CIMC Diversity & Inclusion Survey Results and Focus Groups

The teachers, staff, and survey committee of CIMC would once again like to thank everyone who participated in the Diversity and Inclusion Survey which we collected on paper and online from mid-April to mid-July 2009.

The survey committee consisted of a mixture of CIMC staff, board members, teachers, and CIMC yogis, for a total of about 10 committee members. Over a period of six years, a committee met, the last few years with Boston-based diversity consultants, Donna Bivens and Paul Marcus. Our consultants facilitated a process to help the survey committee become aware of unconscious racism and discrimination that may be at work in our society, in organizations, and in many - if not all - of us, as individuals. The survey committee met to work on improving its own awareness about attitudes and ways in which we might unwittingly participate in discrimination. A core mission of the survey group was to construct a survey that would allow CIMC to understand its community needs around diversity and inclusion. As we had previously reported, 270 CIMC survey respondents overwhelmingly indicated that it is very important to do everything we can to make CIMC a welcoming place for all.

We expect this to be an ongoing process - getting information from you and absorbing it and figuring out how to respond to it will not stop with the survey. However, at this stage we are happy to offer the following feedback about the survey results - please see survey summary responses.

Survey summary of responses by People of Color

Survey summary of responses by people identified as White or of European Descent

In addition, we are holding two focus groups intended to flesh out some of the issues from the survey: one on Wednesday, April 21st, the other on Thursday, April 22nd, both are held from 7:30 pm - 9 pm. If you wish to participate, we ask you to contact the CIMC Office as soon as possible by either emailing cimc@cimc.info, with subject line focus group, or by telephoning the office at 617-441-9038. Thank you.