CATL announces 2022-2023 Diversity and Inclusion Grant recipients

The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning is pleased to announce the recipients of the 11th annual Diversity and Inclusion Grants for the 2022-23 academic year.

Since 2011, this grant program has supported small faculty teams in developing projects focused on inclusive pedagogies, assignments, content and strategies to foster learning about human diversity. Previously awarded Diversity & Inclusion Grants and final reports and recommendations can be found on the CATL website.

This year’s diversity and inclusion grant winners were selected from a highly competitive application pool and include the following teams for various educational departments:

Economics

Steve DeLoach, Brooks Depro and Casey DiRienzo from the Department of Economics 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

Faculty members within the Department of Education, including Lisa Buchanan, Allison Bryan, Mark Enfield, Katie Baker, and Nermin Vehabovic, will use the grant to work on a 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 co-requisite field experiences to build on teacher candidates’ continuum of development as intercultural, anti-racist, culturally responsive teachers who understand how to design and implement equity-based practices; integrate and expand upon candidates’ experiences in the ILCP through Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s Critical Love framework as they (re)design the four methods courses and field experiences; and 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

An interdisciplinary team of faculty and librarians will work together for this DIG project, including Lina Kuhn, lecturer in English, Patrick Rudd, coordinator of Library Instruction, Shannon Tennant, coordinator of Library Collections, Heather Lindenman, assistant professor of English, Michael Smith, adjunct instructor in English, and Ayla Samli, adjunct assistant professor of English.

Their project, “Investigating Information Systems: Access, Creation, Misinformation and Privilege,” aims to investigate existing systems of information collection and dissemination, including how 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

Department of World Languages and Cultures faculty Kristina Meinking and Tedd Wimperis will focus on their research “Diversifying Antiquity: Diversity and Inclusion in a Classical Mythology Course.”

The team notes that classical studies occupy 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 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.

Music

Department of Music faculty Cora Palfy, Gerald Knight, Fred Johnson and Stephen Futrell are collaborating on a project titled, “Music Department Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Student Perceptions Survey.”

Their project connects to current DEI efforts in the field of music, as national organizations have realized that to enhance the impact on those served (e.g. students, performers, audiences, etc.), they need to consider social issues. Their project will build on such efforts across subdisciplines, such as the College Music Society’s “Transforming Music Study from its Foundations” publication, the National Association of Schools of Music Handbook for Accreditation (which includes updated standards for diversity of backgrounds and expertise represented within faculty members) and the National Association for Music Education’s DEI standards into the National Core Arts Standards.

Through this project, the team plans to determine if, or where, Elon music students are engaging with DEI issues and implement changes in music curriculum based on their findings to help students better understand DEI issues in music.