What is CDSJ? Community is defined as a sense of connectedness, pride and responsibility, in which all individuals and groups feel welcomed, included and respected. Such a community holds all of its members accountable for creating and maintaining this climate. Diversity is a commitment to the variety of perspectives that spurs intellectual and creative work and learning, where men and women of diverse racial, social, and economic groups play major roles and, in a spirit of mutual respect, come to understand and appreciate what each brings to the whole. Social Justice is a commitment to equity and fairness in treatment and access to opportunities and resources. This commitment to fairness began with the 1964 Civil Rights Act focusing on issues of race and gender and has evolved over time to include other categories such as religion, sexual orientation and ability. This commitment is already codified in large part by federal and state civil rights laws, which prohibit discriminatory treatment in several categories.

Why CDSJ? Our University must face the challenge of preparing students to live and work in an increasingly diverse world in which cultural knowledge and understanding are more important than ever. We must do more to expose our students and ourselves to a variety of cultures and perspectives so that we are adequately prepared for the future. We must continue to foster a humane University community in which everyone feels welcome, by eliminating disrespect and harassment and by working toward the goal of civility and acceptance of differences. Our vision is of a University community that is purposeful, just, open and honest, where intellectual life is central, where the dignity of all is affirmed, where equality of opportunity is vigorously pursued, where freedom of expression is uncompromisingly protected and civility is powerfully affirmed. We seek and we need a socially-just and diverse University community. The entire workforce is being asked to contribute. We are working to discover peoples understanding of where we are now in regard to CDSJ and where we need to be.

CDSJ will contribute to building a University that has a reputation of being a welcoming and exciting place for a diverse group of people to work, learn, teach and grow!

Goals

• To support the recruitment, development and retention of creative, talented and diverse staff, faculty and students.

• To build a community in which all people and their contributions are acknowledged and valued.

• To foster a climate in which people feel safe to explore and learn about issues of diversity.

• To work with leadership to hold managers and supervisors accountable for fostering and creating socially and culturally diverse workplaces.

• To prepare our students to enter a socially and culturally diverse world by hiring, training, supervising and mentoring a student workforce that can effectively service a socially and culturally diverse community.

• To manage the climate of our classrooms and the ways our courses are organized so that the diversity of students within the classroom is clearly respected and affirmed.

• To develop elements of the curriculum which help students understand the importance of CDSJ and provide them with tools to use in working toward a just and diverse community.

The following are the teams within the schools and colleges that have been formed and have started meeting about CDSJ.

Provost's Area Commonwealth College University Libraries | Report The Graduate School School of Education College of Humanities and Fine Arts | Report

College of Engineering College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics | Report College of Social and Behavioral Sciences | Report College of Natural Resources and the Environment | Report Isenberg School of Management School of Public Health and Health Sciences

© 2004 University of Massachusetts Amherst. Site Policies. This site is maintained by Linda Hillenbrand, Please e-mail me for comments about the site. Comments or inquiries about the reports will be forwarded to the committee.