DEI Statement

You Are Welcome Here.

The Career Connections Center supports Clark University’s Community Commitment and is dedicated to building a career center that is welcoming, equitable, accessible, and inclusive to everyone.

We acknowledge the existence of prejudice, discrimination, and racism within career services and the workplace and recognize how these harmful behaviors manifest themselves in the form of occupational segregation, unconscious bias in hiring, salary inequities, and active discrimination.

We believe the impact and resultant trauma that these issues (both directly experienced and observed through current events) have on the physical and mental health of our students, alumni, staff, and faculty is real and cannot be ignored.

We are committing ourselves to inclusion, equity, accessibility, anti-racism, and anti-oppression in all aspects of our work, including advising, programming, employer relations, resource-building, communications, and community partnerships.

We acknowledge that career development is unique for every person and it is our ongoing responsibility to:

• Provide programs and events that support the diverse identities and experiences of Clark students and alumni.
• Engage in continued staff development and anti-racist and anti-ableist training.
• Create welcoming, brave spaces where students can talk freely and without judgment about their identities, experiences, and circumstances while feeling safe, respected, and supported.
• Confront racism, sexism, ableism, transphobia, and homophobia in all its forms, including examining our resources, policies, systems, and structures that may unconsciously reinforce prejudice, discrimination, or oppression.
• Develop relationships with and connect students to employers who celebrate and pledge to promote diversity, inclusion, and accessibility in the workplace.
• Expand opportunity pipelines and lower barriers to entry for historically excluded identities in the job and internship search process.
• Help students uphold their personal values while they align their personal identities with their professional goals.
• Advance equitable access to career-related services, networks, mentorship, programming, and resources for students from all identities and experiences.
• Establish communication channels and engage in open and honest dialogue with student groups about their needs, goals, and values and how to best support them.
• Actively work to dismantle oppressive and prejudicial systems that exclude Clark students from career-related opportunities.
• Recruit and hire professional and student staff with diverse identities and experiences.
• Continuously assess our resources, marketing, programming, and other opportunities to ensure they meet the needs of our diverse community.
• Annually evaluate the career outcomes of our students to ensure that students from historically excluded communities are achieving equitable career outcomes compared to the student community as a whole.
• Actively invite feedback from Clark University students, staff, faculty, and alumni on our progress as we work towards inclusivity.