We, the Boston University School of Public Health community, believe that fostering diversity and inclusion is essential to fulfilling our mission as an academic public health institution; a mission firmly rooted in social justice. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion strengthens our voice as a community while elevating our ability to eliminate health disparities locally, nationally, and globally. We maintain and celebrate this commitment through excellence and innovation in research, education, and service.
Diversity and inclusion are fundamental to a rewarding educational experience; our community benefits from the School’s robust, complex mix of backgrounds and perspectives. We support and encourage a climate of inclusivity, sensitivity, and open dialogue against the backdrop of critical inquiry. Further, we celebrate and welcome our varied experiences, our multiple and intersectional identities, and diverse perspectives that reflect and promote our multicultural environment. The School’s commitment to diversity is demonstrated through our recruitment of a faculty, staff, and students, as well as student organizations, programming, research priorities, curricula, and community practice partnerships. Our commitment to inclusion is demonstrated through our creation of a fair, pluralistic, transparent school community that is welcoming to all who celebrate and participate in our shared ideals of public health through excellence and innovation in our research, education, and scholarship. It is our aspiration that our students graduate equipped with the openness and cross-cultural understanding essential to effectively practice public health in the twenty-first century.
Our research and service agendas are deeply enriched by discourse that engages our partner communities, both locally and globally. We believe that effective public health agendas incorporate the experiences and perspectives from the communities we serve alongside. It is our aspiration that our research agenda promote further inquiry and activism and that our community based partnerships empower individuals, families, and communities.
We recognize that achieving diversity and inclusion represents an ongoing school-wide conversation that cannot live in a statement alone. Through this statement we also recognize a commitment to self-reflection with respect to our programs, research initiatives, curricula, student engagement activities, and all other programming to ensure a process of continual improvement.
Professor Yvette Cozier serves as Assistant Dean for Diversity and Inclusion.