Mission and vision

Michigan’s Great Lakes coasts are not just beautiful — they are dynamic ecosystems home to many species of fish, birds, plants, and other wildlife in a wide variety of habitat types. A large boating community, commercial and recreational fisheries, and rapid development along Michigan’s coasts all present opportunities and challenges for the ecosystem. Michigan Sea Grant works to keep balance in the Great Lakes by supporting research, education, and outreach.

Charrette Visioning Design research project

Mission

Michigan Sea Grant is committed to diverse and inclusive engagement to facilitate research, education, and outreach through partnerships with people and organizations to foster healthy Great Lakes coastal ecosystems, communities, and economies.

Sturgeon Point Lighthouse

Vision

We envision healthy, sustainable, and accessible Great Lakes ecosystems with equitable, inclusive, just, and diverse communities that depend upon them.

Commitment to justice, diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion

Michigan Sea Grant is committed to justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility in both our organization and the communities we serve. We believe all people have the right to live and work in a healthy and safe environment, and we seek to eliminate disparities in access to natural resources, opportunities, and decision-making processes. We recognize that issues related to the natural and human-shaped environment affect everyone, though they do not affect everyone equally. At Michigan Sea Grant, we work to create equitable access to resources and opportunities for Michigan’s diverse communities and seek to incorporate their voices and priorities into our work. Our values are informed by environmental justice and are based in a culture of inclusion, respect, long-term engagement, and accountability.

Our commitment to justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility shapes our organization and its investments, practices, interactions, and daily work. Specifically, we strive to:

  • Create a welcoming environment, so each person in and around our organization feels accepted, valued, and safe.
  • Learn from each other, honoring differences in background, experience, skills, interests, beliefs, and values.
  • Nurture an atmosphere that encourages open, honest, and respectful dialogue.
  • Expand access to and opportunities of success with our research grants, fellowships, and internships to include underrepresented and non-traditional groups and individuals.
  • Ensure our programs, resources, and physical spaces are welcoming and accessible to people of all abilities.

Michigan Sea Grant programs and materials are open to all without regard to race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, religion, age, height, weight, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, marital status, family status or veteran status. We commit to providing accessible free or reduced-cost programming to diverse audiences.

As the staff of Michigan Sea Grant, we acknowledge that we occupy the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the Anishinaabeg — Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples. We live, work, and play on lands obtained, generally through violence and deceit, from Indigenous people. Acknowledging this history does not change the past, but a thorough understanding of its ongoing unjust consequences can empower us to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all. We recognize, support, and honor the sovereignty of Michigan’s twelve federally recognized tribal nations, Indigenous individuals and communities who live here now, and those who were forcibly removed from their homelands. By offering this land acknowledgement, we affirm Indigenous sovereignty and work to hold ourselves and others accountable to the needs of American Indian and Indigenous peoples.