Education for Sustainable Diversity (ESD), as defined by the Office for Inclusion, is the practice of acquiring knowledge about and becoming aware of ways in which our beliefs and biases impact the quality of relationships among people from different cultural groups around the world.
The goal of the Office for Inclusion is to support a campus community that understands how to fully integrate the University’s core values of diversity and inclusion into campus work and learning environments. ESD serves to provide opportunities for people to better understand the complexities of and synergies between, the issues threatening our intercultural sustainability and assess their own values and those of the society in which they live in. ESD seeks to engage people in negotiating a sustainable future, making decisions and acting on them. To do this effectively, the following skills are essential to ESD:
- Envisioning -- being able to imagine a better future. The premise is if we recognize and begin to understand the issues that obstruct intercultural respect, we will be better able to work through issues and find ways to respect each other.
- Critical thinking and reflection -- learning to question our current belief systems and to recognize the assumptions underlying our knowledge, perspective and opinions. Critical thinking skills help people learn to examine social and cultural structures in the context of sustainable intercultural development.
- Systemic thinking -- acknowledging complexities and looking for links and synergies when trying to find solutions to problems.
- Building partnerships -- promoting dialogue and negotiation, learning to work together.
- Participation in decision-making -- empowering people.
- Interactive theatre uses customized and uniquely designed sketches performed by actors to address specific issues, and allow for open and guided discussion between the audience and actors to find solutions to issues.
- Customized small-group workshops, large-group presentations, and symposia featuring themes around diversity, inclusion and social justice.
- e-learning tools custom designed for large audiences on specific topics
- Topics include: MSU's anti-discrimination policies, diversity/inclusion, best practices
For more information or to request a service, please contact the main office at 517-353-3922.