Liberal arts education is at its best when it draws freely from a rich variety of perspectives. The College of Arts and Sciences is committed to creating an academic community in which diverse viewpoints are elevated, barriers to success are removed, and students of all backgrounds are inspired and supported.
Integrating aspects of DEI means we go beyond mission and vision statements and take actions that impact the everyday experiences of students, faculty, and staff. We focus on transformational change in recruitment and hiring, anti-racist teaching practices, decolonizing thought through robust programming, disarming microaggressions, and increasing students educational success and sense of belonging.Kamilah A’vant, assistant dean for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives
Academics
As we continue to create a more equitable college, our work is guided by an intersectional approach to antiracism, and a vigilant stand against any and all forms of oppression and injustice. We continue our efforts to recruit and retain faculty from diverse backgrounds, design curricula that amplify traditionally marginalized perspectives in the classroom, and create programming outside the classroom that elevates diverse voices. As the largest college at URI, we recognize that progress toward a more diverse and equitable college plays a crucial role in the University’s future success, and more importantly, the success of our students during their time at URI and beyond.
The College of Arts and Sciences strives to incorporate diverse perspectives across all of our academic programs, in addition to those that specialize in the scholarship of diversity.
Initiatives
We work to foster diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging for the Arts and Sciences community inside and outside the classroom.
Campus-wide Resources
News and Events
The University of Rhode Island Land Acknowledgement
The University of Rhode Island occupies the traditional homelands of the Narragansett Nation. What is now the state of Rhode Island occupies the traditional homelands and waterways of the Narragansett Nation and the Niantic, Wampanoag and Nipmuc Peoples. We honor and respect the enduring and continuing relationship between these nations and this land by teaching and learning more about their histories and present-day communities, and by becoming stewards of the land we too inhabit. In addition, let us acknowledge the violence of conquest, war, land dispossession and of enslavement endured by Black and Indigenous communities in what is now the United States. Their contemporary efforts to endure in the face of colonialism must be acknowledged, respected and supported.