The Council for Equity and Community

STRATEGY, COPYWRITING/COPYEDITING AND DESIGN

The Council for Equity and Community (CEC) is an independent advisory board of faculty, staff and students committed to promoting community and belonging at Lehigh University.

When I became the steward of their Instagram account in 2021, my goal was to create a space that celebrates community and the folks responsible for building it.

Exposure

One of the CEC’s main goals is to amplify inclusion and belonging efforts by various campus groups. In the course of my role outside of this council, I often come across interesting initiatives (like the one below). When I do, I make contact with their leads to create communications for use on this platform. All resulting work is published via the CEC and, in the interest of getting the good word out, shared with various campus partners.

Representation

The work on this account represents without tokenising—by collaborating with those whose stories are being told and choosing words and images with intention.

A Diversity of Perspectives

I enjoy being in the orbit of colleagues who bring a wide range of perspectives to the table. This often leads to opportunities to showcase the lens(es) through which they see things: How they approach developing policies that support women in STEM, their thoughts on creating scholarship opportunities for first-gen students, what they choose to focus on when making images around campus (like the work of student photographer Marcus Smith seen below), … .

Inclusivity in Action

Prior my involvement, this space had been used to repost graphics created by various groups at the university. These weren’t always as well thought-out or platform-appropriate as they could be. Since receiving the keys to the account, I’ve worked to make this an accessible space by using design principles to make layouts easy to read and leveraging in-platform alt-text capabilities.