal, emotional and spiritual change, are designed to promote the development of capacities for:

• Developing empathy for the experiences and feelings of others.
• Engaging in critical self-reflection to broaden awareness and challenge assumptions, stereotypes, and personal biases.
• Respecting individual differences.
• Using complex and critical thinking to inform decision-making.
• Practicing listening and speaking skills to enhance cross-cultural communication and understanding.
• Establishing relationships with others in the interest of fostering understanding and collaboration.
• Seeking opportunities for common ground as well as accommodating and understanding irreconcilable sentiments and positions.
• We recognize the importance of these capacities for students as well as for our own continuing development as professionals who work, teach and serve in a diverse community.

Principles That Guide Our Work with Diversity as Staff Members

The following principles guide our work with students and fellow staff in the Division of Student Affairs. We express and model these principles in our work with students, in the interest of their inclusion and learning about diversity. With fellow staff, our observance of these principles supports a constructive and inclusive organizational climate, and serves our goals in the recruitment and retention of a diverse and collaborative professional staff.

Equity is a priority for the Division. We insure that our programs, processes and administrative actions are fair and unbiased. We welcome students’ appraisals of our actions and give careful proactive consideration to the implications and symbolism of our decisions.

Our efforts at diversification harness the strengths brought by many voices and perspectives and infuse them in our work and our students’ educational experiences.

We embrace inclusion knowing that our conduct must support the sense of rightful place of any member of our community.

Our encounters with others are characterized by authenticity. We display candor, care and genuine regard, conducting our person to person interactions in a manner that demonstrates integrity and fosters trust amidst a climate of safety and respect.

We engage each other with sincere receptivity, listening closely and with care to sentiments, perceptions, initiatives and suggestions. We seek first to understand, placing ourselves in the position and views of those with whom we engage.

Commitment to diversity and multiculturalism is apparent in all we do. We take the high road with students and fellow staff, working optimistically toward the best outcomes and solutions when faced with conflicting needs and perspectives. Our commitment demonstrates our faith in candor, collaboration, positive change over time, and the promise offered by the strengths of diversity.