The Department of Communication at Cornell University has a three-part mission:

  1. to enhance understanding of communication processes, institutions, systems, and practices;
  2. to inform and educate a wide range of constituencies; and
  3. to foster communication competencies.

Achieving this mission requires the full participation of a diverse community of students, faculty, and staff who have had a variety of experiences that can contribute to insights into how our social world operates. The Department can sustain excellence in research only if we have access to all critical lenses and perspectives on the questions that are important to ask, and on the methods that should be employed to examine those questions. The Department can sustain excellence in teaching only if we incorporate the perspectives of those from across our global community, as well as the marginalized communities that are often overlooked within the United States.

Fostering a diverse community is more than simple numerical representation. To live up to Cornell’s founding principle as a place where “any person can find instruction in any study,” the Communication Department makes persistent and proactive efforts to ensure that all are welcomed and treated with respect so that they truly can instruct, or find instruction. The goal is to create a culture that encourages and emboldens every member of the community to engage, particularly those who have historically been on the margins of the society.

Achieving these goals requires consistent self-examination to assess the progress, strategic planning to set targets for improvement, and most importantly, strategic actions to work toward the Department’s goals. Below is a partial list of current initiatives to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in our community.

Current Initiatives

COMM-Unity Project

Previous research - including projects by our own faculty - has documented that first-generation college students and students from other backgrounds that are historically underrepresented on college campuses, often benefit from learning communities. Such communities provide platforms to share tacit knowledge, reduce barriers, and create earlier and more equitable access to resources. Putting that research into action, the Communication Department recently developed and implemented an undergraduate peer mentor program to help all students thrive.

Syllabus and Curriculum Review

To have a broad and rich understanding of the world, it is imperative that students encounter the work of a diverse array of scholars. Faculty members are currently engaged in a holistic review of the entire curriculum and each course’s syllabus to identify and correct blind spots and biases in teaching and to ensure that the course content is representative of the broader global population, especially minority groups that are too often overlooked.

Research and Community Engagement

Cornell University’s land grant mission is of significant value. Cornell University was built on land taken from indigenous peoples. While this dark history cannot be changed, the Department is sensitive to this and many faculty conduct research and community-engaged projects that focus on understanding and addressing social inequality in its many forms and explore ways to increase mutual understanding and success of collaboration across cultural boundaries.

Enhanced Efforts to Advance Diversity and Equity in Graduate Studies

The Department’s Graduate Program Committee strategic plan includes enhanced efforts to increase avenues of access to graduate education in Communication, especially by those from historically underrepresented backgrounds. These efforts are being conducted in coordination with the Graduate School Office of Access and Recruitment and require careful interrogation into how biases and discrimination have led to broad scale patterns of systemic oppression in current educational, economic, and social systems.

Holistic Review of Graduate Program Applications

The Communication Department recognizes that increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion requires not only a larger pool of students from diverse backgrounds but also a review process that reduces implicit or explicit biases. To that end, the Department’s Graduate Program Committee spent the 2019-2020 academic year overhauling the review process for graduate program applications. Notable changes include a revision of materials requested in applications (including removing the GRE requirement), a more holistic approach to the review of applications, new rubrics for evaluation, and a broader set of criteria for evaluation that focuses on academic preparedness and potential, motivation for study, and fit with the field’s goals.

Reading Club

The Communication Department has initiated a reading club on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Faculty and other interested parties meet regularly to expand knowledge, awareness, and understanding of the obstacles, challenges, and institutional discrimination due to systemic racism. The goal is to put this understanding to use so that everyone in our community might flourish personally, that the Department can grow and thrive collectively, and that the Department can provide the infrastructure, support, and climate to support a diverse community of scholars.

Syllabus Statement

As people who study communication, we take seriously the practices of dialogical communication that  include welcoming, listening to, and understanding all voices and perspectives, respecting and valuing differences of opinion and experience, and encouraging exploration of new and old ways of thinking--a process that lies at the heart of intellectual inquiry. Theory and practice work dialectically, so together we take responsibility to ensure communication that respects diversity, strives for equity, and is inclusive. Please bring forward any situations where voices are not being heard. 

Land Acknowledgement

Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign Nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York State, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' people, past and present, to these lands and waters. Learn more about Cornell’s relationship to indigenous dispossession.