Equity, diversity, and inclusion

Learn more about our EDI committee and connect to resources

SALA recognizes that injustice and inequity are still holding back design pedagogy and practice. As a school, we commit ourselves to create the systemic changes required to address the numerous forms of discrimination operating today. 

The committee’s charge is to create change within SALA, advise SALA leadership, and direct the school’s governance and operations toward greater equity, diversity, and inclusion. This encompasses racial injustice as well as other forms of oppression, including those related to gender, sexuality, religion, colonialism, and physical and invisible forms of disability. The committee aims to address these challenges not just within the school but in the context of the disciplines we teach. The ‘pipeline problem’ of a lack of diversity in the professions is directly related, though not limited, to what happens in university education. It relates to how we teach, to whom we invite to join our community as students, faculty, and staff, to our research agendas, and to how we work with communities and partners.

SALA’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee serves in a permanent role at the school’s highest level of governance. The creation of the committee in July 2020 was precipitated by a letter (linked below) to the school sent by alumni and students calling for urgent action on anti-racism and equity, as the Black Lives Matter movement brought global attention to specific acts of violence against Indigenous people, Black people, and people of colour (BIPOC) and a wider culture of white supremacy that requires change.