Inclusivity and Diversity

As an academic, researcher, and instructor, I acknowledge that:

  1. It is my responsibility to ensure an inclusive and safe environment for my colleagues, students, and mentees, regardless of age, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, race, religion, immigration status, citizenship status, or other backgrounds different from my own.

  2. The system of education was built in a sphere of cis-hetero White normativity and traditional settings of learning may present biases and difficulties who do not fit within that sphere.

  3. Everyone deserves a space to be curious, to be vulnerably, to learn, and to grow.

Within the College of Public Health and Humans Sciences I strive to create an affirming climate for all students including underrepresented and marginalized individuals and groups. I do a number of things to create and be respectful of this climate:

  1. I prioritize growth, effort, and creativity over achievement alone.

  2. I engage in relationships as people first, across hierarchical differences, while also acknowledging power dynamics.

  3. I acknowledge that my students come from a number of different backgrounds and are diverse!

  4. I include a number of materials from researchers of different backgrounds and ensure that the material presented is respectful of the CPHHS mission.

  5. As I continue to learn and grow as an educator, I ask my students to be be patient with me and to speak up if I do or say something that may be offensive or concerning.

  6. I encourage everyone, students and mentees, to bring the entirety of their experience into the lab or learning space. We are all learners in some way, none of us knows everything nor is perfect, and everyone has a unique experience and expertise to share.

  7. I actively work to prevent shame, including feelings of inadequacy related to academics (e.g., statistics, theories, academic culture), by engaging in mutual vulnerability, voicing when we feel guilt, shame, or do not understand something, and providing scaffolding to one another rather than assuming previous knowledge.

I have done the following training in order to learn how best to teach in a way that includes and celebrates diversity:

  • Advancing Age Inclusivity in Psychology: A Virtual Teaching Workshop: August 20, 2021.

  • Engaged in a weekly sharing space to learn and grow with other researchers. This sharing space has provided an opportunity to learn about oppression in an academic setting and ways in which to avoid and dismantle this oppression and check underlying biases.