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DEI Programming

Drew University Ehinger Center Office # 139 36 Madison Avenue Madison, NJ. 07940

(973) 408-3258

inclusion@drew.edu

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Welcome to DEI Programming

Drew University’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Programming began on November 2018. During the first months of operation, the DEI Programming provided services and programming to about 1/3 of Drew constituents. The DEI Office is known for quality of services, collaborative efforts, educational opportunities, and leadership. It offers expertise, as well as result-driven and collaborative approaches to addressing campus-wide DEI issues and initiatives.

The DEI Programming invests in strategic collaborations across campus to prepare our next generation of leaders –leaders who could develop the skills to re-purpose today’s narrative about human value and how we stratify it; a new generation of leaders who choose to actively confront racism in our society across national and international platforms.– By investing early, with the right tools and following best practices, we could ensure that our rising leaders, strategic problem solvers, and critical thinkers graduate from Drew University prepared for and focused on dismantling the belief in the hierarchy of human value.

Join the DEI Programming by investing in the next generation of leaders to address most dire problems in our communities. If you are interested in participating, volunteering, donating, or supporting in any way, please contact us at inclusion@drew.edu

DEI AT DREW

The DEI Programming leads by influencing people’s perspectives, perceptions, and behaviors about and toward one another. We do so with compassion and empathy with the hope to improve human relationships and to become more effective and productive toward community-based change. At Drew University, we strive to promote more accurate and clear narratives that honor the full complexity of our humanity as we continue to construct a more equitable future. Further, Drew University invests in learning from its diversity to improve and grow as an institution and strengthen our efforts to support the intercultural development of our new generation of leaders.

The DEI Programming leads and promotes education and programming to challenge notions of human hierarchy: generationally-taught beliefs about perceived inferiority or superiority based on race, physical characteristics, or place of origin. Through history, communities have been taught to adopt a value system that recognizes one person over another based on undisputable traits, stereotypes, or irrelevant characteristics rather than on an individual’s qualifications and abilities. We have learned over time that these value-based decisions have a tremendous impact on how we each experience our daily life, whether it is interactions with members of law enforcement, our children attending school, families pursuing housing opportunities, early career professionals applying for jobs, or many more.

At Drew University we strive to create environments in which people can connect at a human level, engage in meaningful dialogue, and problem solve for innovative approaches to addressing today’s challenges. We do so with the purpose of identifying and speaking to inequities in our community (within and beyond Drew University). We believe that these inequities affect everyone in our communities.

VISION AND MISSION

Drew University’s mission is to offer its diverse community of learners a challenging and individualized education shaped by a deep-rooted culture of mentoring, thoughtful engagement with the world beyond its campus, and a steadfast commitment to lifelong cultivation of the whole person. Through its distinctive emphasis on the reciprocity of knowledge, experience, and service, Drew University prepares its students to flourish both personally and professionally as they add to the world’s good by responding to the urgent challenges of our time with rigorous, independent, and imaginative thought.

Per our mission and policies, and because we are committed to welcoming and affirming a diverse community of learners in whom we are investing as the next generation of leaders, it is a priority for Drew University to advance transformational and healing efforts to provide our students –future decision and policy makers, community and family leaders, and educators–with access to necessary tools to dismantle today’s systems of privilege and exclusion and re-design systems that are equitable and inclusive.

We acknowledge that Drew is located in Lenapehoking, the traditional territory of the Lenape people. We offer recognition and respect to Lenape ancestors, peoples today, and the Lenape future to come –across Lenapehoking and the Lenape diaspora. In so doing, we acknowledge Lenape Nation sovereignty and their long-standing presence on this land, which precedes the establishment of Drew University, New Jersey State, and the United States of America. We acknowledge and offer deep gratitude to this Lenape land and water that supports us. We invite all members and guests of the Drew community to join in this acknowledgement, respect, and gratitude.

VISION

A central office that serves as a hub of institutional cultural development to better understand and celebrate Drew University’s value to the community, promoting student thoughtful engagement with the world as global citizens and leaders of change.

MISSION

  • To develop and adopt institutional infrastructures that support and promote equity and inclusion for all Drew University constituents, within and beyond campus
  • To contribute strategic perspective through culture development, education, innovation, and organizational change management best practices