Preparing your Equity and Inclusion Statement

From the Pomona College Faculty Handbook, 2022-2023 (pp. 175-176): “In 1993, addressing student and faculty concerns about the need for greater diversity in the College’s curriculum, admissions, faculty, staff, and administrative hiring, the faculty passed the following resolution, declaring: ‘Increased ethnic diversity among the faculty would enable Pomona College to pursue its educational mission more effectively, and additional efforts to achieve diversity are warranted.’ In 2004, the faculty reaffirms this resolution and rededicates itself to seeking excellence and diversity in all searches at the College.”

One of the most critical components of your application dossier is your Equity and Inclusion Statement. The Equity and Inclusion Statement is an opportunity to share with the search committee and with the department your values, commitments, and abilities to contribute to Pomona’s educational mission. Should you become a faculty member, the statement can also serve as a “first record” of your journey with DEI as an instructor, researcher, mentor, and community member.

The statement should emphasize your knowledge about the sources of inequalities in higher education, especially at historically white institutions such as Pomona College, and your track record and success in mentoring, teaching, and engaging with under-represented/marginalized groups on and beyond campus. Finally, you can use the statement to explain how your experiences and skills with teaching, mentoring, and advising through a diversity, equity, and inclusive framework align with or challenge Pomona’s DEI values and will contribute to growing inclusive excellence across the campus, from curricular to the co-curricular to residential life.

For more information about Pomona College:

1. Pomona College Facts at a Glance
2. Lighting the Path: A Vision for Diversity
3. Pomona College Institute for Inclusive Excellence
4. The Strategic Vision for Pomona College
5. Global Pomona Project

Please feel free to use any of the questions below (or a combination of them) to help focus writing your statement. Your statement may or may not address all of these questions and you are certainly welcome to mention anything you think missing in this invitation to reflect on your teaching, research, and advising.

If you have any additional questions, please contact Associate Dean April Mayes (april.mayes@pomona.edu) for further assistance.

Getting Started

A good place to start thinking about your approach to equity and inclusion in the academy may be to reflect on your values, motivations, and aspirations, including the ways in which your journey to this point has been influenced by family, mentors, instructors, staff members, and other scholars. This first step might help clarify what diversity, equity, and inclusion means to you, given your life history and professional experiences, and the frames of reference you have used to develop strategies in your teaching, research, service, and advising that contributed to DEI.

Some Prompts

Teaching

• Based on research conducted among Pomona faculty, the Institute for Inclusive Excellence (IIE) developed a working (and dynamic) definition of inclusive teaching: “Inclusive teaching builds community, teaches critical content, connects to students’ lives and interests, is accessible to all students, and cares for the whole student.” Provide a reflection about this statement.
• Describe how diversity, equity, inclusion, and access inform how you will craft assignments, class requirements, the structure of your syllabi, the design of your learning management sites (Blackboard, Canvas, etc.), and student participation in your classes. What do you do as an instructor to consider DEI in the development of your courses?
• How do you consider positionality and power within the classroom and/or within your discipline? Do you include the research not produced within the U.S. academy and/or indigenous methodologies and knowledge systems?

Research

• Has your research involved collaboration with diverse groups of colleagues and/or interface with community-based partners? What did you gain from that experience and how did it inform your scholarship?
• Does your research address diversity, equity, and inclusion? How so? Does your scholarship focus on any marginalized group? If so, describe the interpersonal and professional dynamics you have addressed conducting this kind of research. Do you anticipate sharing your insights in the classroom? With colleagues?
• How does your research address the key assumptions of your discipline? Do you include knowledge produced outside the U.S. or European academies in your work?

Advising and Mentoring a Diverse Student Body

• Have you advised students and/or served as a mentor for student organizations who are from marginalized groups or who have little representation on their campuses? How did you approach this work and what did you learn from the experience? Do these lessons from advising inform your teaching or research in any way?
• What is your plan for helping recruit and retain students in your discipline? How will you encourage first-generation students, for example, to become involved in your field/discipline, in international study or domestic exchange?
• Discuss your experience working with international students.