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Campbell Library

Music Sources for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

This guide highlights resources for promoting DEI in music

Welcome

Rowan University Libraries have many resources that can assist you in incorporating aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion into your teaching practices and potential research. These issues have recently led to position statements from the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) on Inclusivity and Diversity (rev. 2017) and Equity and Access (2017) and the College Music Society set Fostering Equity and Opportunity in Music as their common topic for 2019-2020.

Find more information about the university's commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion here. Here is the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion's definition of these terms:

Diversity

We commit to promoting and increasing diversity which is expressed in various forms, including race and ethnicity, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, language, culture, marital status, national origin, religion, age, (dis)ability status and political perspective. As the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) so often points out, diversity should be talked about as “inclusive excellence,” for only when a campus is truly inclusive can it make a claim to excellence.

Equity

Equity is the guarantee of fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all students, faculty and staff, while identifying and eliminating barriers that prevent full participation of some groups. Equity-minded practices are created through:

  1. Willingness to look at student outcomes and disparities at all educational levels disaggregated by race and ethnicity as well as socioeconomic status.
  2. Recognition that individual students are not responsible for the unequal outcomes of groups that have historically experienced discrimination and marginalization in the United States.
  3. Respect for the aspirations and struggles of students who are not well served by the current educational system.
  4. Belief in the fairness of allocating additional college and community resources to students who have greater needs due to the systemic shortcomings of our educational system in providing for them.
  5. Recognition that the elimination of entrenched biases, stereotypes, and discrimination in institutions of higher education requires intentional critical deconstruction of structures, policies, practices, norms, and values assumed to be race neutral. (AACU)

We commit to working actively to challenge and respond to bias, harassment, and discrimination. We are committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, or veteran status.

Inclusion

Inclusion is the active, intentional, and ongoing engagement with diversity—in people, in the curriculum, in the co-curriculum, and in communities (intellectual, social, cultural, geographical) with which individuals might connect—in ways that increase one’s awareness, content knowledge, cognitive sophistication, and empathic understanding of the complex ways individuals interact within systems and institutions. (AAC&U)