The Office of Engagement, Culture & Community (ECC) carries Pratt’s diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and community work into an expanded institutional framework. These answers explain what changed, what continues, what the ECC oversees, and where to find the right information or support.
If your question is not addressed here, email campus-community@pratt.edu.
Pratt renamed the Office to reflect the full scope and purpose of the work required to connect institutional values with everyday experience. The new name—Office of Engagement, Culture, & Community—clarifies that the focus is not only on important values like equity and inclusion but also on how those values are practiced, experienced, and sustained across the institution.
This includes how people participate and influence institutional life; the patterns of behavior and decision-making that shape daily experience; and the relationships that build trust, belonging, and shared responsibility. The updated name reflects a more comprehensive, outcomes-oriented approach.
No. Diversity, equity, and inclusion remain foundational values and essential strategies at Pratt. This update does not move away from that work—it situates it within a broader framework focused on how people experience the institution day to day. Representation continues to ensure a range of voices and experiences are present and taken seriously. Equity continues to guide how systems are designed, and decisions are made. Inclusion continues to shape how people participate and belong. Inclusion continues to shape how people participate and belong, situating them within a broader approach that focuses on how all people participate, how policies and decisions affect communities, how access is integrated into design, and how institutional actions align with stated values.
The Office adopted a broader framework and portfolio. The ECC Office now oversees Accessibility, ADA/Section 504 Coordination, and The Black Alumni of Pratt. The Office’s strategic work is organized around institutional alignment and governance, equity in institutional design, relational and cultural capacity, accountability and repair, and trust and community legitimacy. The Council for Community & Culture in Practice supports this work as an advisory and consultative body.
- Engagement means meaningful participation in institutional life through opportunities for dialogue, contribution, feedback, collaboration, and shared responsibility. Participation should be accessible, informed, and able to influence work when input is requested. It should not be used to legitimize a decision that has already been made.
- Culture is the collection of everyday norms, traditions, behaviors, practices, choices, communications, and institutional decisions that shape how Pratt operates. Culture is experienced in classrooms, studios, offices, meetings, policies, resource decisions, leadership behavior, and informal interactions—not only at programs and celebrations.
- Community refers to interwoven relationships grounded in trust, belonging, care, accountability, and mutual responsibility within and around Pratt. Community does not require sameness, silence, or comfort at any cost. It requires conditions in which people can participate with dignity, navigate differences, name impact, and expect responsible follow-through.
All three terms address different but connected parts of institutional life. Engagement concerns participation and influence. Culture concerns the norms and practices that shape experience. Community concerns the relationships and responsibilities that connect people and the Institute. Together, they help Pratt examine whether its values are lived consistently.
Pratt’s mission depends not only on academic and creative excellence, but also on the strength of the institutional environment in which people live, learn, teach, create, and work. Like all thriving institutions, Pratt must continuously strengthen three interconnected areas: academic, operational and financial, and cultural excellence.
Cultural excellence includes the quality of relationships, participation, communication, accountability, trust, and institutional experience across the community. At a creative institution especially, culture shapes people’s ability to: collaborate, experiment, engage across differences, take creative risks, navigate critique and disagreement constructively, and feel connected to the broader life of the institution.
The ECC provides leadership, coordination, consultation, and institutional support related to engagement, culture, community, accessibility, institutional practice, dialogue, climate, and trust. Its portfolio includes Accessibility and ADA/Section 504 Coordination, The Black Alumni of Pratt, training and resources, programs and partnerships, the Council for Community & Culture in Practice, and progress work conducted with Institute partners.
Creative institutions depend on participation, experimentation, dialogue, critique, collaboration, and the exchange of ideas across differences. At Pratt, students, faculty, and staff bring not only technical expertise, but also perspective, identity, lived experience, imagination, and creative expression into shared spaces every day.
The quality of the institutional environment influences how people learn, create, collaborate, teach, and engage with one another. A healthy institutional culture helps create conditions where creativity, inquiry, accountability, belonging, and artistic exploration can coexist and strengthen one another.
This work supports Pratt’s broader strategic vision of becoming a standard-setter among creative institutions. Pratt’s strategic plan emphasizes not only academic innovation and institutional resilience, but also collaboration, social responsibility, creativity, compassion, and community. The Office of Engagement, Culture, & Community helps strengthen the institutional conditions that support those goals across everyday campus life.
No. The office will continue to play a role in supporting the institution in navigating complex or high-stakes situations, including those involving harm, bias, or conflict. This updated framework strengthens that work by clarifying roles and responsibilities, building shared skills across the community, and supporting more consistent and transparent approaches; accountability and care remain central to Pratt’s approach to these challenges.
You may contact the office with a question about institutional culture, access, engagement, dialogue, or the Office’s work. The ECC Office will explain whether it can consult, coordinate, or route the matter.
The office provides Institute-wide accessibility leadership and ADA/Section 504 Coordination, including strategic coordination, consultation, Institute-wide accessibility planning, routing of barriers and concerns, the Accessibility Advisory Committee, and work connecting physical, digital, programmatic, communication, and event access. Accessibility remains a shared institutional responsibility; the ECC does not personally deliver every accommodation or repair every barrier. Review Accessibility Services & Supports.
The Center for Equity and Inclusion, established in 2016, is part of Pratt’s institutional history. The physical space now known as The Common Ground has its own current webpage describing its purpose, management, access, hours, and reservation process.
Community members may send questions or feedback related to the Council’s charge to campus-community@pratt.edu.
The ECC Office accepts requests for consultation, training, partnership, or co-sponsorship for programs and initiatives aligned with the Office’s mission, strategic priorities, and approved responsibilities. Review the Request Submission Form.
For general inquiries, email campus-community@pratt.edu.