The Albers School is committed to sustaining a culture of inclusive excellence that values diversity and works for equity in opportunity and outcomes. These long standing commitments start with our Shared Values, one of which speaks to Inclusiveness and Collegiality – fostering a welcoming and open environment, treating others with respect, and collaborating toward a shared vision.
We want the culture in our school to be one in which all students, faculty, staff, and supporters are welcomed, respected, and valued. We believe that diversity strengthens the educational environment we can provide for our students. We do not limit diversity to the categories of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual preference, but also include socio-economic status, geographic origin, political philosophy, religion, immigration status, and physical abilities. We are training our students to be leaders in society. To be successful, they must understand and appreciate the values, potential, and perspectives of people of all walks of life.
The Albers School is forming students to be just and humane leaders within the business sector. This means that we must actively model best practices with regard to inclusion, diversity, and equity. This also means that our curricula and programs must educate our students about what inclusion, diversity, and equity mean for business organizations and economic policy. Successful business organizations must navigate these issues and our alumni should be prepared to take the lead with these important tasks.
This website is designed to be a place where our community of students, faculty, and staff can learn about the work Albers is undergoing to become a community where diverse voices are valued, respected, and supported. We see this space as an important part of our commitment to living our shared values.
The purpose of the Albers Taskforce on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is to make the Albers School more fully a place where diversity, inclusion, and equity are pursued with an ethic of care.
We envision that Albers will educate students who recognize, challenge, and make change in areas where diversity, equity, and inclusion are not realized, both within and beyond the school. Providing this education requires faculty and staff who are effective advocates of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Albers can more fully reflect its stated values of diversity by:
Because of the number of people on the task force, we believe there is an opportunity to break into subgroups tasked with each of the three areas discussed above. The responsibility of subgroups is to:
Campus inspired, business driven and community engaged, RAMP-up is a Seattle University program that combines both heart and mind on behalf of neighborhood businesses in transforming the Central Area. It seeks to augment the existing capacity of these businesses and their current service providers. While Seattle is undergoing dynamic change, care must be taken to preserve the essential social and ethnic fabric that has made the city so very attractive. Seattle U is partnering with a number of Central Area organizations to augment the capacity of these neighborhood businesses, enabling them to choose to remain in place, to grow, and to thrive.
Learn more about RAMP.
Albers offers a number of scholarships to promote equity and diversity in our school.
Since 2003, the Summer Business Institute has provided an on-campus experience for college-bound sophomores and juniors from African-American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American Indian, and Pacific Islander heritages. Students interested in a career in business or economics come to campus for five days to explore various aspects of university life, stay on campus in a dorm, and learn what it really takes to earn a degree as well as how to select the college that is right for them. Through a series of short workshops taught by Albers professors, students are acquainted to college coursework in areas such as economics, accounting, business communications, ethics, finance, international business, marketing, innovation and entrepreneurship, and management.
Learn more about the Summer Business Institute.
A number of student-founded and student-run clubs celebrate the diversity of the Albers community. Examples are: Women in Business and Ascend. To see a full listing of clubs, go to the club pages for undergraduate and graduate students.
The PhD Project was founded upon the premise that advancements in workplace diversity could be propelled forward by increasing the diversity of business school faculty. Today, their expansive network of supporters, sponsors and universities helps African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Native Americans attain their business PhD and become the business professors who will mentor the next generation of leaders.
Albers has been a supporter of the PhD Project for over a decade, and actively recruits faculty out of this program. We currently employ faculty who were supported by the PhD Project. Learn more about the PhD Project.
For more information on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the following resources are available: