DEI at MSU: Providing opportunity and support for all Spartans to reach their full potential

<p><a href="https://strategicplan.msu.edu">MSU Strategic Plan 2030</a> identifies goals within six key themes: student success; staff and faculty success; discovery, creativity, and innovation for excellence and global impact; sustainable health; stewardship and sustainability; and diversity, equity and inclusion. On this edition of MSU Today, we'll be focusing on the diversity, equity and inclusion theme of the plan with its executive sponsor, Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Jabbar Bennett. </p><p>“I’m really pleased you’ll be talking with our very distinguished CDO Jabbar Bennett today about DEI and its role in the strategic plan,” says <a href="https://president.msu.edu">Michigan State University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D.</a> “Even though we have a separate plan for diversity, equity and inclusion, everybody who was involved in this process felt it was important that it be in included as a pillar in the strategic plan as well. It cuts across so many aspects of our campus and it’s so important to us going forward. I've talked many times about the need to have a place where people feel welcome and where people feel that they're a part of this university and are welcomed at this university. And that's what DEI is about. It's providing opportunity, it's providing support and it's providing ways in which we can continue to help people reach their full potential.”</p><p>How does MSU Strategic Plan 2030 define diversity, equity and inclusion?</p><p>“It's important for all of us to recognize that diversity, equity and inclusion are three different things with their own definitions and application that work together and complement each other,” says Bennett. “And all three are foundational principles and practices that we must embrace as Spartans if we really want to get where it is we say we want to go.</p><p>“Diversity represents our very collective and individual identities and differences, and we recognize that diversity is a central component of inclusive excellence in research, teac