Engaging students, faculty, and staff in the ongoing struggle for social justice on our campus, in our community, and around the world.
At Drake University, our mission to provide exceptional learning environments is inseparable from our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We value diversity as an institutional strength that encompasses a broad range of human differences. As such, it is important to us to ensure each member of our community has a comprehensive opportunity to thrive in our environment, build meaningful personal lives, and develop as a responsible global citizen.
Contributing to Drake University’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts will support newly developed or identified programs.
The office of Equity and Inclusion provides customized training related to diversity, equity, and inclusion for any group or office on campus. Topics include social identities, recognizing oppression, Microaggressions, bystander intervention, implicit bias, racial identity development, navigating difficult conversations in the classroom.
Every year Drake faculty, staff and students attend a host of conferences on diversity, equity and inclusion. If you are a Drake Faculty Staff or student who wishes to attend a conference, you can seek funding through:
Each year we send a group of faculty, staff and students to the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE). If you are interested in attending NCORE please email diversity@551827.com.
If you’re interested in getting involved with a current project or learning more about what’s on the horizon, email diversity@551827.com
Ethics Point is a third-party secure website that connects an individual with the appropriate University employee to respond to the concern without identifying the reporting individual.
A variety of links and content to support work on equity and inclusion.
Slay Fund for Social Justice - The Slay Fund for Social Justice at Drake University is an endowed fund that provides large and small grants to Drake students, staff, and faculty engaged in the work of social justice. The Fund exists because of the generosity of alumni Brent and Diane Slay, and provides assistance to a wide range of projects that are having a significant impact on the university, the Des Moines community, the nation, and the world.
Social Justice in Urban Education Concentration - seeks to educate culturally responsive teachers to work effectively with all students in urban settings—particularly students of color, working-class students, immigrant students, and students from historically marginalized populations. Aligned with the School of Education’s commitment to academic reflection, collaborative learning, and social justice, the program seeks to help teachers critically examine urban contexts, so that they may develop pedagogical knowledge and tools to work with students in these contexts.
Women's and Gender Studies Program - Courses associated with the program pay particular attention to the social construction of gender identity and gender relations and to the intersection of gender with other categories, including race, class, and sexuality. The WGS program values student engagement with feminist discourses and practices and seeks to help you understand representations and realities of gender in multicultural and global contexts.