The Emory community is open to all who have a commitment to the highest ideals of intellectual engagement, critical inquiry, and integrity. We welcome a diversity of gender identities, sexual orientations, abilities, and disabilities, as well as racial, ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, religious, national, and international backgrounds, believing that the academic and social energy that results from such diversity is essential to advancing knowledge, addressing society’s most pressing issues, and attending to the full spectrum of human needs in service to the common good.  Emory University was named a 2022 recipient of the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award (HEED), a national honor recognizing colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion. The selection process ultimately singles out only those institutions where—in the words of Lenore Pearlstein, publisher of INSIGHT into Diversity—“diversity and inclusion are woven into the work being done every day across their campus.”  In early 2022, Emory’s first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Planning Report was submitted to University leadership. This past spring, we formalized our institutional DEI strategic goals and worked with the broader University community to realize these goals. The expansion of the Emory Advantage Undergraduate Financial Aid program has more than doubled the number of undergraduates that will graduate from Emory with no debt. That’s a game-changing way to counter the negative impact debt has had, including on generational wealth.

[This statement has been provided by Cora MacBeth, PhD, Assoc. Dean, ECAS Undergraduate Education.]