A Culture of Belonging

Martha and Martin

Berry College has a long history with Good Neighbor Culture. It was founded on it. Martha Berry was troubled by the socioeconomic challenges of her neighbors. She empowered them to change their futures by building relationships with them and ultimately building a school with them that would change their lives and thousands more after.

A dozen years after Martha’s death, Martin Luther King Jr. stepped forward to lead the civil rights movement. Compelled to confront structures of injustice that blocked opportunities for Black Americans, King nurtured a dream of a nation filled with communities built on a foundation of dignity, love, and justice for all.

At Berry, we aspire to bridge Martha Berry’s vision with Dr. King’s dream by creating a “good neighbor” culture on campus and in the surrounding communities. The Berry community has continued to carry the heart of Good Neighbor Culture and evolved in understanding how we value, treat, and serve our neighbors. We draw from our institutional values, virtues, and other restorative practices to prioritize the education of the heart as much as the head and hands.

Navigating differences in a 24-7 residential community may be uncomfortable at times, but cultural competencies of this sort serve as valuable building blocks for personal and professional success. When our differences lead to disagreement and conflict, our aim is to approach and learn from our conflicting perspectives by reaching out to our neighbors with patience, humility, and generosity of spirit.

A Good Neighbor Culture

The Office of Belonging and Community Engagement serves the campus in envisioning and implementing Berry’s Good Neighbor sustainably. The office is proud to partner with the King Center in Atlanta to build programs consistent with Dr. King’s vision for communities of love, justice and belonging.

The following pillars are our community expectations in practicing Good Neighbor Culture:

Collaboration: Sustainable impact in a community should be done in collaboration with, rather than unto, the community.
Service: Valuing service and caring for the needs of others above self.
Inclusivity: Considering, including, and empowering those in the margins.
Diversity: Believing that a rich variety of voices, ideas, and experiences make Berry a dynamic place to live and learn and prepare students for global contexts.
Understanding: Approaching and learning from conflicting perspectives by reaching out to neighbors with patience, humility, and generosity of spirit.
Restoration: Recognizing that relational restoration begins when the community admits its imperfections and problems.
Solidarity: Understanding that life is best lived in relationships and that we are stronger when we are an active part of our community.
Cultivation: Leaving places better than we found them.

Berry’s Commitments and Values

DIVERSITY OF PEOPLE

We seek members who contribute to the intercultural breadth of our community, especially as it pertains to racial, ethnic and gender identity — as well as socioeconomic background and geography.

DIVERSITY OF IDEAS

We seek members who contribute to the intellectual breadth of our community, especially with respect to interests, abilities, experiences and viewpoints.

RESPECT FOR DIFFERENCE

We value the essential dignity of all individuals and strive to establish a culture of belonging in which all members feel at home. For this reason, we do not accept hostility toward or language that denigrates individuals on matters that define their personhood.

RESPECT FOR DIALOGUE

We value freedom of expression and freedom of inquiry as defining attributes of an academic community and believe that candid and caring dialogue about our differences can improve the well-being of our community and its members. For this reason, we are averse to censuring ideas and canceling people.

Additional information about how we put these principles into practice can be found at the Office of Belonging and Community Engagement.