25.10.20
This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Learn more

EQUITY + INCLUSION - Center for Social Justice

Equity + Inclusion - Demonstrate the awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills required to equitably engage and include people from different cultures and backgrounds. Engage in anti-oppressive practices that actively challenge the systems, structures, and policies of racism and inequity. (NACE Competencies for a Career-Ready Workforce)

Community Scholars Program

The mission is to “awaken the teacher within so that our students will become life-long learners” and to “educate morally sensitive leaders for future generations.” Each year, the Center for Social Justice (CSJ) selects a new cohort of students to participate in this four-year, service-based scholarship program. The engagement with the Richmond, Indiana local community partners and faculty and staff on campus affords the students the opportunity to develop personally, professionally and academically. CSJ encourages students to connect their engagement with multiple areas of study in order to integrate experiential, curricular and co-curricular learning in their development. Throughout their four years, students will add tools to their toolbox, acquire hard and soft skills and be prepared for a career after college.

Skills / Knowledge

  • Show Curiosity
  • Incorporate Diverse Perspectives
  • Recognize and Challenge Bias
  • Exhibit Flexibility

Earning Criteria

Required

skill

To earn the equity + inclusion micro-credential, students must demonstrate proficiency in the following areas (Education Design Lab Durable Skills Sub-Competencies):

Show Curiosity - Individuals demonstrate cognitive and affective openness to and interest in change and difference.

  • Demonstrates a desire to learn

  • Generates ideas that represent unconventional ways of thinking about a problem

  • Demonstrates openness to new experiences, approaches, and/or relationships

  • Probes deeply, asking relevant questions and exploring responses

Incorporate Diverse Perspectives - Enlarge the conversation; challenge their own thinking; and maximize group effectiveness.

  • Recognizes diverse perspectives as an asset

  • Identifies multiple diverse perspectives

  • Avoids stereotyped assumptions

  • Identifies concrete steps for creating a productive working environment

  • Identifies concrete steps for encouraging candid and open discussion

  • Demonstrates importance of business priorities

Recognize + Challenge Bias - Reject “othering”; work effectively in multicultural settings; and avoid ethnocentrism.

  • Observes without judging

  • Identifies potential issues from other’s perspective

  • Identifies three specific ideas using the “platinum rule”

  • Avoids Ethnocentrism

  • Shows perspective

  • Identifies the experience of “othering”

  • Demonstrates thoughtfulness and insight

  • Observes without judging

Exhibit Flexibility - Adapt and adjust to new and changing situations.

  • Chooses and explains a reasonable option

  • Chooses and explains an option that leaves opportunities open

  • Chooses and explains option based on reality of situation

  • Chooses and explains option that incorporates new information

  • Chooses and explains option based on personal preference and evolving understanding of situation

knowledge

Equity + Inclusion Rubric: This rubric assesses students' ability to equitably engage with diverse individuals and challenge inequitable practices. It focuses on demonstrating curiosity, incorporating diverse perspectives, recognizing and challenging bias, and exhibiting flexibility.

For specific Learner/Earner results click on their assessment for this skills below.

Optional

experience

Community Scholars Reflection model

  • Students were tasked to answer the following 4 questions fully in whatever style of reflection they choose.

    • Community Scholars - Reflection Questions
      (Assessing the Equity & Inclusion as part of this reflection)

      • What have you learned about a community, culture, or perspective that you didn’t
        know before participating in this program?

      • Describe a time when someone’s perspective challenged your own. How did you
        respond, and what did you take away from the experience?

      • How have you challenged bias—your own or others’—during your time in the
        program?

      • How have you adapted to working with people who think, communicate, or
        operate differently than you

  • If students decided to do a creative method (a) photo collage, (b) photo 'story' with captions answering questions, (c) art, (d) poetry, (e) audio recording of yourself), they were sure to still address and answer each of the questions with at least a few sentences each.

  • For students who choose to write their reflection, they were to keep these to 2 pages double spaced, no more than 3 pages max.