Commitment to Diversity

Claremont Graduate University locates diversity as one of the essential components of its institutional mission and its credo.

Mission of Claremont Graduate University

Claremont Graduate University
prepares a diverse group of outstanding individuals
to assume leadership roles in the worldwide community
through research, teaching, and practice in selected fields.

Credo of Claremont Graduate University

Claremont Graduate University Believes:

• Superb instruction, innovative research, and practical experience are the keys to an excellent graduate education.
• Educational institutions have an obligation to become civically engaged in order to enrich and to better society.
• Institutions of higher education must be ethically vigilant, consciously exploring normative and moral issues.
• Knowledge consists of more than facts and has more than merely utilitarian ends; knowledge pursues and reflects values.
• Education is immeasurably enriched by the experience and insight of those outside the educational community.
• Human diversity is indispensable for improving the quality and texture of the educational experience.
• Ongoing education is a lifelong responsibility of the global community's leaders.
• Advanced education is essential for the well-being and future of an increasingly complex society.

In recent years, CGU has undertaken two initiatives related to campus climate and diversity.

Campus Diversity Initiative

With the generous support of The James Irvine Foundation, CGU’s Campus Diversity Initiative has had five major objectives:

1.       Increase the proportion of CGU faculty from under-represented groups.

2.       Improve capacity to offer diverse scholarship and graduate study opportunities for faculty and students.

3.       Improve the cultural, social and intellectual climate for under-represented students and faculty.

4.       Enhance CGU’s interactions with Claremont’s intercollegiate ethnic studies faculty and students.

5.       Improve the quality and visibility of scholarly and social interactions on issues of diversity, transdisciplinarity, and new approaches to understanding and completing scholarly teaching and research in graduate higher education.

Over the past five years, Claremont Graduate University has pursued these goals with a variety of strategies, including events and programming, new academic initiatives, surveys and reports, focus groups and presentations, and a broad effort directed at faculty hiring. (More information is available from the Office of the Provost).

Working Group on Inclusion and Diversity

In 2004, the CGU Board of Trustees initiated a Working Group on Inclusion and Diversity that will coordinate with CGU staff, faculty, and students to continue the progress of the Campus Diversity Initiative and to enhance the long-term sustainability of our diversity efforts through broader accountability, visibility, and ongoing assessment. Our assessment activities are designed within four inter-related fields for analysis and measurement:

1.       Student Access and Success: including student diversity, persistence and completion rates, time-to-degree, and student satisfaction.

2.       Climate and Inter-Group Relations: including faculty, staff, and student perceptions of institutional climate, quality of experience, and engagement on campus.

3.       Education and Scholarship: including the presence of diversity-related courses, research, faculty expertise, and academic resources across the university.

4.       Institutional Viability and Vitality: assessing the integration of diversity in the university’s mission of graduate education as well as in the missions and scholarly activities of our academic schools, departments, and degree programs.

Through these broad efforts as well as through courses, ongoing research, academic events, an emphasis on transdisciplinarity, and a focus on engaging the entire community, our intention is to exemplify our mission and credo in all that we do at Claremont Graduate University.