Contact Us
Contact:
Rebecca Coughlin
Director, SIS Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives
Historically Underrepresented Groups
SIS defines 鈥渉istorically underrepresented groups鈥 to include people who have been denied access or suffered institutional discrimination in the United States. This includes racialized groups(e.g., African-American, Black, Hispanic, Latinx, Asian-American, and Native American populations), people from low-income families, first-generation college graduates, women (especially in leadership), LGBTQ+ identifying people,听people with disabilities, and people in religious groups who have suffered discrimination.
SIS Voices
SIS Values at Work in the World
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the heart of our work at the School of International Service. Varied perspectives help generate better ideas to solve the complex challenges of today鈥檚 world. For the next generation of leaders, an inclusive approach to diversity will be a pathway to greater creativity, deeper self-learning, transnational cooperation, and enhanced capacity for collective impact. As a top-ten school of international affairs, we have both an opportunity and a responsibility to practice these values in everything we do. SIS embraces our responsibility to prepare students for these leadership roles in the service of the world.
Achieving our goals requires an unwavering commitment to challenge and dismantle racism and other structural obstacles that disproportionately impact historically underrepresented groups in higher education and the professional field of international affairs.
SIS commits to increasing diversity, fostering inclusion, and promoting equity, through the following actions:
- fostering a climate of understanding and support to enable an inclusive SIS community
- actively listening to, learning from, and reflecting on diverse contributions and experiences of our local and global communities
- recruiting students, staff, faculty, and administrators from historically underrepresented groups by finding talent in communities that have often been left out鈥攊ncluding by creating strategic partnerships and pipelines
- enriching course curricula and scholarship to broaden representation of voices and viewpoints and move beyond overreliance on white, male, Western sources that have historically dominated the field
- increasing the use of inclusive pedagogical approaches in the classroom鈥攚hich integrate historically underrepresented scholars, methods, and topics鈥攖o better serve all students
- advancing knowledge that values marginalized methods and topics to broaden the field and its audience while creating space to amplify works of historically underrepresented scholars
- preparing students to practice inclusion and empathy across difference in their careers and lives
- training all students, staff, faculty, and administrators to engage with a wide variety of people, ideas, cultures, and traditions
- using our social capital to expand professional and educational pathways for students from historically underrepresented groups
- expanding financial and other resources designated for making student access to academic, experiential, and professional development opportunities more equitable 听
- offering programs and events to highlight both diverse topics that often have been excluded from discourse as well as structural inequities that inhibit the field of international affairs
Mission, Vision, and Values
The Advisory Council鈥檚 mission is to assist the school in building an increasingly diverse and inclusive听community, culture, and curriculum. We envision an SIS community that embodies and cultivates an听inclusive and antiracist pedagogy听across all programs and student levels as well as an antiracist approach听to our planning and programming.
We believe that the values of intercultural听competence and inclusive听excellence are critical not only to fulfilling our mission听of educating and preparing students to wage peace听and serve humanity but also听to our collegial interactions that model navigating difference with respect and听empathy.
We will continue to work toward a community where students, faculty,听and staff are empowered听to risk honesty and express themselves freely in a听supportive environment that fosters curiosity and self-awareness while valuing听difference. With a commitment to equity, we will build a community where听everyone feels welcome and thrives.
Current Members of the Advisory Council
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Co-Chairs
- Rebecca Coughlin
- Steve Silvia
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Faculty
- Horace Bartilow
- Susanna Campbell
- Maria de Jesus
- Angela Pashayan
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Staff
- Kay Agoston
- Alison Corbett
- Matt Kaulius
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Students
- Adam Ropizar (graduate student)
- Keightley Dudgeon (graduate student)
- Nadine Awad (undergraduate student)
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Asst. Dean
- Rachel Robinson (ex officio)
Mainstreaming Disability and Inclusion
Julius Ogayo, SIS/MA 鈥24
Disability is a club open for membership at any time.
It is essential to familiarize ourselves with what disability membership entails by actively promoting disability mainstreaming across all areas of human development, particularly in international development. This proactive approach ensures inclusivity and understanding and creates a more universally accessible and supportive society.