About Us
IEE provides students with information, skills, and opportunities for constructive engagement across difference, in support of SAIE and the University's larger missions.
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Our Approach
Having a demographically diverse campus community is educationally important (cf. Gurin for University of Michigan), and continues to be the focus of much quality scholarship and programming in US higher education, with similar applications in the workplace, marketplace, and civic involvement (eg, the legal professions [PDF]). Such compositional diversity, including a wide diversity of identities, is a necessary, but insufficient, element of equity and excellence.
Using the oft-cited food metaphor, it is not enough simply to have a range of individual ingredients present in the kitchen; they must also come together for their still-distinct colors, textures and flavors to create an engaging and nourishing dish. In fact, the critical-thinking, communication, collaboration skills and experience, strengthened when engaging constructively across difference are among those employers most seek (ref NACE). Thus having diverse individuals learning, living and working on campus is little more than cosmetic, if they do not interact across identities, or if their interaction is infrequent, superficial, or outright negative.