Blueprint for Belonging

The Albion College Blueprint for Belonging is a year-long process in which all departments on campus will create actionable goals to solidify our public commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in our community. The Blueprint for Belonging provides an avenue for students, faculty and staff in the College community to engage in thinking and acting critically in order to become an anti-ism, antiracist institution.

The process will be conducted in stages that will begin with a College-wide draft plan, followed by campus conversations and support through the Blueprint’s task force. The final Blueprint for Belonging recommendations are set to be released publicly in June 2021.

The Albion College Blueprint for Belonging Action Toolkit

Our Albion Commitment

A liberal arts education, by definition, should liberate minds from ignorance.

A liberal arts education should provide students with the ability to discern the discrete influences and interaction of biography, history, and social, political, economic, and cultural context, to understand how these influence our standpoint, to shape our life chances and life choices.

This process of liberation is enhanced in a community that is committed to educational equity, diversity and unrestricted inquiry. We seek therefore to foster an environment of mutual respect, acceptance, appreciation and caring for all members of our community.

We strive for a community of belonging for all. To this end:

• Albion College condemns all acts of discrimination, prejudice, and harassment. Such acts harm individuals through “othering” and destroy the interconnected fabric of a community of belonging.
• Albion College community members acknowledge that sometimes our actions and institutional practices create unintentional harm in our community through our personal acts and our institutional practices.
• Albion College community members listen deeply to those harmed by our unintentional acts, own the impact, and transform the learning into action for belonging moving forward.
• Albion College community members offer space for learning and growth to each other for unintentional harm created by unintentional discrimination, prejudice, and harassment.
• Albion College community members are committed to vigorous debate, consideration of alternative and new ideas, and the freedom of academic speech and exploration.
• We simultaneously commit ourselves to creating a community of belonging for faculty, staff and students — particularly for those from historically marginalized populations.