Diversity Inclusion Grant Examples
Elon Diversity and Inclusion Grants
Since Spring 2011, Elon faculty from many departments and programs have received grants to develop and implement strategies to infuse their curriculum and pedagogies with the best practices related to diversity, equity and inclusion. Below you’ll find descriptions and final reports of projects from the past several years, which demonstrate the range of approaches teams have taken to enhance and improve their teaching and learning practices and approaches.
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| 2015-2016 | 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | 2018-2019 |
| 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 | 2021-2022 | 2022-2023 |
2024 – 2025
Nursing, Religious Studies
Jeanmarie Koonts, Brian Pennington, Helen Orr
We propose to embed DEI principles into the School of Health Sciences healthcare curriculum by raising awareness of the intersections of faith and health and their impact on clients’ healthcare decision-making. Using an existing student-led, SHS school-wide diversity committee, we propose to develop training modules that allow students to earn a micro-credential badge in “religion and faith consciousness” that would appear on their Elon Experiences Transcript. Through three modules titled ‘Religion and Healthcare Decision-Making’, ‘Religion and Healthcare Outcomes’, and ‘Religion, Intersectionality and Healthcare Equity’, SHS students will develop skills and strategies to create inclusive client-centered care environments that honor clients’ religious beliefs, racial backgrounds, and gender identities.
Physician Assistant, Nursing, Physical Therapy
K. Alexis Moore, Jeanmarie Koonts, Crystal Ramsey, Steven Bailey
Morbidity from diabetes in the Latinx community in Alamance County is 21.6/100000 deaths. This interprofessional community-based project will embed DEI pedagogy into SHS curricula by exposing students to clients with diabetes in a Latinx community center. The goal is to assist clients in managing diabetes within a safe, socially supportive, non-traditional environment. For students, it creates a community engagement opportunity that promotes understanding of patient centered care and DEI in population based healthcare and professional identity development affective learning curriculua. This unique pilot project emphasizes diabetes support through promoting patient self-care utilizing a “coffee club”.
2023-2024
Computer Science
Shannon Duvall, Elizabeth von Brieson, Richard Dutton, and Scott Spurlock
This project’s aim is to create, assess, and disseminate course materials for the Computer Science department that meet the goals of Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT). The specific goals within the CRT framework that we will address are 1) ensure a range of diverse course assets, 2) craft opportunities for students to connect course content with their unique lived experiences, and 3) foster student reflection for whole-student learning and well-being. We propose to take inventory of currently available materials for courses, then develop, use, assess, and disseminate new course materials (lectures, slide decks, examples, and assignments) that meet the identified goals.
English, Belk Library, and Core Curriculum
Lina Khun, Patrick Rudd, Shannon Tennant, and Paula Patch
Our project examines how bias and privilege infiltrate systems of published information, in relation to data algorithms behind searches, missing and marginalized perspectives, and publication access—and how to introduce these ideas to first-year students who use such systems to conduct research. This project builds on a Stage One DIG project bringing ideas about information privilege and bias into the first-year writing classroom. For this Stage Two iteration, we plan to create a community of practice with COR 1100 faculty from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds to investigate how such topics might enter the global experience classroom as well.
Environmental Science, Geography, Political Science & Policy Studies
Amanda Chunco, Ryan Kirk, Jacob Rutz, Kelsey Bitting, and Aaron Sparks
Environmental Science remains one of the least racially diverse STEM fields. In addition, ENS can exclude people with mobility limitations because of the field work required. Here, we are proposing to survey and conduct focus groups with Elon ENS majors, potential majors, and ENS alumni. We will use these surveys to identify current perceptions of departmental climate and sense of belonging and to provide baseline data to inform curricular changes to improve our departmental climate of inclusion.
Psychology
Anne-Marie Iselin, Adam Kim, and William Schreiber
This DIG Phase II grant will set the foundation for developing a cohort experience focused on social justice in the public interest for psychology students. This social justice-oriented cohort idea was generated by psychology majors who were part of the DIG Phase I RESPECT project. For Phase II, we will examine (1) the literature on social justice-focused academic cohorts, (2) related cohort programs at Elon, and (3) related cohort programs at peer institutions. Products of our work will include a summary of findings and suggested pathways for implementing a “social justice in the public interest” cohort experience in our department.
2022-2023
Economics
Steve DeLoach, Brooks Depro, and Casey DiRienzo
Department of Economics faculty Steve DeLoach, Brooks Depro, and Casey DiRienzo will be working on a project called Developing Repository of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Materials for Principles of Economics Courses. Using the guidance from a recent analysis encouraging economics instructors to focus on Relevance, Belonging, and Growth Mindsets, the team will develop a repository of economics-specific DEI materials that can easily be used across the multi-section course Principles of Economics (ECO 1000). They will assess their project by incorporating relevant questions in their existing assurance of learning program and their results will be shared with the economics department.
Education and Wellness
Lisa Buchanan, Allison Bryan, Mark Enfield, Katie Baker, and Nermin Vehabovic
Department of Education and Wellness faculty Lisa Buchanan, Allison Bryan, Mark Enfield, Katie Baker, and Nermin Vehabovic are working on a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) project titled Critical Love and Elementary Teacher Candidates: Aligning Methods Courses and Field Experience Towards Clear DEI Outcomes. Their project aims to align the four elementary methods courses and corequisite field experiences in order to 1) build on teacher candidates’ continuum of development as intercultural, anti-racist, culturally responsive teachers who understand how to design and implement equity-based practices; 2) integrate and expand upon candidates’ experiences in the ILCP through Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s Critical Love framework as they (re)design the four methods courses and field experiences; and 3) partner with the School of Education’s Curriculum Resources Center to implement programming around Critical Love and curate resources for teacher candidates and faculty towards these aims.
English and Belk Library
Lina Kuhn, Patrick Rudd, Shannon Tennant, Heather Lindenman, Michael Smith, and Ayla Samli
An interdisciplinary team will work together for this DIG project, including Lina Kuhn (English), Patrick Rudd (Library), Shannon Tennant (Library), Heather Lindenman (English), Michael Smith (English), and Ayla Samli (English). Their project, Investigating Information Systems: Access, Creation, Misinformation, and Privilege, aims to investigate existing systems of information collection and dissemination, including the ways in which such systems can often be inequitable and potentially harmful. They will focus on four distinct aspects of information systems within the context of ENG 1100 courses: how data algorithms play into information distribution, the publication and prevalence of misinformation, missing and marginalized perspectives in published research, and privilege in access to information. After researching these distinct areas, they aim to create a repository of materials (lesson plans, activities, writing assignments), which will then be shared with the wider community through workshops, conferences, and special events.
World Languages and Cultures: Classical Studies
Kristina Meinking and Tedd Wimperis
Department of World Languages and Cultures faculty Kristina Meinking and Tedd Wimperis will focus on Diversifying Antiquity: Diversity and Inclusion in a Classical Mythology Course. The team notes that Classical Studies occupies a particular position as a discipline historically implicated in Eurocentrism and colonialist ideologies. This project seeks to disrupt those narratives by highlighting antiquity’s truly multicultural character and its value to inclusive social discourse today. Their work will center on the development and integration of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-focused content, assignments, and assessments to capture student learning across sections of CLA 1100: Classical Mythology. The team will situate their work in best practices from both the discipline and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) to create, test, and assess the impact of content-based interventions in this course.
2021-2022
Strategic Communications
Vanessa Bravo and Lee Bush
Strategic Communications faculty, Vanessa Bravo and Lee Bush, are developing modules that can be used by any Strategic Communications faculty member to introduce new content related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The modules will reflect the new DEI expectations of the communication program’s accrediting body, the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC), and the Department of Strategic Communication’s associated student learning outcomes update. Their Diversity and Inclusion Grant will include 1) developing the materials for the modules, 2) testing the use of the modules in three target courses, and 3) refining and revising materials based on pilot testing results. See their paper, “Systematically applying DEI accreditation standards to a strategic communications curriculum” in the upcoming special issue on “Leadership, Mentorship, and DEI in the Post-Pandemic Public Relations Classroom” published by the Journal of Public Relations Education. They have also recently received a book contract with Routledge to write a textbook on DEI in Strategic Communications to be published in early 2024 and will teach students to become culturally proficient communicators by applying DEI theories and concepts at the forefront of communications research, planning, and execution.
Psychology
Anne-Marie Iselin and Buffie Longmire-Avital
Psychology faculty, Anne-Marie Iselin and Buffie Longmire-Avital, are working on a project titled Racial Equity for Students in Psychology: Emending our Curriculum and Teaching (RESPECT) – “Nothing about us without us”. The goal of the RESPECT project is to include students’ voices in departmental Diversity, Inclusion, and Racial Equity (DIRE) task force working group activities. Three students will work with faculty leads on the RESPECT project by: gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data; offering feedback on action plans; holding those applicable accountable for responding to their evaluations; and disseminating the project’s work with audiences outside of the psychology department. Ultimately, the RESPECT project will leverage students’ voices to create sustainable curricular and pedagogical changes that create enduring racial equity for our most vulnerable students.
Performing Arts and Music Theatre
Julio Agustin Matos Jr., Deborah Leamy, and Brian Kremer
Performing Arts and Music Theatre faculty, Julio Agustin Matos Jr., Deborah Leamy, and Brian Kremer, are collaborating on curricular revisions across several courses in the Voice and Dance sequence of the Music Theatre degree program. These revisions will aim to create a well-rounded curriculum essential to preparing the next generation of musical theatre artists, which embraces diversity through the exploration vocal and dance styles from a range of cultures. Specifically, each member will research the history, institutional practices, and relevant usage of various diverse genres of Music Theatre performance and offer contributions, such as, for example, Bhangra and Bollywood dance styles, or the exploration and integration of skills related to riffing. Additionally, faculty will identify and provide significant resources that support the area’s mission to train students to transform the field of Musical Theatre. Careful consideration will be given to holistic approaches to revising the course descriptions and student learning outcomes. These concentrated efforts will aid in continuing outreach to students of the global majority as well as in raising the profile of Elon’s Music Theatre program to the international standard of training the next generation of Music Theatre practitioners.
Poverty and Social Justice Program
Toddie Peters, Jessica Carew, Vanessa Drew-Branch, Ketevan Kupatadze, and Rob Perdue
An interdisciplinary team of faculty will work together for this DIG project including [DL1] Toddie Peters (Religious Studies), Jessica Carew (Political Science), Vanessa Drew-Branch (Human Service Studies), Ketevan Kupatadze (World Languages & Cultures), and Rob Perdue (Sociology). The team will redesign a syllabus and create new teaching modules for the Poverty and Social Justice Program (PSJ) that are in line with the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty updated and re-designed learning goals. The project will support the development of a new set of PSJ faculty and the redesign of the PSJ110 course. Some of the goals of the project will be to ensure: 1) there is consistency to the basic learning goals, course content, and student experience in this foundational course for all students across sections in this interdisciplinary minor, and 2) that faculty who are recruited to teach future iterations of the class will be able to continue to benefit from the outcomes of this grant.
School of Health Sciences
C. Kim Stokes, Laké Laosebikan-Buggs, Paula DiBiasio, Nita Skillman, and Tiffany Morris
School of Health Sciences (SHS) faculty, C. Kim Stokes (Physician Assistant Studies), Paula DiBiasio (Physical Therapy), Nita Skillman, Tiffany Morris (Nursing), along with Laké Laosebikan-Buggs (Director of Inclusive Excellence for Graduate and Professional Education) are working on an engaged learning project that focuses on improving health equity through collaboration and cultural humility. This project will explore the literature guiding best practices of curricular diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within healthcare provider academic programs to generate interprofessional learning experiences for physician assistant, physical therapy, and nursing students enrolled in the Elon SHS program. They plan to establish an evidence-based activity that initiates a school-wide curricular commitment to infusing DEI in each program with the goal of graduating healthcare professionals who have the skills to bridge health and healthcare disparities.
Political Science and Policy Studies
Liza Taylor, Damion Blake, Kaye Usry, Joel Shelton, and Jessica Carew
Political Science and Policy Studies faculty, Liza Taylor, Damion Blake, Kaye Usry, Joel Shelton, and Jessica Carew, will focus on teaching about systems of power and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in Political Science. For their project, they will survey the courses they teach in relation to these priorities and objectives and familiarize themselves with existing research on the best practices for teaching DEI in the social sciences. At a departmental level, the group plans to generate a list of concrete, formalized recommendations for teaching DEI in Political Science and Policy Studies, such as: ground rules for in-class discussion; methods for avoiding tokenizing marginalized students; and lesson plans and activities that can be tailored to a diverse student body and faculty member’s particular expertise, experiences, and identities. Lastly, the group will explore ideas for course and curriculum design to ensure that marginalized and underprivileged perspectives and methodologies are adequately represented in every course and across the major.
Exercise Science
Lauren Walker, Eric Hall, Aaron Piepmeier, Matthew Wittstein, Takudzwa Madzima
Exercise Science faculty, Lauren Walker, Eric Hall, Aaron Piepmeier, Matthew Wittstein, and Takudzwa Madzima, have been awarded a second stage Diversity and Inclusion Grant to expand on a project first initiated in 2020. Their initial Stage I project focused largely on overall departmental climate regarding DEI, including assessing and co-creating curriculum changes with exercise science students and outside consultants with DEI expertise in Sport & Exercise Psychology (SEP). Building on the assessment and creation of curricular change during the first stage of this DIG grant, their Stage 2 project will: 1) implement and evaluate the changes to SEP curriculum in courses taught in 2021-22; 2) engage in the co-creation, with students, of curriculum alterations to classes that fall within the Exercise Physiology and Biomechanics/Motor domains; 3) implement and evaluate the curricular changes in Spring 2022; and 4) co-create opportunities beyond the Exercise Science classroom (e.g., UR mentorship, living learning communities, student clubs), which is a desire expressed by students in the climate assessment.
2020-2021
Exercise Science
Eric Hall, Lauren Walker, and Aaron Piepmeier
Eric Hall, Lauren Walker, and Aaron Piepmeier will assess the climate for Exercise Science students around issues of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI), by specifically focusing on a course required for all majors, Sport or Exercise Psychology (SEP), which emphasizes interventions to change behavior and how to work with people, using the biopsychosocial model. Their project responds to recent conversations within the larger field of SEP. In their proposal, Drs. Hall, Walker and Piepmeier explain it has become clear that the “social” part of this model has been inadequately represented in SEP, and that the field needs to consider social issues such as diversity, equity and inclusion as a lens through which topics in the field should be viewed, rather than as in a more than “checkbox” topic for coaches, athletes, patients, for example. or within national organizations (e.g., NCAA, AASP). Their DIG project will 1) determine where or if ES students are engaging with DEI issues; 2) bring in experts from ES and related areas to engage faculty, staff and students on issues related to DEI; and 3) implement change in ES curriculum based on findings to help students better understand DEI issues.
Publication: Piepmeier, A., Campbell, A., Kibler, E., Medley, M., Spence, M., Udoh, N., … & Wittstein, M. (2022). Engaging Student Partners in Inclusive Teaching Practices and Content Facilitation in Exercise Science. The Journal of Educational Innovation, Partnership and Change, 8(2).
Finance & Economics
Margarita Kaprielyan, Adam Aiken, Tonmoy Islam, Brandon Sheridan, and Kate Upton
Faculty from the Love School of Business, Margarita Kaprielyan (Finance), Adam Aiken (Finance), Tonmoy Islam (Economics), Brandon Sheridan (Economics), and Kate Upton (Finance) will complete a stage II project that extends their initial work from a 2018-2019 grant. During Stage I, they surveyed early career students in Principles sections of Economics and Finance, as well as seniors in all business majors, on their perceptions of diversity and inclusion within each major. That research shed light on areas to improve in terms of inclusion and efforts to promote diversity. Their Stage II project will expand across other programs within the business school, to construct a sustainable process for collecting and analyzing a longitudinal dataset that will allow them to track the perceptions of students over time to see if their attitudes about DEI and climate change, which will allow them to focus efforts in the areas of greatest need, and to see if the changes they implement have the intended impact. The project team plans to recommend changes at the department and LSB levels and share what they learn with the broader university community. They will work with the LSB Dean’s office to aid in the dissemination of surveys to seniors, and to coordinate efforts with each department on small, evidence-based changes they can implement at the course or department level to enhance diversity and inclusion, and use surveys to measure the effectiveness of these changes.
Education
Joan Barnatt and Allison Bryan
Joan Barnatt and Allison Bryan from the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education will suggest revisions across several courses and programs in the School of Education. Specifically, they will update the literature offerings used in the courses to include and feature Latinx culture and history, review online resources in new literacies that include and support Latinx learners, as well as identifying pedagogical strategies and resources that support language and pragmatics for a growing number of language learners. Addressing the needs and representations of diverse students is especially critical, and representing diversity and Inclusion in and through literature are clearly stated objectives in EDU 298, Children’s Literature, EDU 325, Middle Grades Literacy, and EDU 365, Methods and Materials of TESL, courses that are requirements for various licensure programs. These courses will benefit from revisions that provide for the exploration of methods, materials and resources that explicitly address the assets and needs of the local Latinx K-12 population.
Core Curriculum
Naeemah Clark, Amy Johnson, and Paula Patch
Naeemah Clark (Communications), Amy Johnson (History), and Paula Patch (English) will create a three-part “Best Practitioner Kit” intended to help deepen diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) content that is being offered in the Core and better communicate to students where they are encountering the content, theories, and experiential opportunities. The goal will be a three-part Best Practitioner Kit. First, will be a resource guide to help faculty communicate DEI material, teaching techniques, and intentions to students. Resources that focus on inclusive pedagogy, supportive classroom climate, and equitable teaching practice focused on the multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary courses, with a liberal arts foundation. Second, the kit will offer language faculty could use on their syllabi and/or in the classrooms to clarify their DEI intentions. This language will be gathered from colleagues who are successfully communicating their DEI content in their classes. Third, the kit would provide the faculty with a rubric to assess how the application of these tools were formative for the student and faculty member. Once the kit is assembled, the project team will have the human and pedagogical resources to expand DEI in CCR-prefixed courses.
2019-2020
Human Service Studies
Vanessa-Drew Branch
Vanessa Drew-Branch, assistant professor of Human Service Studies will implement and assess student podcast assignments in first-year (111) and senior-level (481) Human Service Studies service-learning courses. The assignment will highlight a community agency’s work to reduce a social problem with a marginalized group while also providing students an opportunity to reflect on and share their experiences working within the community. The podcast content will be assessed and compared to evaluate growth over four years in student understanding and competence in working with vulnerable groups within human service settings. Specifically, the project will examine whether and how the assignment increases students’ understanding of the experience of oppression and privilege, expands their knowledge of social justice activities occurring in the local community, and promotes self-appraisal of one’s own biases.
Engineering
Rich Blackmon and Sirena Hargrove-Leak
They will build on a previous DIG project that implemented evidence-based teaching and learning strategies in Elon’s engineering program and investigated possible changes in the new four-year degree program to enhance student learning, particularly around diversity and inclusion. In Stage II, they will more thoroughly analyze the data for evidence of possible correlations, contradictions, and distributions in students’ attitudes and beliefs. The results of this complete Matlab analysis will lead to the exploration and generation of targeted strategies to address attitudes and beliefs about diversity and inclusion unique to Elon Engineering students.
Department of History & the CREDE
Charles Irons and Damion Blake; Brandon Bell, Fall 2019
Charles Irons, professor of history and chair of the Department of History and Geography, Damion Blake, Assistant Professor in Political Science and Policy Studies, and Brandon Bell (Fall 2019), will gather information about the current curricular and co-curricular offerings that consider whiteness, race, equity and inclusion to better ascertain the scope and depth in which the institution seeks to engage these concepts in various ways. They plan to first map out the constellations of course, activities, dialogues and experiences related to concepts of whiteness, race, equity and inclusion to develop a more comprehensive picture of the mechanisms in which Elon University engages concepts of History and Memory. The project will create a new resource for faculty, staff, and students seeking to engage concepts of history and memory, race, equity, inclusion and identity and offer new and promising practice for exploring and teaching these subjects effectively.
Teaching about Anti-Black Racism from Elon’s History website
Communications
Sana Haq, Staci Saltz, and Nicole Triche
They will create a resource to guide students on how to make their videos accessible to a variety of audiences. They will publish electronic and paper copies for easy distribution and share with faculty colleagues suggestions for implementing the guide in classes. This guide will be relevant to all majors within the Department of Communications and help infuse accessibility standards throughout the undergraduate and graduate levels to align with industry standards. Implementing these guidelines into the curriculum will teach students a deeper understanding of diverse audiences and the steps needed to ensure their work can reach them. This resource will concentrate on video projects but they hope that it will grow over time to include other forms of multimedia.
Mathematics & Statistics
Aaron Trocki, Mark Weaver, Laura Taylor, Kirstie Doehler, & Ryne VanKrevelen
A team of Math & Statistics faculty members will explore evidence-based pedagogies to meet the learning needs of diverse students in Statistics in Application (STS 212). They will create a curricular resource to guide the implementation of selected evidence-based pedagogies, including heterogeneously mixed groups for in-class and out of class statistical tasks and projects. The team will implement those pedagogies in the fall and spring and gather data to analyze and document effectiveness in order to refine and then share the curricular resource.
2018-2019
Economics
Brooks Depro and Katy Rouse
They plan to use their grant to expand efforts of diversity themes in the Love School of Business (LSB) and economics department by focusing attention on better understanding the entry of both women and minority entrepreneurs in the consulting industry. They will develop an empirical research assignment that asks each student team to code and deliver a final project using Tableau software to visualize their dataset. Each team member will also prepare a one-page memorandum discussing their findings related to entrepreneurial diversity in the consulting field, relative to a comparison industry. This project will address a key LSB goal of providing students with more knowledge and understanding of diversity-related issues in the business environment.
English
Margaret Chapman, Paula Patch, and Jennifer Eidum
They will: inquire about ways racism, ableism, sexism and classism may implicitly or explicitly be present in the structure (curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and hiring practices); identify ways to rectify any of these areas, and implement some of the ways identified; assess the outcomes of the inquiry and subsequent intervention; and develop and publish for future College Writing Program administrators and faculty a procedure for future investigations of the structure of the program.
Engineering
Richard Blackmon and Sirena Hargrove-Leak
They will collect demographic information in the Engineering program in order to identify disparities in Elon’s engineering program as compared to both Elon as a whole and national averages. Knowing these comparisons will then inform the team as they investigate what could be changed in the new four-year degree program to enhance student learning. They plan to investigate potential areas of improvement that include, but are not limited to, the language used in materials shared with students, classroom activities, student-teacher relationships, and student-student relationships in courses and the major. The project will include data collection, data analysis, and exploration and implementation of solutions that could address problems revealed by the data.
English Literature
Prudence Layne, Scott Proudfit, Kevin Bourque, & Erin Pearson
The working group will research best pedagogical and inclusion practices in literary studies, creating a working bibliography and resource database (with sample assignments, rubrics and video instruction) for faculty teaching literature courses at the introductory, intermediate, advanced and capstone levels, with accompanying student learning outcomes. These resources will help faculty who teach literature across a variety of formats ensuring that their courses incorporate materials, pedagogies and experiences related to diverse populations.
Finance & Economics
Kate Upton, Adam Aiken, Margarita Kaprielyan, Tonmoy Islam, & Brandon Sheridan
They plan to identify the factors that decrease the overall participation of women in both majors. They plan to study the choice of major by administering surveys within principles classes and conducing focus group interviews with business students. The results would provide valuable insight into the perceptions of finance and economics among female students and why they may not choose these fields as their major. Through this grant, the recipients also plan to make recommendations on possible curriculum, pedagogy, and advising changes that would encourage more diversity within the majors.
2017-2018
Mathematics & Statistics
Aaron Trocki, Jan Mays, Karen Yokley, & Jim Beuerle
Researching evidence-based pedagogies to meet the learning needs of diverse learners in Calculus I courses. Their project will include research on how and which sociomathematical norms to establish in order to structure a supportive environment for a semester-long course with a high expectation for meaningful mathematical discourse. After completing this research, the team will develop and share a teaching and learning resource with the aim of increasing participation of all learners in Calculus I courses.
Education
Erin Hone and Marna Winter
Providing more opportunities for streamlined cultural relevance experiences across all education methods courses, in an effort to help students see diversity work in practice within their consecutive practicum experiences. The project goal is for all teacher candidates to be able to recognize the many assets their students bring into their classroom, including the personal, cultural, and community knowledge of students.
Communications
Doug Kass, Max Negin, Nichole Triche, & Youseff Osman
Working on a project to update course materials to reflect the multitude of diverse voices in our contemporary entertainment media environment. The project will include the creation of a master list of films and television programs as well as material for lectures and classroom activities that will allow faculty in Cinema and TV (and other interested faculty) to present, assign, and analyze a more diverse range of films and television to create a more global, and more inclusive classroom environment.
World Languages & Cultures
April Post and Pablo Celis-Castillo
Plan to develop the learning outcomes and write a new curriculum for a foundational course in the Spanish minor and major, SPN 222: Contemporary Conversations. The grant will allow them to diversify the pedagogical approach and expand its educational core to include linguistics skills such as writing, reading, and listening, and will do so by introducing coming of age narratives from a diverse range of authors.
2016-2017
Economics
Casey DiRienzo, Jennifer Platania
Integrated cross-country macroeconomic data sets into their MSM 567 course, which teaches the fundamentals of analytics for the new M.S. in Management graduate program.
Public Health Studies, CREDE
Stephanie Baker White, Randy Williams
Developed a cross-disciplinary racial equity course to provide students with a critical framework for analyzing systems of racial inequity and creating strategies to effectively support diversity and inclusion on and off campus.
2015-2016 (Stage Two Grants)
Philosophy
Stephen Bloch-Schulman, Ann Cahill, Nim Batchelor, and two students
Investigated the gender gap in Philosophy department course enrollment through surveys, data mining, and focus groups. For their Stage Two DIP project, they used findings from that research to develop recommendations and implement a plan for making changes to the department regarding enrollment. Additionally, they planned to evaluate the ongoing effectiveness of the plan as it is implemented.
Education
Mark Enfield and Erin Hone
Built on their stage one Diversity Infusion Project (2012-2013) which focused on encouraging teacher candidates to recognize the diversity within their classrooms. In Stage Two of our DIP, they focused on encouraging teacher candidates to implement culturally relevant pedagogy consistently within their instruction. Teacher candidates were asked to use their students’ “funds of knowledge” to make their classrooms more inclusive and the content more relevant to their unique learners.
Mathematics & Statistics
Laura Taylor and Kirsten Doehler
Built on their previous Diversity Infusion Project (2013-2014) in which they integrated diversity-related data into group projects in our STS 212/MTH 220: Statistics in Application courses. Their Stage Two project had students analyzing FDA data on individuals who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. This data set lends itself to a variety of analysis methods covered in the course and helped students better understand a portion of the population that could be different from themselves, perhaps leading to overturning students’ preconceived notions about SNAP recipients.