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What does the Faculty of Arts Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) committee do?
Our mission is to encourage a culture of respect, equity, and inclusion within the Faculty of Arts at Mount Royal University. We aim to support and empower all members of our community, including faculty, staff, students, and stakeholders, by creating an environment that embraces diversity and recognizes the unique experiences and perspectives that each individual brings. The committee supports and provides educational opportunities, resources, and programming that promote understanding and awareness of issues related to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Check here to learn about our latest events.
Who can join the Faculty of Arts EDI committee?
The committee is formed by one faculty member from each department in the Faculty of Arts, elected by their departments, and one student representative (elected by Arts student representatives). Faculty members can serve for two-year terms, and students are elected for one-year terms.
Who do I talk to if I am a Faculty of Arts community member (student, faculty, staff) who has concerns related to EDI?
You can access the Office of Safe Disclosure. The office provides a range of services related to equity, human rights, discrimination and other safe disclosure concerns. Students, staff, faculty and all other members of the Mount Royal community are all welcome to access these services.There are also several great resources available - please see the “ADD LINK” of our webpage.
I would like to learn more about EDI. Where can I find information?
The MRU EDI office has a list of readings and other resources available to all. Check them out here.
I would like to contribute to making the Faculty of Arts a more inclusive place. What can I do?
There are several community initiatives that anyone can participate in and contribute to that relate to EDI. Many events are organized throughout the year, and will be advertised on our website. The MRU EDI office also posts events here. If you are a student in Psychology, consider joining the Psych EDI committee.2SLGBTQIA+
This acronym stands for: Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer (or Questioning), Intersex, Asexual. The plus sign (+) represents all the different, new and growing ways that people might identify with, as well as the ways that we continually expand our understanding of sexual and gender diversity.
Ableism
Ableism is a systemic and structural form of oppression that stems from the attitude and belief that disabled people are inferior. It underpins individual discrimination and systemic barriers and inequities against people with disabilities. Ableist beliefs include the fear of becoming disabled, as well as the fear of disabled people. It engenders the erasure and invisibility of disabled people, which leads to inaccessible places, processes, and groups.
Anti-racism
The active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies, practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably.
Conflict engagement
Conflict engagement is broad umbrella terms that includes the skills, tools, and processes associated with alternative or adaptable conflict resolution, conflict management, and conflict transformation.
Conflict literacy
Conflict literacy is a measure of the capacity to engage with conflict productively and creatively, and to help others do the same.
Conflict fluency
Conflict fluency builds on conflict literacy and is an increasingly relevant leadership competency, comprising a set of basic knowledge and skills that allow individuals to identify, work through, and de-escalate conflict as it naturally emerges in the context of their life and work.
Disability
Disability is a complex phenomenon, reflecting an interaction between features of a person’s body and mind and features of the society in which they live. Because of its complexity, there is no single, harmonized “operational” definition of disability.
A disability can occur at any time in a person’s life; some people are born with a disability, while others develop a disability later in life. It can be permanent, temporary or episodic. Disability can be a sense of identity, community, and pride.
Diverse Groups / Diverse Students / Diverse Populations
The entire collective that represents the full array of characteristics present within a group of people.
Diversity
Differences in the social identities and lived experiences and perspectives of people that may include race, ethnicity, colour, ancestry, place of origin, political belief, religion, marital status, family status, physical disability, mental disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, class, and/or socio-economic situations.
EDI
An acronym for equity, diversity and inclusion.
EDI competencies
The attitudes, knowledges, and skills that demonstrate levels of competency (e.g., literacy, fluency, proficiency) to advance equitable, diverse, and inclusive environments.
Equity / Equitable
Equity refers to achieving parity in policy, process and outcomes for historically, persistently, or systemically marginalized people and groups while accounting for diversity. It considers power, access, opportunities, treatment, impacts and outcomes, in three main areas:
- Representational equity: the proportional participation at all levels of an institution;
- Resource equity: the distribution of resources in order to close equity gaps; and
- Equity-mindedness: the demonstration of an awareness of, and willingness to, address equity issues.
Inclusion
Inclusion is an active, intentional, and continuous process to address inequities in power and privilege, and to build a respectful and diverse community that ensures welcoming spaces and opportunities to flourish for all.
Indigenous
The term ‘Indigenous’ encompasses First Nations, Métis and Inuit people, either collectively or separately, and is a preferred term in international usage.
Marginalization/Marginalized
A social process by which individuals or groups are (intentionally or unintentionally) distanced from access to power and resources and constructed as insignificant, peripheral, or less valuable/privileged to a community or “mainstream” society. The term ‘minoritized’ is also used to connote the same meaning.
Racialized people
Members of racialized groups are persons who do not identify as primarily white in race, ethnicity, origin, and/or colour, regardless of their birthplace or citizenship.
Transgender and Non-Binary (TGNB)
This expression refers to the diverse communities of people whose gender is different from the gender that they were assigned at birth. This phrase attempts to capture a shared experience with, and relationship to, gender, rather than specific identities; people may use many different words to describe their gender identity.
Underrepresented
Individuals or groups with insufficient or inadequate representation in various aspects of life, often determined when compared to their proportional representation in society or labour market availability.
Ability, Disability, and Ableism
Being Heumann, by Judith Heumann (2020)
Between Myself and Them, by Carol Krause (2005)
A Disability History of the United States, by Kim E. Nielsen (2012)
Exile and Pride, by Eli Claire (2015)
Native American Communities on Health and Disability, by Lavonna L. Lovern and Carol Locust (2013)
Race, Ethnicity and Racism
An African American and Latinx History of the United States, by Paul Ortiz (2018)
Algorithms of Oppression, by Safiya Umoja Noble (2018) Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)
Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson (2020)
Come Hell or High Water, by Michael Eric Dyson (2007)
Enrique’s Journey, by Sonia Nazario (2013)
The Half Has Never Been Told, by Edward E. Baptist (2014)
Intellectuals and Race, by Thomas Sowell (2013)
Sex, Gender, Gender Identity and Gender Discrimination
Bad Feminist, by Roxanne Gay (2014)
The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America, by Sarah Deer (2015)
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower, by Brittney Cooper (2018)
Excluded, by Julia Serano (2013)
Feminism is for Everybody, by bell hooks (2000)
Full Frontal Feminism, by Jessica Valenti (2014)
In Good Relation: History, Gender, and Kinship in Indigenous Feminisms, edited by Sarah Nickel and Amanda Fehr (2020)
Living a Feminist Life, by Sara Ahmed (2017)
Men Explain Things to Me, by Rebecca Solnit (2014)
Missoula, by Jon Krakauer (2016)