Diversity and Inclusion

Preparing our Students to Serve

Adler Graduate School prepares students to work in culturally diverse communities. As one of the institution’s four core values, diversity serves as one of the pillars that form the framework defining AGS’s goals, processes, and improvement plans. This is reinforced by our efforts to:

• recruit students from diverse communities,
• provide services to underserved communities, and
• place students in sites where they can serve and learn from individuals and families of different cultural and socio-economical backgrounds.

Attention to cultural diversity is also reflected in our Adlerian training that forms the second pillar of this framework. Central to this training is understanding how the role of individuals in the social group to which they belong, and the extent to which they contribute to the group, are directly related to individual and community health. Click here to see the results of our Adlerian Classroom brainstorm session.

Who our Students are

• Student Demographic Data (2022-2023)

What we do

• Seek out, identify, attract, and retain an increasingly diverse student body, staff, faculty, and board of directors to promote opportunities for understanding different perspectives.
  • Intentional recruitment of faculty from diverse backgrounds.
  • Tuition discount scholarships offered to members of the military.
  • Tuition discount scholarships offered to employees of strategic community partners that offer services to underserved communities.
  • Intentionally recruiting students from underrepresented groups.
• Sustain, improve, and promote a sense of safety, belonging, and significance for all students.
  • Title IX training for all faculty and staff and available to students.
  • Professional development events for faculty and staff focused on diversity and inclusivity.
  • Adlerian Students in Action, an open-membership student association that aims at increasing connectivity, inclusivity, and belonging among students.
  • Social Interest in Action, a staff-led group that promotes belonging and significance by 1) providing opportunities for contributing to the mental health community, and 2) promoting connection among AGS members by recognizing birthdays and individual contributions to the greater good. 
• We increase multicultural counseling awareness, knowledge, and skills through curricular experiences.
  • We embed the multicultural and social-justice counseling competencies (MSJCCs) in our curriculum. Students demonstrate these competencies in their portfolio defense.
  • All students are expected to participate in service activities during their career at AGS, and their participation in such activities is evaluated during the portfolio defense.
• Provide extracurricular opportunities for students to develop multicultural and social justice counseling competencies.
  • Examples include activities of the Art Therapy Service Center;
  • Development of field experience sites that represent area diversity,
  • Opportunities for immersion learning in Jamaica and Romania (see Adler in the News).

Community Partnerships

Serving students from underrepresented cultural groups is instrumental in increasing access to care for members of these groups. In addition to the 2018-19 and planned 2019-20 intentional efforts to recruit students from underrepresented groups, AGS also holds a designation as a Military Friendly® school and offers tuition discount scholarships to employees of community partners who provide services to underserved communities. These community partners, in turn, also serve as field experience sites for our students, which increases students’ opportunities to work with members of these communities.

Supporting our Students

College administrators, staff, and faculty recognize that recruiting students from underserved communities is not enough and that processes need to be in place to promote these students’ success. As such, AGS is committed to retaining these students by providing academic and extracurricular support to promote their success, including accommodations for students with learning disabilities, academic advising, writing support, and specialized writing support for students for whom English is not their first language, as well as active support to students who are conditionally admitted.

AGS understands that students no not all learn the same way. In order to meet a variety of learning styles we offer experiential learning activities in the classroom, immersion opportunities outside of the classroom, and online courses. For example, to demonstrate learning in our online courses, students can write, video, or audiotape themselves answering a question.

Policies against discrimination, gender-based misconduct, sexual misconduct, alcohol and drug abuse, policies protecting freedom of inquiry and expression, and policies promoting ethical behaviors are published in the Catalog/Student Handbook, in the Employee Handbook, and in the Faculty Handbook.