In service of our mission, the IDARE Committee works to build community at the BI by bringing everyone together, as well as by creating spaces for individuals and groups to be heard and acknowledged. We engage all components of the Berman Institute and its operations to ensure that our values suffuse the entirety of the Institute, and no one is excluded. We adapt to emergent issues and community input, co-creating the best version of the Berman Institute. Read about some of our ongoing work here:
Curriculum Review
One of our first activities as a committee was to review the syllabi for all of the Berman Institute’s courses. This review assessed representation and representativeness within course materials, including guest lectures. This work informed the Committee’s first set of recommendations for the BI, leading to two new courses being developed covering race, gender, and disability in bioethics.
As an Institute, we are committed to offering world class, multidisciplinary bioethics education initiatives. Our field and our classrooms are strengthened by broad representation and robust inclusivity of scholars from any background. The Committee continues to work closely with BI leadership to ensure that our training programs reflect our values and fulfill our commitments to trainees—the next generation of bioethics scholars.
Climate Survey
In December 2021, the Committee fielded a climate survey among the Institute’s current and former community members to establish a baseline dataset and identify specific challenges to a sense of community and belonging within the Berman Institute. The survey was informed by the University’s Diversity Roadmap and solicited views of the community culture and individual experience at the BI. Survey results were shared and discussed with our community in a series of open conversations that have informed the activities of and recommendations by the Committee.
We look forward to repeating the survey approximately every 5 years to gauge our progress and identify areas for improvement.
Community Conversations
Throughout the year, we create space for the BI to engage in critical conversations about racism and other forms of oppression and explore the ways such dynamics play out within our community. These community conversations began as a forum to discuss the results of the Climate Survey and have expanded to include discussions of emergent topics and current events, as well as community trainings and exercises.
For information about this year’s community conversations, please log in to the BI Internal Resources page.
Community Service Opportunities
Each year in January, we invite the Berman Institute community to give back to Baltimore. We’ve volunteered our time and made donations to organizations such as A Moveable Feast and the Ronald McDonald House of Maryland.
Faculty, staff, and trainees of the Berman Institute can access here a growing collection of relevant readings (PDFs), organized by category.