DEI/Center for Inclusive Excellence

List of 4 items.

• What Is Inclusive Excellence?

  Inclusive excellence as a concept was first introduced by the American Association of Colleges and Universities in 2005 as a methodology for helping colleges and universities realize the benefits of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and their positive impact on institutional quality.
  
  As a framework, inclusive excellence integrates inclusion and belonging efforts into the core of organizational functioning. Applying inclusive excellence concepts leads to infusing diversity practices into a school's recruiting and hiring processes, into the core academic functions, and into administrative structures and procedures. Inclusive excellence denotes that an organization has adopted means for the cohesive, coherent and collaborative integration of inclusion and belonging into the organizational pursuit of excellence.
   
  Such a framework will enable Masters to become recognized as a national leader in our inclusion and belonging efforts defined by an innovative approach to designing a more inclusive curriculum and educational programming, enacting comprehensive recruitment and strategic communication strategies, supporting students, and focusing on continuous assessment.

• The Evolution of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Masters

  An organization’s success depends on inclusive excellence; it is tied directly to how well it values, engages and includes the rich diversity of its community members, including its students, faculty, staff, alumnae/i and friends. In the summer of 2020, The Masters School took significant steps to reaffirm its commitment to being an inclusive community through the creation of A Better Masters — a guiding document intended to prioritize and more rapidly advance the pursuit of diversity, equity and inclusion goals. Some of the progress made over the past two years includes:

   

  • The School committed to diversifying our Board of Trustees to ensure that the voices of its members and the decisions made by the governing body better represent the diversity of our community.
    
    
  • The Admission Office began to explicitly communicate through its interactions and communications with prospective families the School’s commitment to being an inclusive community.
    
    
  • In faculty and staff hiring, data from previous hiring cycles was used to inform modifications to our recruitment process to attract more candidates of color. The School is actively focused on retention efforts to ensure that our colleagues of color thrive in this community.
    
    
  • The School conducted a thorough review of its employee and family handbooks, with a clear emphasis on ensuring that anti-discrimination policies explicitly address acts of racism, bias and discrimination, and clearly articulate appropriate discipline and restorative responses.
    
    
  • Faculty have completed their first cycle of required professional development around issues of racism and other factors impacting equity and inclusion. They will continue this practice in years to come.
    
    
  • The School conducted a curricular review to ensure that content and materials across all disciplines more fully include voices and works from individuals and groups that have been systematically excluded, including content and material that reflects a greater diversity of thought and experience, provides challenging and relevant experiences to all students, and tackles essential contemporary questions of social and racial justice.
    
    
  • The School created a diversity, equity and inclusion task force to monitor progress and make ongoing recommendations to help take steps toward becoming a more inclusive community.

   
  As significant as these accomplishments are, there remain aspects of the School that must be addressed to ensure that Masters truly continues to live up to its mission and values. The evolution of this work requires a paradigm shift that can guide our ongoing efforts beyond the objective of being “an anti-racist school” toward something that more fully embodies what we aspire for the Masters experience to be. The framework of Inclusive Excellence will allow our efforts to go deeper and to de-silo elements of school structure, leading to a richly comprehensive experience that will better prepare students to become powers for good in the world. 

• De-Siloing Current Structures

  In addition to the successful work achieved under A Better Masters, there already exists at the School several programmatic elements apart from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Office that contribute toward the inclusive excellence framework: Ethical Leadership, Wellness, and Purposeful Engagement (MISH).
  
  As with the DEI Office, these programs sit in siloed spaces. Though the intersectionality of the work done in these areas is unquestionable, current structures do not enable these faculty to support each other and develop programming that capitalizes on those connections. 
   
  Ethical Leadership serves to align students’ internal beliefs with their external behavior, guiding them toward being powers for good in an increasingly diverse and interconnected world.
   
  Wellness promotes inclusion as well as self-efficacy and increases students’ sense of being appreciated, respected and celebrated by their peers and by themselves.
  
  

  Purposeful Engagement through Masters Interested in Serving and Helping (MISH) becomes purposeful and reciprocal, and supports the sharing of knowledge and resources between schools and non-academic organizations in ways that affect and enhance collective problem-solving.
   

• A Pathway to Inclusive Excellence

  Guided by the School’s mission, as well as a vision and set of values, The Center for Inclusive Excellence will be responsible for coordinating and monitoring the School’s efforts to institutionalize the culture of DEI, Ethical Leadership, Wellness, and Purposeful Engagement. The Center will collaborate with academic and administrative offices to carry out suggested strategies that empower members of the campus community to achieve their full potential. 
   
  Vision & Values
  The Center will aspire to help create and sustain a community culture that understands that diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging are essential to the School's mission and continued excellence.
   
  Accomplishing the School’s mission requires the community to work collaboratively as guardians of a core set of values that infuse our efforts.
   
  Belonging. At Masters, we create a welcoming and caring community that embraces everyone regardless of their identity or background.
   
  Curiosity. At Masters, we foster a thoughtful environment for learning that champions intellectual agility, inspires creativity, and advances the attainment of knowledge.
   
  Excellence. At Masters, we strive for the extraordinary, recognizing that personal growth and meaningful accomplishment require bold aspirations, courageous risk-taking, and determined effort.
   
  Flourishing. At Masters, we create conditions that allow for every member of the Masters community to thrive, and to empower those who live, learn and work here to make choices toward a healthy and fulfilling life.
   
  Integrity. At Masters, we are equitable, trustworthy and committed to the highest ethical standards and expectations in everything that we do.
  
  

  Respect. At Masters, we treat one another with mutual respect despite our differences and recognize the inherent dignity and value of our individual backgrounds and experiences. 
   
  The work of the Center for Inclusive Excellence will focus on five priorities: 1) Recruitment and Retention; 2) School Climate and Culture; 3) Academic Excellence; 4) School Infrastructure and 5) Purposeful Engagement. Associated with each of these priorities are goals specific to that area that serve the educational mission of the School and align with the vision and values of the Center.
   
  Recruitment and Retention
  Goal: Achieve and maintain a more diverse and inclusive student and professional population.
   
  School Climate and Culture
  Goal: Create and sustain a community environment that acknowledges and celebrates diversity in all its forms and utilizes inclusive and restorative practices in its operations.
   
  Academic Excellence
  Goal: Engage students, faculty, staff and the wider community in learning about varied perspectives and experiences through a domestic and global lens.
   
  School Infrastructure
  Goal: Create and sustain an institutional infrastructure that effectively supports the progress and growth of the inclusive excellence goals as aligned with the School’s mission.
   
  Purposeful Engagement
  Goal: Engage community and global partners in collaborative efforts to provide education, resources and opportunities that broaden the impact of inclusive excellence initiatives.