Diversity in the Women’s Spirituality PhD and MA Programs
Women′s Spirituality Diversity Statement
The learning community that we envision and seek to cultivate is based on a commitment to diversity and multiculturalism. The program acknowledges the power differentials based on the social meanings assigned to gender, race, class, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, immigration status, colonization, ability, and disability.
We are committed to unlearning oppression, building alliances, and unpacking our various privileges. In this endeavor, we are inspired by our studies of contemporary and historical matristic, matriarchal, and indigenous cultures that offer nonpatriarchal models of women-centered, egalitarian, multi-gender-tolerant inclusive societies that embody mutuality and partnership with the natural, human, and spiritual realms.
While we are a program that focuses on the roles, activities, and spiritual practices of individuals and groups characterized as “women,” the WSE program explicitly acknowledges difficulties that arise from heteronormativity in spirituality and from dual or binary gender systems. We welcome individuals of all sexualities and diverse gender identities.
Diversity and the Curriculum
Over the last decade, we have worked diligently at CIIS to create a model that supports diversity, cultural sensitivity, and multicultural awareness. We seek to promote respect and tolerance for divergent points of view, variable class and economic positions, and interlocking social and cultural identities.
Our focus on racial and ethnic diversity is augmented by our focus on spiritual and religious differences, women's ways of knowing, and different fields of research and discovery.
Because diversity is a primary premise of each class, the curriculum is very multicultural. Diversity is highly valued by our core and adjunct faculty, whose foundational competencies include familiarity with a diversity of womanist-feminist frameworks and worldviews, as well as a variety of academic disciplines, epistemologies, and women's ways of knowing.
Both core and adjunct faculty are especially attuned to the value of conveying wisdom in nontraditional ways.
