Inclusion and equity statement
The UWM Psychology Department is committed to promoting diversity and fostering an inclusive, equitable, and welcoming environment. We recognize that diversity is broad and includes a range of identities, including, but not limited to, race, ethnicity, sex assigned at birth, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, religious affiliation, nationality, age, and socioeconomic status. We are committed to anti-racist and anti-discrimination attitudes and actions. We support social justice and racial equity efforts in science, clinical care, and education.
UWM’s Department of Psychology has collaborative ties through education, research, and clinical care within the Milwaukee and larger Wisconsin community, as well as nationally and internationally. We strive to integrate attention to diversity and inclusion across several domains such as the department environment, education and curriculum, student recruitment and mentorship, research design, participant engagement, developing community partnerships, and dissemination of research findings back to community partners (e.g., participants, educators, clinicians, policy-makers, and other scientists). We also aim to increase diversity in psychology by working to reduce barriers into education, promoting mentorship and funding opportunities for underrepresented students, and supporting/amplifying the scholarship of marginalized students and scientists.
Statement of Commitment to Anti-Racism
The Psychology Department views racism as a longstanding systemic and pervasive socially constructed hierarchy that disproportionately privileges White individuals, and functions to perpetuate the marginalization of people of color. The Psychology Department views racism as a current healthcare crisis and supports the anti-racism efforts at UWM. An accumulation of evidence has shown that individual and institutionalized racism leads to education, social, criminal-justice, economic, and healthcare disparities and inequities. Notably, psychological science has found that increased trauma and stress experienced by people of color negatively impacts physical and mental health (Trent et al., 2019; NAS, 2017; Perrin, 2018). These racial inequalities have been amplified by the current global pandemic, as there is a strong evidence for race and ethnic disparities for COVID-19 infection rates and outcomes (Vahidy et al., 2020). We acknowledge that our collective shift toward anti-racist attitudes and actions occurred following the murder of George Floyd and ensuing anguish, outrage and civil unrest. Further, we have collective responsibility as a Department for being proactive moving forward in addressing anti-Black racism and its instantiation within our institutions. We support the UWM campus call for social justice and racial equity efforts in psychological science, clinical care, and education. Together, as faculty, staff and students, we commit to proactive engagement in action to combat institutionalized racism that has inflicted trauma upon BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) individuals.
Psychology Department Diversity Committee
The Psychology Department Diversity Committee is a forum for the exchange and development of ideas and actions to support Psychology Department’s promotion of diversity and fostering of an inclusive, equitable, anti-racist, anti-discriminatory, and welcoming environment. The committee is comprised of graduate students, staff, and faculty in the Department of Psychology.
See here for more information: https://uwm.edu/psychology/our-commitment-to-diversity/psychology-department-diversity-committee/
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge in Milwaukee that we are on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland along the southwest shores of Michigami, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida and Mohican nations remain present. (https://uwm.edu/eqi/about/land-acknowledgement/)