Inclusive Excellence Professional Development Opportunities

Inclusive Workplace Starts Here

Understanding diversity, equity, and inclusion is crucial for creating an inclusive workplace for faculty and staff. By embracing diverse perspectives and ensuring access to opportunities, faculty and staff promote a sense of belonging within an inclusive learning environment that empowers learners to navigate cultural complexities, cultivate empathy, and develop the necessary skills to thrive in a diverse and interconnected global economy.

ASPIRE meets people where they are through pathways that provide opportunities for skill enhancement, knowledge acquisition, and career improvement. ASPIRE’s professional development pathways serve as transformative journeys that foster growth, learning, and relationship building. Through the use of autonomous choice, individuals may chart their own journeys toward personal and professional fulfillment.

In support of Mason’s broader strategic goals and academic units’ Inclusive Excellence Plans (IEP), the ASPIRE Learning and Development opportunity offers multiple Pathways Forward in order for individuals and teams to:

• Cultivate skills for communication and interaction across cultures. 

• Foster self-awareness of personal worldviews, cultural practices, and values, while promoting understanding of others' histories, cultures, and identities. Recognize the significance of this for fostering a sense of belonging among stakeholders.  

• Acknowledge the valuable role of diversity in our community and prioritize the cultivation of an inclusive excellence lens. This lens enables us to critically evaluate and address systemic and organizational practices that perpetuate injustice, exclusion, and inequity, hindering trust, respect, fairness, and social justice.

To attend a Pathway workshop, click the corresponding link after each workshop title below to register in MasonLEAPS (login required).

To schedule professional development for yourself or your team, please complete our Inclusive Excellence Professional Development Opportunities Intake Form.

Compassionate Conversation Pathway

This Pathway supports the development of skills for communication and interaction across cultures.

Workshop: Compassionate Conversations (registration link)

Workshop: Building Communities Through Compassionate Conversation**

** Note: In-person only. "Compassionate Conversation" is a prerequisite for this workshop.

Within Myself Pathway

This Pathway focuses on intrapersonal awareness, knowledge, and self-reflection.

Workshop: Nurturing Cultural Awareness and Resilience (registration link)

Workshop: The Story of Me, The Story of Us (registration link)

Workshop: Cultivating Empathy (registration link)

Within Our Team Pathway

This pathway will focus on interpersonal and interactional awareness that fosters respectful, compassionate, and empathetic relationships with individuals, specifically those representing diverse constituencies.

This pathway focuses on developing ongoing, conscious efforts to examine systemic barriers and challenge the mentalities around the paradigms of ideas, language, and behaviors.

Workshop Title: Creating Communities of Belonging (Pt. 1) (registration link)

Workshop Title: Creating Communities of Belonging (Pt. 2) (registration link)