Our Commitment to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

The University of Minnesota’s Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing affirms that the values and lived experiences of our students, faculty, staff, and community members are critical to health and wellbeing.

We explicitly reject bias, discrimination, and exclusion on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, gender, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

We:

• Embrace the definition of diversity offered by the University’s Office for Equity and Diversity.
• Recognize that it is our responsibility to ensure that diverse opinions and unique ways of knowing inform our curriculum, operations, research, and community relations
• Are committed to engaging students, staff, and faculty from diverse backgrounds
• Know that racism, oppression, and societal disregard for the experiences of marginalized people are significant barriers to wellbeing.
• Believe that having access to wellbeing resources is critical for human flourishing

The Center acknowledges that there is a great deal of work to be done to create a welcoming climate that is equitable and inclusive. We commit to collaborating with University and community partners to expand our programming, resources, and websites to feature more information about equity, diversity, and inclusion, and why all are critical components of wellbeing.  

We believe that access to wellbeing resources are critical for human flourishing. Because of this, we work to prioritize free resources for students, faculty, staff, and the community, such as our Taking Charge of Your Health & Wellbeing website, Mindful Monday, our wellbeing webinar series, and our new Wellbeing Guides.