Commitment to Diversity
For more information about DEI terminology, please visit the DEI Glossary page.
South Puget Sound Community College is a learning community that embodies social justice, equity and inclusion. SPSCC seeks to empower students, faculty and staff to fully participate in a society of increasingly diverse identities and experiences. SPSCC actively works to eliminate all forms of discrimination and provide an education that reflects the diversity of our community and a deeper understanding of the dynamics of power and privilege that perpetuate inequity and inequality.
Principles and Values
South Puget Sound Community College celebrates and embraces diversity of all kinds, including race, age, sex, color, disability, ethnicity, family or marital status, transgender, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other characteristics that make individuals unique. We are dedicated to promoting for all students, staff, faculty, and our local and global communities an accessible, inclusive, and safe environment that fosters:
- Cultural humility
- Respectful communication
- Collaboration
- Educational equity and social justice
SPSCC commits to institutional and individual transformation that recognizes, understands, and challenges patterns of social inequity and systemic disparities within our ever-changing world. As part of this commitment, we strive to strengthen practices involving program design, cultural enrichment, diversity education, curricular design, and employee development. We adopt the following Equity guidelines to guide our efforts:
- We center the people we serve and meet them where they are.
- We continually identify barriers to academic and professional success and strive to remove them.
- We involve those most impacted when seeking solutions or making decisions.
South Puget Sound Community College’s commitment to diversity is consistently reflected in its policies, procedures, and faculty/staff professional development efforts.
Faculty and staff recruitment procedures include processes and outreach efforts designed to enhance the success of applicants from under-represented, historically marginalized groups, and communities. Hiring procedures will be reviewed and structured to safeguard against the interjection of implicit bias in hiring. South Puget Sound Community College believes that these measures will lead to the reflection in full and part-time faculty, classified staff, and exempt staff, of the diversity that exists in the communities and the students we serve.
South Puget Sound Community College will adopt practices that enhance the retention and success of employees and students, particularly those who are new to SPSCC, or from under-represented and historically marginalized groups and communities.