Diversity Statement

Diversity Has Always Been a Priority

Cultivating and educating global citizens who reflect the world’s rich diversity is complex. At IES Abroad, we’re invested in the complexity of human connection that inclusive excellence requires.

We prepare and support students on their journeys around the globe. At the same time, IES Abroad’s entire workplace family is striving along our own journey to be the most inclusive, diverse and equitable global organization we can be.

IES Abroad was founded on the idea that students learn and grow in environments that take them out of the comfort zones. We recognize that the destination countries where we educate our culturally and ethnically diverse students are often culturally heterogenous. Our students learn best in programs that offer them a variety of encounters that reflect both the complexities of the societies where they are studying, and their own unique identities.

By exposing our students, faculty, and staff to diversity around the world, we deepen their understanding and awareness of issues related to the ethnic, cultural and sociological mosaic of the United States or wherever they call home. With a keen eye to creating living and learning environments where everyone’s voices and perspectives are heard and matter, we’re preparing our students more effectively to work and live in a pluralistic, 21st-Century world, and thrive with the intercultural fluency necessary to actively contribute to our collective global future.  

We Know the Value of an Inclusive Workplace

Just as we are strongly committed to increasing the diversity of our student body, we are also committed to increasing the diversity of our global workforce.  We’re aspiring to be a workplace family that is highly reflective of our headquarters city of Chicago and of our world.  It is critical to our mission to better position IES Abroad to attract, inspire, and champion our students, and to play a role in reversing societal inequities. We realize that when all people feel included and valued in the workplace, our work environment is enhanced, and our mission becomes more achievable.

Diversifying our workplace family globally means expanding the diversity, culturally, ethnically, and otherwise, of our Center staff, faculty and host families abroad to help broaden our students’ perspectives on their host countries. Greater diversity as a workplace makes us more creative, dynamic, and successful at what we’ve been doing for more than 70 years.

Our Work is Always Evolving

An academic environment that brings together people from different worlds with varying perspectives is like an orchestra that takes advantage of diverse talents. That’s why we will continually retool our curriculum and faculty training to maximize inclusive classroom and co-curricular learning as the world, and the needs of our student body, shift and change.

At IES Abroad, we’re also continuing to widen the inclusive lens through which we see the world. Our belief in diversity extends beyond students, staff, and faculty of different races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, socioeconomics, sexual orientation, and gender identities to include opportunities for people of a wide array of ideas, ideologies, hopes and dreams.

As the world turns, we remain ever evolving along a continuum of inclusion and equity where perfection will likely be elusive. We understand that. Nevertheless, we are determined to travel the road toward true diversity, equity and inclusion around the world in every way we can.

There’s more to come as we work hard to keep making a world of difference, together.