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At Pomona College a central part of our
educational mission is to foster leaders by developing their
power to analyze conditions and creatively imagine new ones.
We seek to prepare our students for successful lives of
creative leadership in a world that requires increasing
understanding of and ability to work with men and women of
all nationalities, races, religions, socioeconomic status,
lifestyles, sexual orientations, physical abilities, and
political persuasions. This requires that our students
experience and address both the common intellectual
traditions and challenges that bind people of varied
backgrounds, and the different perspectives these people
bring to every discipline in the liberal arts.
It is essential, therefore, that our students are exposed to
the most diverse experiences possible - in the curricula
they select, the faculty who teach them, and the friends and
classmates they encounter. This is an educational benefit
that serves our entire academic community and helps prepare
all of our students to develop informed, constructive,
leadership roles in the world.
We recognize that there is no single definition of a
satisfactorily "diverse" campus or curriculum, and that the
strategies needed to advance diversity change with time and
external circumstances. Likewise, we understand that in a
small college that admits fewer than 400 students each year
and hires only a handful of new faculty and staff each year,
it is impossible to satisfy all needs at all times.
Nevertheless, by acknowledging diversity as an institutional
value that is crucial to the education of our students, we
are committing ourselves to work diligently and continually
toward the goal of making this as diverse a campus as
possible. To that end the College should:
- Make special efforts to recruit faculty, staff, and
students from historically underrepresented racial and
ethnic groups that have experienced prejudice and
disadvantage.
- Assure that the faculty, staff, and student
populations include people from varied socio-economic
backgrounds.
- Maintain and continue efforts to achieve gender
balance in our student body, faculty, and staff.
- Provide programs (including curricula) and support
systems to assure that all members of the community are
welcome and successful in their roles at the college. This
requires that unconditional respect be afforded all
members of the community in all aspects of their lives
here.
Since the programs required to achieve diversity may well
change over time in response to changing circumstances, it
is essential that the college have mechanisms for continual
assessment of these needs and for adjustment of its
strategies as circumstances require. While it may be
tactically expedient from time to time to set numerical
goals or launch special curricular or recruitment efforts to
correct perceived inadequacies, our intent is for such
tactics to be focused, temporary, and within the law.
The larger goal - of creating a dynamically diverse
community through continuous assessment, dialogue, and
change - requires that we remind ourselves repeatedly of our
overall purpose. That purpose is the education and
preparation of students for future lives in a diverse and
ever-changing world. |
