Diversity and Inclusion Council

Two members of the GLBTQA Coalition met with the Diversity and Inclusion Council to discuss NLU's Diversity Statement. The statement currently reads:

National-Louis University strives to achieve a diverse and inclusive community where every person is given the opportunity to be heard, respected, valued and welcomed. The University recognizes that diversity defines our individual and group lives. All members of the NLU community are expected to actively build a university environment enriched by contributions from diverse experiences, perspectives and backgrounds. Diversity, inclusion and social justice are key components of the University’s mission of Access, Innovation and Excellence.

Recognizing that it is difficult to have an all-inclusive list, we acknowledge the importance of these and all other aspects of diversity: ability, age, economic status, educational level, gender, national origin, language, political affiliation, professional status, race/ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation.

The Coalition requested the addition of the words "gender identity" and "gender expression" to the statement. This request comes in order to make the statement more responsive to the kinds of diversity we encounter these days. The Coalition for Safe Schools has stressed the importance of education schools including all kinds of sexual diversity in the diversity statements of educational institutions that prepare teachers. The Illinois State Board of Education has also identified gender identity and gender expression as worthy of mention in the new Illinois Professional Teaching Standards, which became law on July 1, 2010, and will become effective in July 2013. At that time, all teacher preparation programs and evaluations of teacher performance will have to meet this indicator, which is the first one of the more than 100 indicators in the new IPTS:

The competent teacher understands the spectrum of student diversity (e.g., race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, special education, gifted, English Language Learners, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity) and the assets that each student brings to learning across the curriculum.