Statement on Diversity

"Have you enlarged your knowledge of obligations and your capacity to perform them?” asked Trustee Owen D. Young of the class of 1931. This question still motivates Laurentians today. It consistently challenges us to ensure that we expand our capacity to learn from one another as we prepare students to become responsible members of our interconnected and thus interdependent global community. Today, we also ask, “what will hold our diverse and inclusive community together?” While respecting and valuing individuals as our founders desired, as a community of learners, Laurentians will seek to find common ground or, at least, strive together to understand our differences. We believe that students, faculty and staff from a variety of backgrounds, experiences, identities and heritages, when working together, are more likely to produce the leaders our society needs. We believe that St. Lawrence University must work to create an environment that thrives on the diversity individuals bring to this community of learners. We understand that what will hold our diverse and inclusive community together is our clear commitment to finding common ground through ongoing communal dialogue, our sense that a strong educational foundation is at once empathetic, ethical and intellectual, and our focus on positive educational and social outcomes. To integrate diversity meaningfully into our curricular and extracurricular community life, we acknowledge the need to challenge previous habits and assumptions understanding the structures of power and injustice in which they exist. We are willing to risk difficulty and discomfort in working towards achieving these goals. To prepare students for intellectual leadership, professional achievement and responsible global citizenship, St. Lawrence University is devoted to creating, sustaining, and expanding a diverse University. 

Resolution of the Board of Trustees

Whereas St. Lawrence University established in 2013 and accepted in 2014 a report from the Presidential Commission on Diversity, identifying the values, principles, and actions that define the University as an inclusive community; and

Whereas President Fox established the Committee on Diversity to lead the campus conversations about enacting programs recommended by the Commission; and

Whereas the Committee, as its first task, crafted a proposed University Diversity Statement to articulate our aspirations that will “prepare students for intellectual leadership, professional achievement, and responsible global citizenship;” and

Whereas the St. Lawrence community has discussed this statement, and the faculty, the students, and the Alumni Executive Council have endorsed the statement with warm enthusiasm;

Therefore the Board of Trustees applauds the work of the Committee on Diversity and endorses the statement with equal measures of appreciation and expectation that the University will live its values daily.

Adopted by the Board of Trustees October 24, 2015