About DMA
Diversity and Multicultural Affairs is an administrative unit in the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor. Our mission at Carolina is to help build an inclusive and equitable campus community. To accomplish this, we provide programs, consultations research and resources that promote a climate of mutual respect and cooperation for all members of the campus community.
Our Vision
To build and sustain an inclusive campus community that values and respects all members of the University community
Our Mission
Our mission is to provide university-wide leadership in developing and implementing initiatives that promote access to and diversity within our student, faculty and staff communities. We provide leadership, consultation and project management of policies, programs and services that promote diversity as a means of achieving educational excellence and enhancing the quality of life for all members of the University community.
Our Commitment to Diversity
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill understands that diversity is a critical element of Carolina's pursuit of academic excellence, and has a strong commitment to creating a diverse, inclusive community.
Carolina’s Diversity Plan
Beginning in 2005, UNC-Chapel Hill increased research and reporting to focus on the state of diversity at the University. Diversity and Multicultural Affairs has led a process that will help shape the state of diversity at UNC now and in the future.
Our Framework for Understanding Diversity at UNC
The University of North Carolina in the 21st century functions in a global context. The historical, political, economic, and educational contexts of the University, the state, and the nation shape our present circumstances and inform the measures we must take to accomplish our highest aspirations of excellence. We acknowledge that we face an ongoing challenge to overcome the effects of the continuing influences of adverse historical, social, political, and economic factors. The University engages in teaching, research, and service to expand and discover knowledge, promote educational enlightenment, inculcate intellectual rigor, and improve understanding with the ultimate end of uplifting humankind. Education takes place most productively among persons with differing social backgrounds, economic circumstances, personal characteristics, philosophical outlooks, life experiences, perspectives, beliefs, expectations, and aspirations. The University works to assure that we have a complement of students, faculty, and staff that broadly reflects the ways in which people differ. We speak of these differences as representing “diversity.”
Core Values With Respect to Diversity
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as an educational institution, must be committed to the following core values with respect to diversity:
- The University supports intellectual freedom, promotes personal integrity and justice, and pursues values that foster enlightened leadership devoted to improving the conditions of human life in the state, the nation, and the world.
- The University believes that it can achieve its educational, research, and service mission only by creating and sustaining an environment in which students, faculty, and staff represent diversity, for example, of social backgrounds, economic circumstances, personal characteristics, philosophical outlooks, life experiences, perspectives, beliefs, expectations, and aspirations, to mention some salient factors.
- The University will achieve and maintain diversity on the campus through the admission of students and employment of faculty and staff who broadly reflect the ways in which we differ.
- The University promotes intellectual growth and derives the educational benefits of diversity by creating opportunities for intense dialogue and rigorous analysis and by fostering mutually beneficial interactions among members of the community.
- The University provides an environment that values and respects civility and cordiality of discourse in order that all members of a diverse community feel welcomed and feel free to express their ideas without fear of reprisal.
Student Recruitment, Outreach and Multicultural Programs
As part of our unit's mission, the recruitment and retention of a diverse student body is a critical component. UNC-Chapel Hill offers some of the most innovative and emultated student outreach and recruitment programs in the country. Once part of our community, students are given opportunities to be involved in a wide range of cultural, scholarship and leadership programs. Students that become involved in our on-campus programs have opportunities for interaction and cross-group learning and develop skills that will last them a lifetime.
Diversity Education, Research and Assessment
To comply with the vision of an informed and equitable campus, Diversity and Multicultural Affairs offers consultation, classes, seminars, and programs providing education and information on diversity. Campus and community members are invited to explore their own ideas about diversity and to hear the ideas of others during presentations, films, forums, workshops and other events. Diversity and Multicultural Affairs also conducts research and provides reports on the state of diversity at Carolina.
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