Gonzaga Awarded 2024 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award

Gonzaga University is proud to announce it's been named a recipient of the 2024 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award from Insight Into Diversity magazine.

Insight Into Diversity is the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education, and it will feature Gonzaga along with 113 peer institutions also named HEED Award winners in its November/December 2024 issue.

Robin Kelley, Gonzaga’s chief diversity officer, said the honor is a reflection of the considerable work done by Gonzaga’s Office of Inclusive Excellence as well as other university offices, students, faculty and staff across campus.

“I am honored for Gonzaga University to have received the HEED Award,” Kelley said. “Not only does Gonzaga University receiving the award reflect that we are living our mission and values, but it also demonstrates our longstanding commitments to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

Among the recent efforts on campus are the publication and implementation of Gonzaga’s Inclusive Excellence Strategic Plan, a road map for campus stakeholders to pursue belonging, equity, and justice as called for by the school’s Catholic, Jesuit, humanistic mission. Divisions, colleges, and schools on campus are also pursuing their own inclusive excellence plans in support of the university-wide commitments. Gonzaga is also home to myriad community and ally groups such as Colleagues of Color, Transnational and International Faculty and Staff, and IMPACT, which work to support students, faculty and staff from racial, ethnic and other marginalized groups that are least represented on campus.

The Office of Inclusive Excellence also provides and/or supports programs designed to help international Gonzaga community members, aids undocumented students, addresses bias through the BIAS Team, and hosts the Inclusive Excellence Leadership Academy to deepen and expand the collective cultural competency of the GU community.

“The HEED Award process consists of a comprehensive and rigorous application that includes questions relating to the recruitment and retention of students and employees – and best practices for both – leadership support for diversity, campus culture and climate, supplier diversity, and many other aspects of campus diversity and inclusion,” said Lenore Pearlstein, publisher of Insight Into Diversity. “We take a detailed approach to reviewing each application in deciding who will be named a HEED Award recipient. Our standards are high, and we look for institutions where diversity and inclusion are woven into the work being done every day across their campus.”

Kelley notes Gonzaga’s work in recruiting and retaining faculty from diverse backgrounds and increasing enrollment of students from underrepresented communities, as well as the implementation of the Inclusive Excellence Strategic Plan, helped Gonzaga in earning the HEED designation. Only five percent of faith-based schools were named HEED award recipients in 2024, Kelley said.

Among Gonzaga’s fellow recipients of the honor in 2024 are Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, Loyola Marymount University, Regis College, Santa Clara University, Temple University, the University of Oregon and Whitman College. For more information about the 2024 HEED Award, visit insightintodiversity.com.