Education Commons^™

Making The Case For Faculty And Staff Diversity And Inclusion Training At Merrimack College, Nicole Williams

Higher Education Student Work

Diversity and inclusion training is essential for long-term success and sustainability of an organization, especially institutions of higher education (Cocchiara, Connerley, & Bell, 2010; Cunningham, 2012). This capstone investigates the necessity and benefits of diversity and inclusion training, as well as effective training structures to contextualize the resulting curriculum model. This curriculum addresses an underlying institutional leadership gap at Merrimack College where faculty and staff are not adequately trained or provided with sufficient opportunities to engage in diversity and inclusion training. Feminist Standpoint Theory (Collins, 1997) and Transformational Learning Theory (Mezirow, 2000) provide the theoretical grounding to establish this foundational …