Institutional Equity

Land Acknowledgement

Macalester College is located on the homeland of the Dakota people – Mni Sota Makoce [Mini SOta Ma-KOH-chay], which translates to Land Where the Waters Reflect the Clouds. Although they were forcibly exiled by aggressive and persistent settler colonialism, the Dakota people still flourish despite this painful history. We make this acknowledgment to honor the Dakota people, ancestors, and descendants, as well as the land itself. Macalester engages in ongoing work toward repair and partnership with the Dakota people and the land, as well as to support Indigenous members of our campus community.

Mission and Framing

Institutional Equity leads Macalester’s ongoing commitment to equity and social justice through collective action, shared visioning, and community connection. We act with obligation to generations past, present, and future—to infuse equity and justice principles throughout the college, and to develop skills and knowledge to shape what is yet to be. We embrace the processes of learning and unlearning, cherish opportunities for knowing and not knowing, and revel in the beauty and challenge of many voices. We collaborate with campus and community partners toward enduring institutional transformation. We hold ourselves accountable to learn, listen, and own our mistakes. We honor the theoretical frameworks that guide us while we tend to practical realities, and we seek sustainable, generative pathways as we map this work.

Practices

1. Support, empower, and advocate with and for marginalized communities.
2. Explore social identities and the impacts of systemic oppression and structural barriers.
3. Identify, interrogate, and revise institutional structures, policies, and practices that cause differential impact and limit access and opportunities for students, staff, and faculty.
4. Foster reflective learning to disrupt and dismantle oppression, ableism, ageism, anti-Semitism, classism, genderism, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism, sexism, transphobia, and xenophobia.
5. Deepen relationships to actualize equity, anti-oppression, anti-racism, climate justice, and sovereignty as daily practices.
6. Support the recruitment, retention, success, and thriving of a diverse student body, staff, and faculty with attention to resources and programming.

Office of the Vice President for Institutional Equity

The Vice President for Institutional Equity is responsible for developing the overarching vision, strategic direction, and implementation of the college’s diversity, equity, anti-racism, and inclusion initiatives that contribute towards a vibrant campus culture. The Vice President works collaboratively across campus to devise, articulate, and promote goals for a campus climate that is inclusive, affirming, and supportive, and supports the advancement of equity and inclusion in academic programs, student services, recruitment and retention efforts, professional development of staff, and overall institutional effectiveness.