Diversity & Inclusion

We all want to make a difference in the world, and there are countless ways to effect positive change in communities. No matter the context, successful change agents must know how to collaborate with diverse communities, design and facilitate effective programs, build mutually beneficial partnerships, and critically reflect on their work and its impact. Through these five self-paced courses, you will build these skills, maximizing your learning and your ability to lead others to make a positive difference in the world through community-engaged learning. You will also find best practices, downloadable tools, and sample activities that you can start applying today, whether you’re volunteering in your local community, teaching a service-learning course, participating in community-based research, or engaging with communities internationally.

Unlock your inclusive leadership potential through mindfulness and meditation. This certificate program prepares you to be successful with the intercultural aspects of working in an organization by developing your own inner resources and changing your perspective. The first course emphasizes improving relationships with people who are different from ourselves. Through instruction and exercises, you will discover how to cultivate mindfulness through meditation as a means for self-reflection and leadership development. As you advance in the course, storytelling will be introduced as part of contemplative meditation. You’ll hear stories from real business leaders and discover how other organizations navigate intercultural communication. You will have the opportunity to reflect on these stories as well as share your own relevant experiences as you develop your own sense of self-awareness and achieve a shift in perspective. Please note that meditating 10 to 30 minutes a day is an expectation of this course. You’ll be required to complete the first course in this certificate before the others. This certificate includes two years of free access to Symposium! These events feature live, highly participatory virtual Zoom sessions with Cornell faculty and experts to explore today’s most pressing topics. Throughout the year, you may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending a Symposium is not required to successfully complete the certificate program.

An organization is only as good as its culture—and building that culture frequently begins with the HR department. Diversity, equity, and inclusion have evolved from a focus on compliance to a strategic-level cultural effort with a demonstrated positive impact on a company’s performance and business results. Today such a culture is much more than a legal or moral requirement; it’s also a competitive advantage. This specialized HR certificate program provides a deep foundation for you to identify, develop, and support HR initiatives for diversity and inclusion that can improve not only your organization’s culture but its success. The program includes four core courses, complemented by your choice of two elective courses, allowing you to tailor your learning to your specific interests and career goals. This program includes two years of free access to the HR and Workplace Belonging Symposium! These highly interactive virtual events span multiple days and explore today’s most pressing topics. Symposium offers exclusive opportunities to engage in real-time discussions with your eCornell community, applying insights from your courses to real-world scenarios. Through reflections and small-group discussions, you’ll deepen your learning, broaden your perspective, and expand your professional network. Symposium events are held throughout the year, providing ongoing opportunities to stay engaged, gain fresh perspectives, and strengthen your skills. Once enrolled, you’ll receive access to the Symposium networking sites and details about upcoming sessions. You can participate in as many as you’d like to make the most of your experience, though attendance is not required to complete your program.

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice efforts are becoming increasingly important in every industry and organization. This push toward diversity encompasses more than just creating an inclusive climate for the employees that are already in your workplace; your organization’s hiring process, from recruitment through to retention and employee success, is an opportunity to create a more inclusive and diverse workforce. Approaching hiring with an inclusion-centered framework that mitigates bias can result in hiring more qualified people with marginalized identities across all roles in your organization and ensuring that those potential employees feel like they belong in your organization even before their first day at work. This certificate will explore the three stages of hiring — building talent pools, adopting selection practices, and onboarding for employee engagement — detailing methods of inclusion for each stage. By refocusing your hiring practices on inclusion, you can meet and exceed your organization’s DEI goals then sustain them over time. The courses in this certificate program are required to be completed in the order that they appear. This program includes two years of free access to Symposium! These events feature a week of live, highly participatory virtual Zoom sessions with Cornell faculty and experts to explore today’s most pressing diversity and inclusion topics, including equity, unconscious bias, psychological safety, inclusive leadership, and cross-cultural conversations. Symposium events are held several times throughout the year. Once enrolled in the course, Counteracting Unconscious Bias, you will receive information about upcoming events. Throughout the year, you may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete the certificate program.

This five-course certificate program examines the issues facing women in leadership positions and offers strategies for handling them. Professor Deborah Streeter balances academic research regarding social norms and expectations with practical strategies for operating effectively within the workplace. She discusses how to outmaneuver the "double bind" dilemma, showing strong leadership qualities without being penalized for it. Professor Streeter discusses how women can best negotiate in the workplace, ways to effectively provide both positive and negative feedback and how they can strengthen their emotional intelligence to stand out as a leader among both men and women. This certificate positions women who are in leadership positions to recognize when there is a gender dimension at work and how they can outstrategize gender bias and their own habits to achieve better results. For the best experience in this program it is recommended to take these courses in the order that they appear. This program includes two years of free access to Symposium! These events feature several days of live, highly participatory virtual Zoom sessions with Cornell faculty and experts to explore the most pressing leadership topics. Symposium events are held several times throughout the year. Once enrolled in your program, you will receive information about upcoming events. Throughout the year, you may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete the certificate program. The content of this certificate program is focused on developing and supporting women in leadership. This program is open to students of all sexes and gender identities.

In many organizations, men hold more executive positions and board seats than similarly qualified women. Even organizations that bring on women and men at the same rate still demonstrate a gender imbalance at the highest levels of leadership because the power structures and gender dynamics in place often favor and reward the contributions of men over women. In this environment, even the most experienced and capable women struggle against gender bias and established power dynamics on their way to the top. In this certificate, you will learn strategies and techniques to skillfully level the playing field as you work to attain higher levels of leadership. You’ll begin with an evaluation of the gender bias and power dynamics present in your organizations and develop strategies to overcome their limiting effects. Next, you will assess and refine the way you present yourself as an executive. Leaders often have to negotiate on behalf of themselves, their teams, and their institutions, so students will explore ways to prepare for the challenges women face in negotiations and adapt their negotiation style to the context of a given situation. Given that strong professional networks are often required to advance careers to the highest level, you will create a plan to fully develop your own networks while navigating the potential traps of gender and power dynamics. Finally, you will peek behind the boardroom door to identify the key competencies needed for board membership and explore the various - and sometimes unlikely - pathways women follow to the boardroom. This program includes two years of free access to Symposium! These events feature several days of live, highly participatory virtual Zoom sessions with Cornell faculty and experts to explore the most pressing leadership topics. Symposium events are held several times throughout the year. Once enrolled in your program, you will receive information about upcoming events. Throughout the year, you may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete the certificate program. For the best experience in this program it is recommended to take these courses in the order that they appear. The content of this certificate program is focused on developing and supporting women in leadership. This program is open to students of all sexes and gender identities.

An organization is only as good as its culture—and building that culture is not only a role for HR, it’s every manager’s and employee’s responsibility. As today’s headlines prove, an inclusive work environment is not just a nice-to-have, it can make or break a company. You can help make your organization a more supportive and engaging place to work by understanding the perceptual, institutional, and psychological processes that impact the ways people interact with each other. Starting with a look at employee engagement, then identifying interventions surrounding unconscious bias and specific diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies, this program is appropriate for anyone committed to going beyond mere compliance to build a truly aware and inclusive work culture. For the best experience in this program it is recommended to take these courses in the order that they appear. This program includes two years of free access to Symposiums! These events feature a week of live, highly participatory virtual Zoom sessions with Cornell faculty and experts to explore today’s most pressing diversity and inclusion topics, including equity, unconscious bias, psychological safety, inclusive leadership, and cross-cultural conversations. Symposium events are held several times throughout the year. Once enrolled in your program, you will receive information about upcoming events. Throughout the year, you may participate in as many Symposium sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete the certificate program.

In an "equitable community," everyone is included in the full benefits of society. Advancing equitable community change depends on understanding racial, social, spatial, economic, and environmental systems and their biases while, at the same time, developing innovative solutions to seemingly intractable social problems. This certificate program delves into the knowledge and skills needed for individuals like you, working in all sectors of society, to manage development and changes in ways that build more equitable, just, and sustainable communities. Ultimately, you will discover the deep structural and cultural roots of today’s pressing social, economic, and environmental challenges then work to counteract them in the communities you serve. Throughout this six-course certificate, you will explore and plan social action research and apply course concepts, data, and information to propose policy initiatives and recruitment plans aimed at bringing diverse people and communities together for equitable change. For the best experience in this program it is recommended to take these courses in the order that they appear.