Diversity & Social Justice Council

Mission Statement

The mission of the Diversity and Social Justice Council is to support and monitor the University's evolution towards inclusive excellence through the promotion of coherence, cohesion, and collaboration of diversity initiatives and institutional structures within and across organizational systems at Eastern Connecticut State University.

Diversity Statement

Eastern Connecticut State University values the diversity of its students, faculty, and staff. Differences in race, ethnicity, national origin, class, religion, learning styles, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, ideology, and other aspects of human variation and characterization, including but not limited to those protected by law and CSU and Eastern policies, enrich the educational experiences and social and intellectual development of students and create a rich cultural environment. Eastern is committed to ensuring that regardless of their differences, all members of the Eastern community are challenged to achieve their full potential and are supported in their pursuit of that goal.

Sub-Committees

Each sub-committee will charged with the development of an action plan based on, but not limited, to the sub-committee definitions outline in the comprehensive diversity plan.

• Campus Climate Sub-CommitteeCreating a welcoming campus environment enriches campus life and individuals to reach their potential. In the fall of 2007 President Núñez requested that the DRJ Committee administer a campus climate survey to the entire university community (students, faculty and staff) in order to assess perceptions about the existing campus climate. This was the first time that such an extensive survey had been administered at Eastern. A campus climate survey was developed by the Diversity Race and Justice (DRJ) Committee in the spring of 2008 and was administered in the spring and fall of 2008. The purpose of the survey was to provide baseline data about the perceptions of the university campus climate by different segments of our population. A major benefit of doing such a survey is that the data can be used to help us institutionalize the university core value of "inclusion". The Campus climate sub-committee is charged with the continued monitoring and redistribution of this survey.
• Institutional Viability
  The institutional Viability sub-committee is concern with issues of admission and retention among students, faculty, and staff who make up Eastern Connecticut State University Community for the purpose of maintaining diverse community. This sub-committee will focus on such things as accessibility by various populations to aspects of the university community; student admissions, student major selection and success, student persistence, retention, and graduation hiring, departmental compositions, promotion and tenure. The institutional viability data (admissions, hiring, recruitment, promotion and retention) is essential for assessing diversity initiatives and progress over time.
• Academic Programming
  The academic programming sub-committee will focus on the academic departments for the purpose of facilitating the development of opportunities for interdepartmental collaborations as well as individual departmental initiatives that support the diversity mission and support the distribution of information regarding best practices among academic departments.
• Institutional Programming
  The Institutional programming sub-committee will focus on the non-academic departments (such as student affairs, support staff, etc.) for the purpose of facilitating the development of opportunities for interdepartmental collaborations as well as individual departmental initiatives that support the diversity mission and support the distribution of information regarding best practices among non-academic departments.