Principles of Community

The University of California, Santa Barbara is a leading research institution that also provides a comprehensive liberal arts learning experience. Because teaching and research go hand in hand at UC Santa Barbara, our students are full participants in an educational journey of discovery that stimulates independent thought, critical reasoning, and creativity. Our community of faculty, students, and staff are involved in a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration that is responsive to the needs of our multicultural and global society. Through the creation and distribution of knowledge that advances the well-being of our state, nation, and world, we demonstrate our commitment to public service.

To fulfill our mission, faculty, staff, and students are engaged in a process that begins with cultivating a sense of mutual respect and understanding amongst our community's diverse components. Towards this end, we acknowledge that the success of this University depends on each student, staff, and faculty member's thoughtful adherence to the following principles of community:

• We affirm the intrinsic dignity in each of us.
• We seek to cultivate understanding among the diverse parts of our whole.
• We believe in every individual's right to freedom of expression, including the ability to disagree with and/or counter another's point of view, limited only by University regulations governing time, place, and manner.
• We hold one another accountable to the highest standards of civility, respect, and decency in all of our interactions.
• We do not tolerate acts of bigotry, harassment, or other harm to individuals by anyone in our community on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, sex, gender, age, physical or mental ability, size, language, religious beliefs, political affiliation, gender identity, service in the uniformed services, citizenship, pregnancy, medical condition, genetic information, ancestry, marital status, or national origin among other personal characteristics. We affirm that the responsibility for opposing such behavior lies with all members of the community whenever they encounter such behavior.
• We celebrate our differences and recognize and honor diversity as vital to the excellence of our University.
• We strive individually and collectively to make UC Santa Barbara an inclusive environment in which to live, work and learn.
• We affirm that UC Santa Barbara, as a public institution, extends these Principles of Community through public service work.
• We affirm our individual and collective responsibility to uphold in words and actions the highest values of Scholarship, Leadership and Citizenship.

The UC Santa Barbara "Principles of Community" was developed in collaboration with faculty, staff, and students serving on the Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture, and Inclusion and issued by the Chancellor in February 2011.