Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Welcome! The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office provides strategic leadership to DEI initiatives and prioritizes DEI goals CREC-wide and to all external stakeholders.
We strive for transparency and create a culture where DEI is threaded into our day to day practices and interactions with staff, students, and community members. Leveraging our Equity Steering Committee, Employee Network Groups, Education Specialists Team, and Equity Team Leaders, we put into action our commitments.
We look forward to learning and growing both internally and externally on the journey toward racial equity and social justice. This journey comes with its challenges, but our commitment and resilience should prove meaningful and rewarding.
Elsie González (My Bio)
Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Elsie González (My Bio)
Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Land Acknowledgment
We would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather exists upon the ancestral territory and Indigenous villages of the Tunxis, Sicoag, Pocumtuc, Wangunk, Poquonook, Podunk, Quinnipiac, Massacoe, and Hammonasset Peoples, who have stewarded this land throughout the generations. Through dispossession and disease, colonial powers encroached upon their homelands and reservations.
We also acknowledge the federally-recognized tribal nations that exist in Connecticut today, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and Mohegan Tribe; and the state-recognized tribal nations: Golden Hill Paugussett Tribal Nation, Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, and Schaghticoke Indian Tribe. We support their sovereignty as tribal nations now and into the future, while also understanding their communities can exist beyond the strict bounds of Tribal Nationhood.
Updated January 2026 in partnership with Akomawt Educational Initiative and The Institute for American Indian Studies
DEI Statement
CREC strives to understand and confront the symptoms and causes of racism and prejudice—ranging from biases to aggressions to discriminatory policies, practices, and traditions—that harm people from systemically marginalized groups or that benefit privileged groups. CREC staff and students acknowledge and respect people of all identifiers, such as race, socioeconomic status, gender identity and expression, education, age, ability, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, language, nationality, religion, and veteran status.
Anti-Racist Commitments
CREC expects members of our community to:
- Understand that systemic racism impacts each person’s lived experience.
- Uplift the voices of those from systematically marginalized groups.
- Address the needs of those most harmed by ongoing systemic racism.
- Challenge beliefs by naming when racism arises in a group or individually.
- Provide our community a space to learn, grow, and engage in anti-racist practice.
- Build community through conversation to repair harm and strengthen relationships.
Contact
CREC Central
111 Charter Oak Ave
Hartford, CT 06106
860-247-CREC
©2025 Capitol Region Education Council