How can an inherently exclusionist institution be inclusive? I’ve got a new From the Ombuds post up, applying Timothy R. Clark’s concept of inclusion safety to higher education that explores the answer to that question:
In his book The Four Stages of Psychological Safety, Timothy R. Clark begins with inclusion safety, in which “the members of the social collective accept you and grant you a shared identity” (p. 7). On paper, we would probably agree that we want to build inclusive spaces around us. Indeed, “Compassion & Inclusion” is one of our campus values. And yet, we continue to exclude. In a few paragraphs, I would like to share some embedded structural and cultural reasons exclusion remains the default, particularly in higher education, consider what deeper inclusion might offer, and share a few ways that we can make inclusion a shared practice.
Read it all: Inclusion Safety: The Door to Belonging | | University of Nevada, Las Vegas