Gregory Poku on the Importance of DEI: Inside Higher Ed
Shaya Gregory Poku, the College’s Vice President for Equity & Social Justice, wrote a piece for Inside Higher Ed describing the critical role DEI plays in higher education.
Gregory Poku cites recent attacks on DEI, through both rhetoric and model legislation, as deeply concerning.
DEI calls for greater accountability around experiences of faculty, staff and students alike, and that is a good thing in order to build robust learning communities.
Students are learners, but they are also people. As learners and people, they are impacted by institutions that fail to be identity-conscious and that fail to consider the ways that higher education itself has been shaped by robust histories of discrimination and exclusion.
DEI enriches learning for all, not just students who have been historically marginalized, and the increasing attacks that deny the critical value-add of DEI are missing the point.
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