Civility and Core Values
Guiding Principles
Within and beyond our program, we pledge to:
- Foster acceptance--embracing diversity, cultural competency, and accountability
- Seek to understand, have compassion for others, listen and be willing to have challenging conversations using empathy
- Contribute with awareness, creativity, and mindfulness
- Bring confidence, clarity, advocacy and a duty to stand up for others
- Strive for equal and fair treatment, occupational justice, and collaborative environments
Core Statement
As a community of occupational therapy students, staff, and faculty members at the University of North Dakota, we work to promote civility through acceptance, cultural competency, and the ability to embrace diversity in all encounters. We remain accountable by maintaining a program that celebrates the uniqueness of each person and contributes to a positive, flexible environment for growth.
By demonstrating empathy and compassion in our public and private lives, we develop qualities that promote client-centered therapy and the building of healthy professional relationships. We endeavor to understand ourselves in order to better understand others. We embrace, free of judgment, not only the similarities but also the differences among ourselves and of those within our community. We will uphold our commitment to promote cultural competency among students, staff, faculty, clients and visitors.
We act with awareness and mindfulness of self and others throughout all contexts of the program. We respect the need to understand one's own background, motivations, values, and actions to genuinely grasp those of others. We consider how all words and actions affect others, and therefore, we remain vigilant in creating positive spaces. The practice of mindfulness and awareness of self will serve to enhance our effectiveness as students, staff, faculty, and occupational therapists.
We strive to engage in and encourage difficult conversations, which challenge and grow our beliefs and opinions about diversity and social justice. We seek to respectfully create change, understanding, and acceptance in our program by confidently and assertively advocating for others and ourselves.
It is our responsibility to empower others to engage in meaningful occupations through the application of occupational justice. Occupational justice serves to enable everyone to engage in meaningful occupations based on their own personal beliefs and capabilities. By maintaining both a judgment and discrimination free environment, we will eliminate insensitive factors that may decrease opportunities for individuals to engage in meaningful occupations and educational endeavors.
We aim to challenge each other to engage in competent and compassionate practice by encouraging and promoting civility. By actively transforming the message of civility into actions of character, both inside and outside of the program, we model a standard that can flourish in every community in which we live, learn, work and serve, thus resulting in universal access and engagement in meaningful occupations.