Diversity and inclusion:
- Enriches the educational experience,
- Enables individuals to achieve, contribute and succeed,
- Encourages everyone to participate in the process.
Manchester Community College advances academic, economic, civic, personal and cultural growth by providing comprehensive, innovative and affordable learning opportunities to diverse populations. We are a learning-centered community committed to access, excellence and relevance.
MCC is a community that welcomes, encourages, and supports individuals who desire to contribute to and benefit from the institution’s missions of teaching, performance and community service. In a pluralistic culture, that community includes faculty, students and staff who represent important differences. Members of our community represent differences in ethnicities, religious beliefs, values and points of view; they may also be physically different, have different intellectual interests or have different abilities.
Diversity: The Academic Mission
The American Association for Higher Education and the American Association of University Professors are among over 40 educationally-oriented organizations that endorsed On the Importance of Diversity in Higher Education (2002), a report outlining the critical link between diversity and higher education. The statement includes the following:
Diversity enriches the educational experience. We learn from those whose experiences, beliefs and perspectives are different from our own, and these lessons can be taught best in a richly diverse intellectual and social environment.
Learning in a diverse environment promotes personal growth; challenges stereotyped preconceptions; encourages critical thinking; and helps students learn to communicate effectively with people of varied backgrounds. Diversity strengthens communities and the workplace.
Education within a diverse setting prepares students to become good citizens in an increasingly complex, pluralistic society; it fosters mutual respect and teamwork; and it helps build communities whose members are judged by the quality of their character and their contributions.