Equity and Inclusion

Our training program and its faculty are committed to provide an inclusive and accommodating environment for all students regardless of background or disability. The contributions of scientists whose backgrounds encompass diversity in culture, disability, ethnicity, gender, and economic background are vital to a healthy and constructive research environment. Incorporating diversity in our community, curriculum and research is essential for improving the health and knowledge of all, especially those from historically under-represented and disadvantaged groups.

As a part of this strategy, we strive to provide a learning environment that supports all of our students during their training. We partner with the Office for Diversity in Graduate Education, the Disability Resource Center (DRC), and the University of Minnesota’s Office for Equity and Diversity (OED) to offer resources for our trainees.

Many of our training grant faculty work with the DRC to accommodate students with disabilities in our classrooms. This may include providing a separate testing and exam taking environment and allowing extra time for exams and tests, conversion of documents, or note taking assistance. All classrooms are wheel chair accessible and every effort will be made to accommodate students with disabilities in our classrooms. UM class syllabi include a statement that instructors are willing to provide reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities and ask student to contact the DRC and register with DRC to access resources provided by the UM.

To further strengthen education and training of our faculty on resources offered by the DRC and train them in Best Practices/Universal Design for Instruction (https://diversity.umn.edu/disability/), we will reach out to the DRC and OED to organize training faculty meetings with resource/outreach staff from the DRC and identify 2-3 hr workshops offered by the OED (https://diversity.umn.edu/workshopsandtrainings) to be taken by training faculty and interested students.