Inclusive excellence is at the core of the mission of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. The department welcomes students, faculty, and staff from diverse backgrounds and identities along a number of dimensions, including but not limited to gender and gender identity, ethnicity, race, age, religion, spiritual belief, sexual orientation, place of origin, neurodiversity, class background, veteran status, and disability.  The department is committed to advancing inclusive excellence within its curricula, governance, staff and faculty professional development, student recruiting, and faculty hiring. We are especially committed to increasing and supporting the representation of those populations that have been historically excluded from, or marginalized within, the institution of higher education and the social sciences.

The following principles undergird our support for diversity, access, and inclusion:

• We respect and affirm the dignity of all members of our campus and community.
• We recognize that inequalities are produced and reinforced, with oppressive consequences, in both conscious (active) and unconscious (passive) ways.
• We encourage and seek out accountability to ourselves and to the communities we serve and study through an intentional and reflexive praxis, inclusive language, and good faith in our efforts.
• We promote dialogue about how best to achieve inclusive excellence in and through our teaching, scholarship, and service.
• We continually challenge ourselves, and others, to foster an environment in which all members can thrive personally, intellectually, and academically.

These principles are consistent with the ongoing efforts across James Madison University in support of access and inclusion, in addition to the codes of ethics of both the American Sociological Association and the American Anthropological Association.