Carleton University Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) have been identified by Carleton’s Board of Governors, Federal Tri-Agency Research Funders, faculty, staff, students, public and private sector employers, and other members of the external community as critical to the future success of the university.

While the university has taken steps to lay the foundation for progress, much work to advance human rights and EDI still needs to be done. As a large institution, the university is an extension of society and is not insulated from its challenges.

Following a robust consultative process led by EIC in 2020, the Carleton University EDI Action Plan was officially launched in March 2021.

Carleton’s EDI Action Plan outlines ways to reimagine curricular and pedagogical practices and commits to further enhancing student supports, research infrastructure, leadership development for academic and non-academic staff, organizational culture and more.

EDI Action Plan

EDI Action Plan Companion Report

EDI Action Plan Progress Report – Phase 1

EDI Action Plan Progress Report – Phase 2

Shaping Our Shared Future with Ambition and Strength

The EDI Action Plan was developed through a collaborative process that included many members of our community.  Building on the priorities and values outlined in the Strategic Integrated Plan, the EDI Action Plan provides an institution-wide strategy for further integrating EDI into our work and mission. This comprehensive action plan outlines ways to reimagine curricular and pedagogical practices, and makes recommendations about how to further enhance student supports, research infrastructure, leadership development for academic and non-academic staff, organizational culture and more.

The plan empowers all of us to take action to integrate the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion in our work.

Community is at the Centre of Carleton

We’re fortunate that ours is a diverse community. Students, staff, and faculty from around the world call Carleton home.

Established as a university to meet the needs of the local community and later becoming known for internationally engaged research and student support, many of us are guests in this territory or are descendants of those who arrived by transatlantic and transpacific processes not of our making. We are connected to each other and to this place.

We know that throughout our national history, dominant cultures have simultaneously resisted and embraced diversity through patterns of evolving contradiction. Diversity has expanded alongside exclusion, discrimination, harassment and violence. But it has also been and continues to be a vital source of collective resilience, renewal and creativity.

We acknowledge and respect the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people within whose unceded, unsurrendered territory the Carleton campus is located. This acknowledgement is important to us and is a reminder of our pledge for (re)conciliation with Indigenous Peoples.

EDI is critical to our success.

It provides a powerful lens through which to chart our future. That has become ever clearer in the immediate environment of pandemic dislocation, transition to virtual operations, economic contraction, geopolitical instability, and social justice reckoning. We know the combined thrust of these dynamics has only exacerbated pre-existing societal disparities.

But prioritizing EDI isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s fundamental to our vision for excellence, community and wellness.

Inclusive communities are generative and prolific, bringing together different perspectives, experiences and identities to disrupt convention in ways essential to consequential imagination and discovery. This may be observed within organizations across multiple sectors and is especially vital for learning, teaching, research and working in institutions of higher education.

As a diverse community, it’s essential that we integrate equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in the core activities and academic mission to ensure everyone can achieve their full potential.

This is more than paying lip service, it’s about acting every day – building the appropriate structures and adopting the right processes, procedures and behaviours – to advance our EDI objectives.

This plan touches every part of the university

To have a real impact, the action we take must be felt across the whole university. That’s why these recommendations are comprehensive. They’ve been developed with extensive consultation with our community, to ensure diverse voices are heard and acted upon.