What is OII about?

Appreciating the uniqueness of each individual and cultural group, OII seeks to build a campus community that understands the shared human experience more deeply and prepare students for the challenges of an increasingly diverse and global society.

OII supports students

Student support is an important part of building an engaging campus community. Regardless of background or identity, students should feel validated, recognized, and appreciated as vital members of Saint Martin's University. While OII is a resource for all students, faculty, and staff, OII works in particular to support the needs of students of color, first-generation students, GLBTQ students, and students from various spiritual and religious traditions. As such, OII provides academic, personal, and cultural support services, emphasizing identity development, personal and group advocacy, and cultural advising.

OII validates difference

Cultivating respect, understanding, and appreciating for diversity is an important aspect of OII's overall mission. Diversity broadly understood includes race and ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, as well as gender, religion, age, ability, and class. Validating these dimensions of difference provides the campus with opportunities to better understand, respect, and appreciate diversity on campus. To this end, OII promotes programs that celebrate culture, value difference, and create dialogue among different groups.

OII seeks justice

Fostering an awareness of social justice prepares students to engage in the broader issues of democratic citizenship. OII offers a variety of programs and services that interrogate all forms of oppression and exclusion with our society and abroad. Engaging in social justice education more fully enables students to understand the realities of privilege, power, and domination of certain groups and individuals, where students become engaged, participating agents of change within the Saint Martin's community and the greater society.