Belonging refers to the emotional and experiential outcome of inclusion. All humans share the need to be taken in, cared-for, protected, and valued by a group, community, or organization. Belonging gives people a voice in a community, and encourages and enables them to contribute to it and to expect support from it as well. Source: https://www.nais.org/articles/pages/diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging/
We've all heard presentations about the importance of DEI. In this powerful talk, Carin Taylor shares why belonging is the focus of her DEI strategy and the most important piece of the DEI discussion. She outlines the key ingredients needed to belong and how to create them. Carin Taylor is the chief diversity officer at Workday, a leader in enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources. Within her role, Carin has global responsibility for the development and execution of the company’s DEI&B (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging) strategy. In her session she’ll describe this strategy in greater detail, highlighting why belonging is a key focus to her as a leader.
College can feel like a lonely place, especially if you're a student of color, a low-income individual, a first-generation youth -- or all three. Educator Chitra Aiyar outlines how she encourages her students to cultivate spaces for other marginalized students to connect and help each other grow.