Diversity Statement

The University of Maryland Counseling Center is committed to providing culturally sensitive services to the campus community and developing the multicultural capacities of its staff. Given the diversity of our student population, help-seekers come to the Counseling Center with varied experiences specific to their racial and ethnic membership, gender, sexual identity, social class, religious affiliation, nationality, and/or disability status. We strive to offer services and programs that are inclusive, and give voice to these varied experiences, by providing a safe place to be heard, appreciated, and accepted.

We celebrate the rich diversity that exists in our campus community. As the University's Strategic Plan for Diversity states, "living and working in a community that accepts and celebrates diversity is a joy and a privilege that contributes to the vitality and excellence of the educational experience." As a community, our lives are interconnected, and we benefit when we encourage awareness, tolerance, respect, acceptance, understanding, and an appreciation of our differences and similarities. By fostering these processes, our hope is that students, faculty, staff and others in our community will broaden their scope of awareness, develop empathy for different perspectives and life experiences, challenge stereotypes and biases, and serve as models for civility and social justice.

The Counseling Center staff has extensive experience with providing support services to individuals of varying social identities and backgrounds. We know that only through an awareness of ourselves as cultural beings can we hope to understand and help others. Therefore, to enhance our knowledge and skills, we routinely engage in continuing education programs, trainings, and ongoing research in diversity. Furthermore, clinical training in diversity and multiculturalism provided to doctoral interns, externs, and practicum students is integral to the Counseling Center's mission.

Our commitment to diversity is an ongoing and open-ended journey. There are many opportunities at the University of Maryland and in the Washington, D. C. metropolitan area to learn and enrich one's intellectual, social, and cultural knowledge and experience. By taking advantage of these learning opportunities, one can truly experience and enjoy all that our world has to offer.