The Diversity Office works to increase the diversity of the faculty, staff, and students so that the Centre community will more fully reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of a global society.
 
■ Primary role of the Diversity Office:
     • Recruitment and retention of faculty, staff, and students
     • Promoting campus diversity by working with the Diversity Student Union, Admission Office, Student Life Office, and Human Resources
     • Coordinating activities for the Annual Martin Luther King Celebration
     • Community relations programming
 
■ Diversity Office Initiatives:
     • Mellon Diversity Grant
     • Revision of Faculty and Staff Hiring Processes
     • Diversity Climate Assessment
     • Staff, Faculty, and Student Diversity and Inclusion Training
     • Faculty, Student, and Staff Intergroup Dialogue Facilitation Training
     • Faculty and Staff Learning Communities
 
Contact: Andrea Abrams, Associate Vice President for Diversity Affairs and Special Assistant to the President
Email: andrea.abrams@centre.edu

As an institution we value and embrace students, faculty, and staff from all ethnic, racial, religious, and political backgrounds, gender identities, and sexual orientations. In order to successfully support those within our campus community, a set of goals guide our actions and lead us towards a more inclusive, empathetic, and knowledgeable community.
 
1. Provide Opportunity for All: Recruit and retain an inclusive community of students, faculty, staff, and administrators that represent and support a broad spectrum of interests, identities, abilities, cultures, religion, and worldviews.
 
2. Effectively Communicate: Facilitate open and constructive conversation that creates opportunities to highlight others’ strengths and provide insight for the improvement of our community. Create an environment where consistent communication fosters cohesion, efficiency. and understanding.
 
3. Explore Differences: Promote diversity and inclusion awareness and appreciation through the implementation of campus wide educational programs, events, and training for staff, faculty, and students.
 
4. Fuel Communal Well-Being: Offer basic needs necessary for success as well as opportunities for personal and professional growth and creative exploration to build a safe, healthy, and growing community capable of realizing their potential.
 
5. Build an Integrated Community: Encourage collaboration and interdisciplinary learning across campus student organizations, academic programs, and campus offices.
 
6. Instill Cross-Cultural Skills: Cultivate an open learning environment founded on the skills of active listening, teamwork, and adaptability while reinforcing values of empathy and mutual respect.
 
7. Confront Injustice: As a community, recognize and respond to words and actions of discrimination and marginalization, emphasizing our intolerance for prejudice of any form.
 
8. Foster Freedom to Express Identity: Actively value and create contexts that support the vast spectrum of differences and identities within our campus community.

As the body entrusted with the overall governance and stewardship of Centre College, the Board of Trustees pledges continuing efforts to build and strengthen a community enriched by the differences of its members and founded upon our common humanity. We also affirm that the values of diversity and inclusion are critical to the fulfillment of the mission of higher education in general, and Centre College in particular. To that end, we welcome into the Centre community individuals of different backgrounds, viewpoints, races, faith traditions, nationalities, sexual orientations, and experiences. These differences enrich our search for truth, our understanding of our fellow human beings, and make each of us more effective leaders and actors in this world. Because Centre honors the American ideals of access and social mobility through education, we are committed to not only welcoming into the Centre community persons who have traditionally been underrepresented, but also fostering their full participation in the community. Further, we are dedicated to creating a college community known for its honesty, strength, compassion, and commitment to the greater good. 

We Trustees hold this to be true for all parts of the Centre community—The Board of Trustees, the faculty, the staff, and the student body. Pertaining to the Board of Trustees itself, we affirm that diversity and inclusion are critical to the Board’s effectiveness in leading the College. Thus, as the Board exercises its responsibility to select the best and the brightest individuals to serve as trustees, we recognize that diversity in its membership is an essential priority. In addition, the Board will endeavor to set policies, identify resources, and encourage sound practices designed to achieve diversity among the faculty, staff, and the student body.

We pledge continuing efforts to build and strengthen a community enriched by our differences and founded upon our common humanity. Centre respects the right of all members of the community to express their individuality in a manner that is consistent with the dignity and welfare of others. Centre strives to create an environment where differences are celebrated rather than discouraged, where individuals have the opportunity to exchange ideas and share in the richness of mutual experience. By valuing the individual's total character over any single characteristic, Centre will maintain its unique community.