NOVA Board Passes Resolution of Commitment and Support for Equity in Opportunity

At NOVA, our values are clear: we have a shared commitment to providing open access and promoting equality for all who seek to improve their lives; we believe in the worth, dignity, and human potential of each individual; we recognize our responsibility to build and maintain a welcoming, caring and inclusive environment in which to learn and work. These values are a promise to our students and colleagues that they will not wait for equity in opportunity at NOVA.

On Monday, June 22, the NOVA College Board passed the following Resolution of Commitment and Support for Equity in Opportunity:

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE NORTHERN VIRGINIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD, that we hereby call upon NOVA’s leadership, faculty and staff to seize this opportunity to act on the institution’s shared values with renewed purpose and integrity, to embody – in the words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the “inescapable network of mutuality” in achieving and sustaining our educational commitments to the region.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we ask our leadership, faculty, staff and students to identify specific, measurable, visible actions that can improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in our college’s practices and outcomes and to do everything possible, within their roles, to eliminate implicit bias in policies and practices while improving NOVA’s climate and culture for the full and ever-expanding diversity of our college community.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the suggested improvements take the form of commitments for the upcoming year that can be tracked to measure NOVA’s progress in removing inequality and structural racism. For as is so clearly memorialized in our values statement, “We believe our worth as a community college is measured by the quality and timeliness of our response and service to the community.” The college understands and acknowledges that it is part of a larger community and we are strengthened by our resolve to dismantle structural racism and to transform lives and communities. These are times that can and should test NOVA. To quote James Baldwin, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” We must collectively rise up to the occasion and we will.

To read the full resolution, click Here.