Albion College

The Human Rights Lab at Albion, in partnership with the Admissions Department, is creating a "diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) curriculum to train the tour guides at Albion College on how best to include information about DEI initiatives and adequately communicate the values of the college as an anti-racist institution."

On August 9, 2023, Albion held the "Lunch, Learn and Lead workshop series," which was "Developed and led by Vice President for Belonging and Culture Dr. Taran McZee." The series "invited faculty and staff to explore foundational principles of belonging and justice" and were "encouraged to share promising practices that move the Albion community closer to inclusive excellence." While "prior sessions explored Juneteenth, Microaggressions, Accessibility and SafeZone Training," the August 9 session focused on "Identifying Trigger Words."

Albion College has created the Richard M. Smith Common Reading Experience where all of Albion's incoming class reads a shared text, according to the college program's description. Albion College has announced that "How to Be an Antiracist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is the 2021 Richard M. Smith Common Reading Experience for 2021."

Albion has laid out its "bias reporting" system and states, "This tool is a resource to report individual incidents of bias on or off campus and serves as a mechanism to help us address systemic issues of bias more broadly."

Albion College has enacted a policy related to bringing in new faculty that requires "at least 50% BIPOC candidates in the semifinalist round to be allowed to move forward."

The college will soon "announce a new Institute on Race and Belonging named after James L. Curtis '44."

Albion College has recently partnered with Return On Inclusion, an institution that "delivers online sport-specific diversity and inclusion education." Participants of this program will be instructed with a "comprehensive diversity and inclusion training."

The James L. Curtis Institute for Race and Belonging is "committed to using STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics] to answer critical questions about justice, equity and belonging..." and "promotes inclusive access to STEM knowledge."

The college created a new unit called "Campus Life" that provides resources "to support more of the programming needs and desires of BIPOC students."

The James L. Curtis for Race and Belonging at Albion offers a certificate program titled "Race and Social Justice." The certificate provides a "documented experiential learning sequence for students particularly interested in creating, analyzing, and leading conversations about racial identity, advocacy, and institutionalized racism in a United States context." The program is "intended for students who desire a sophisticated understanding of historical and ongoing racial justice issues, movements, policies, and structures" and "supports the critical appreciation of the social, political, and racial contexts of our public and interpersonal lives."

Albion's Athletics Department published its "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement" (adapted from the NCAA's statement on inclusion) which reads in part as follows: "Albion College Athletics brings together individuals with a broad and unique range of backgrounds, experiences, cultures, beliefs and social views to create an inclusive environment that is crucial to our overall success. With that comes our DEI platform, designed to educate and inform our student-athletes, coaches and staff."

On August 16, 2023, the college announced that "Experienced diversity and belonging professional" Rivkah Gamble joined Albion as its new associate director for belonging and culture. Gamble would be "responsible for developing, driving and implementing a college-wide framework for the cultivation and accountability for every member of the Albion College community to actively participate in creating a campus environment of equity, inclusion and belonging."

The Albion College "Blueprint for Belonging Action Toolkit" states that the plan would "inform individual unit plans" which would in turn "provide the opportunity to look broadly at demographics, curriculum, co-curriculum, teaching, research, mentoring, business practices, program policies, graduation and advancement, staffing, and organizational climate – all in relation to the rich range of identity groups and communities that Albion College serves."

On September 20, 2021, Albion welcomed author of "How to be an Antiracist," Ibram X. Kendi, to speak to audiences on the topic of race in America.

The Human Rights Lab at Albion created a "Social Justice and Human Rights Advocacy Toolkit" which "offers practical ideas for building more inclusive communities, preventing bias, challenging hate, and increasing access to rights and justice."

Albion College plans on joining the faculty consortium on diversity in order to begin "advocating to the faculty that they need to diversify as fast as possible" in addition to "diversifying the Cabinet" by having a higher ratio of individuals who identify as PoC hold a position in the Cabinet.