Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Anti-Racism in GEOG

The Department of Geographical Sciences’ Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism (DEIAR) Committee is responsible for reviewing and making recommendations with a view to overcoming systemic discrimination and oppression, such as racism, sexism, classism, ageism and more, and to model an inclusive scholarly community built on respect for one another.

We conceptualized DEIAR as the variety of identity dimensions such as personal experiences, values, and worldviews that arise from differences in race, ethnicity, gender identity, religion, creed, language, abilities/disabilities, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship status, residency status, socioeconomic status, geographic region, and more.

The Committee membership consists of representatives from tenured and tenure-track faculty, research faculty, lecturers, staff, and graduate students. The DEIAR Committee is committed to openness, transparency, and dialogue with respect to all topics. Meeting attendance is open to all interested members of the Department of Geographical Sciences community.

The Committee engages in a range of proactive and responsive activities, including:

• Identifying diversity and inclusion related issues and priorities for the Department and communicating insights to other committees as appropriate
   
• Recommending departmental activities needed to: build capacity to meet relevant college and university-level initiatives such as hiring; take actions that can improve well-being, particularly related to discrimination and bias; increase visibility of underrepresented scholars; enhance the DEIAR web presence
   
• Liaising with and contributing to complementary DEIAR efforts at the college and university level
   
• Evaluating and revising the GEOG Diversity statement every 5 years 
   
• Providing a “State of DEIAR” for the Department when requested by the Chair
   
• Questions regarding DEIAR in the Department can be sent to the committee chair (Meredith Gore) at geog-dei@umd.edu.

Learn more:
Increasing Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Physical Geography