Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Community Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

At SUNY Geneseo, we are a community of students, staff, faculty, and administrators living and working together in a spirit of inquiry so that, individually and collectively, we may achieve our full potential.

Our community extends to the many graduates, retirees, and others who remain actively engaged in advancing our mission and values as a public liberal arts college.

Located in the historic homelands of the Seneca Nation of Indians and Tonawanda Seneca Nation, we at SUNY Geneseo have an obligation to recognize all who, through history or identity, have been marginalized or oppressed, made invisible or silenced.

We recognize that our own identities are many and varied, forged by culture, circumstance, and choice. Some of us inhabit multiple identities where histories of exclusion or injustice intersect.

We are here to listen, to learn, to teach, to debate, to change, to grow. We should all be safe to pursue these goals at SUNY Geneseo while being who we are.

Together, we commit ourselves to pluralism, cultivating a community that respects difference and promotes a sense of inclusion and belonging.

Our differences, including those of opinion or perspective, make us stronger. Together, we commit ourselves to sustaining and expanding the diversity of our community and to making equity for all members of our diverse community a measure of our success.

We share responsibility for achieving these goals, and for making Geneseo a place where each of us may contribute to and realize the promise of public liberal education: to broaden understanding, heighten awareness, awaken empathy, and foster empowerment.

Endorsed by the College Senate and approved by the President of SUNY Geneseo, October 2018. Questions, comments, and concerns about this Community Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion can be directed to the Chief Diversity Officer (ode@geneseo.edu).

Previous Geneseo Statement on Diversity and Community (2003)