Inclusion & Belonging

The Weitzman School of Design is committed to cultivating an environment that celebrates and promotes diversity, champions social equity, and welcomes all members of our community. We strive to ensure that students, staff, and faculty from all backgrounds and identities feel included and have access to equal opportunities, and that everyone in our community knows that they belong and that their lived experience is valued.

The Weitzman School’s Inclusion and Belonging initiative invites students, faculty, and staff from all over the world to recognize commonalities and become more aware of how to understand and support each other’s differences, practice cultural humility, and make design justice a central motivation for the Weitzman community. We are working to create a shared understanding of how to recognize our advantages and disadvantages by focusing on our curriculum, community engagement, and culture. Recent examples of IB initiatives include:

// Establishing a school-wide IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity-Awareness, and Service) Committee consisting of Weitzman faculty, staff, and students to generate Inclusion and Belonging programs and facilitate their implementation within our community.

// Reviewing and restructuring curricula to represent more diverse perspectives and creating courses focused on design justice and community engagement.

// Educating students, faculty, and staff about harmful biases, and sharing tools and best practices to help us address them.

// Hiring more diverse faculty and staff, and recruiting students with varying backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.

// Partnering with communities across the region to implement neighborhood improvement initiatives, promote greater equity, and reduce systemic racism embedded in uneven distributions of public resources and power, under-achieving buildings and spaces, and erasures. 

// Increasing schoolwide engagement experiences focused on inclusivity and belonging, including student activities, public lectures and events, and community workshops and gatherings.

Weitzman JxB Dashboard (08.22.22)
Weitzman Departmental DEI Plans (11.25.20)
Weitzman Center DEI Plans (4.6.21)
2018 Diversity through Excellence Plan (September 2018)
2018 Weitzman Faculty Diversity Plan (June 2018)
2017 Work Group Recommendations (July 2017)

Weitzman Excellence through Diversity Plan (10.12.23)
Weitzman Excellence through Diversity Plan (10.14.22)
Weitzman Excellence through Diversity Plan (10.27.21)
Weitzman Diversity Action Plan Report (11.27.20)
Report to the OAA EOP (December 2019)

Postdoctoral Fellowships for Academic Diversity

The Weitzman School is pleased to work with the Provost's Office in support of the Penn Postdoctoral Fellowships for Academic Diversity Program. This is a competitive program whose goal is to increase the diversity of the community of scholars devoted to academic research at the University of Pennsylvania. We seek to attract promising researchers and educators from different backgrounds, races, ethnic groups, and other diverse populations whose life experience, research experience and employment background will contribute significantly to their academic missions. 

Moelis Scholars Program

The Moelis Scholars Program provides financial and other support to students in the field of urban planning, particularly those who intend to pursue careers in public/private development or community and economic development. Consideration is given to the applicant's commitment to ensuring a range of perspectives and experiences in the field so as to enhance the excellence of the program and its mission. All students meeting these requirements are eligible for consideration and will be contacted by the program director for an interview if they are a semi finalist.