Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion
Our patients, students, staff, faculty and members of our community need to know and feel that they belong at the UNMC College of Dentistry.
The college is committed to serving our patients with cultural humility, to fostering a humanistic environment, and providing an inclusive culture for all.
We embrace, support and affirm diversity, and apply equity-based and inclusive practices.
We respect and value the voices, ideas and contributions of all within our community.
The college uses the definition of belonging from the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Faculty Diversity Toolkit:
Belonging: The extent to which a person feels connected to or a part of the campus community and includes one’s subjective evaluation of the quality of connections with others on campus or in the community. A sense of belonging contains both cognitive and affective aspects of the individual’s cognitive assessment of their role in relationship to the group. Factors that may impact belongingness for historically underrepresented and marginalized groups include: interactions with diverse peers, campus engagement in activities, the view of the overall climate and exposure to bias, and harassing or discriminatory treatment.
UNMC uses the definitions of diversity, equity and inclusion from the Association of American Colleges & Universities:
Diversity: Individual differences (e.g., personality, learning styles, and life experiences) and group/social differences (e.g., race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, country of origin, and ability as well as cultural, political, religious, or other affiliations).
Equity: The creation of opportunities for historically underrepresented populations to have equal access to and participate in educational programs that are capable of closing the achievement gaps in student success and completion.
Inclusion: The active, intentional and ongoing engagement with diversity – in the curriculum, in the co-curriculum, and in communities (intellectual, social, cultural, geographical) with which individuals might connect – in ways that increase awareness, content knowledge, cognitive sophistication and empathic understanding of the complex ways individuals interact within systems and institutions.
The College of Dentistry supports and adheres to the UNMC Non-Discrimination and Harassment Policy.
We support the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Policy on Diversity and Inclusion.