Departmental Diversity Statement

Vanderbilt University’s Department of Psychology and Human Development is committed to creating and nurturing an environment in which each student, faculty member, and staff person can thrive and contribute to the university and their respective disciplines. Our goal is to facilitate scholarship and contributions to theory across the broad range of disciplines. Diversity enhances the learning potential in our classrooms, inspires and enriches our research, and improves the social climate of our classes, the department, and the University. Our students, faculty and staff come from a variety of backgrounds, current circumstances, and personal and social identities and they have diverse strengths. We recognize and respect differences across these dimensions, realizing that our concept of diversity and our attempts to create an inclusive climate will evolve as we welcome new members to our group. To meet this challenge we are committed to adapting practices in our scholarship and our classrooms to increase the participation and hence the contributions of persons who bring diverse perspectives and experiences to the pursuit of knowledge. Our departmental Equity Diversity and Inclusion committee has the objective of facilitating our commitment to promoting diversity and fostering a positive climate.