The award formally recognizes faculty’s efforts in integrating equity, diversity, and inclusion concepts into their courses and curricula. Congratulations, faculty!

Piper N. Carroll, School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, for designing a course for psychiatry residents to begin confronting bias in psychiatric practice. The presence of the Respect, Responsibility, Equity in Medicine (RREM) curriculum has demonstrated the department and residency training program’s commitment to addressing healthcare disparities for diverse groups. The goal is – for residents and fellows – to gain confidence in practicing entirely equitable, responsible, and respectful psychiatry will all our patients and communities.

Through this work she has opened many of the residents’ eyes to blind spots, systemic racism and inequities in our profession, and also inspired us to do better and speak out when we see these inequities happening in real time. She is a huge part of helping our program and our profession move forward and I am proud to be her colleague!

Diego Chaves-Gnecco, School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, for designing the course for third- and fourth-year medical students to have a rotation at Salud Para Niños. Students attend the free pediatric weekly clinics where medical students and residents (who also have an opportunity to have Salud Para Niños serve as their continuity clinic) see, on average, seven (mostly Latinx and uninsured) per clinic. They provide healthcare while learning about barriers to and disparities in healthcare, how to address them, and how to enhance their knowledge about culturally humble and linguistically sensitive healthcare.

Above all, Dr. Chaves-Gnecco has inspired me with the passion and compassion he brings to his advocacy work and teaching. In my fellowship interviews, I have been asked where I see myself in10 years. My answer always includes running a community health center for Latino migrant children, a dream that would not be a possibility without this unique opportunity developed by Dr. Chaves-Gnecco.

Megan Kappel, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, English Department, for creating equitable access to course materials for her Integrating Writing and Design class. Ms. Kappel introduced broader and more nuanced definitions of diversity and inclusion, highlighting the importance and implementation details of the inclusive design content and assignments.

Megan made space for topics of inclusivity in a way I had not seen before in other design classes I have taken. Instead of having inclusive practices as a ‘stretch goal,’ or a small, general statement about inclusivity toward the bottom of the syllabus, Megan carved out genuine time for these topics. As a student passionate about DEI in design, I still remember getting excited when the syllabus came out during my student semester, because Inclusive Design had a whole unit for itself. During that unit, we had an in-class exercise about systems of power and oppression, to think about our own positioning with intersectionality in mind, and the way this impacted our power as people and designers.

Olga Klimova, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, Department of Slavic Languages & Literature, for designing the course to create multiple opportunities for students in all four language modalities (reading, listening, writing, and speaking) to engage with authentic Russian language materials that will introduce them to cultural, ethnic, religious, and socio-economic diversity of Russia’s regions and Russian speaking countries. The goal is to assist students with developing a more accurate cultural competence and a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the target culture(s). Dr. Klimova incorporates DEIA and social justice principles in course policies, instructional practices, learning activities, assessments, and grading.

Dr. Klimova’s lessons also addressed important and contemporary social issues, including LGBTQIA+ representation and civil rights and ethnic and religious diversity in the Russophone world. These issues were introduced through authentic resources, like news articles, op-eds, and personal stories addressing marriage equality and gender identity. Dr. Klimova always respected students’ identities, while instructing us on how to navigate these issues in a linguistically appropriate and culturally-sensitive manner.

Joaquin Rodriguez, Swanson School of Engineering, Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, for instituting classroom changes to expand students’ cultural awareness and cross-cultural development and creating a more welcoming and inclusive learning environment for a capstone course for senior students majoring in Chemical Engineering. The goal is to give graduating seniors a broader understanding of their responsibilities and opportunities to care for the planet and develop an extended socio-cultural awareness about other countries and people. Additionally, Dr. Rodgriguez offered opportunities to foster experiences for students to create a more welcoming and inclusive environment by inviting K-12 scholars to consider STEM careers.

The Global project that stands out to me the most was our ChemE 500project about energy poverty inSub-Saharan Africa. We were interested in researching this topic because a few members of the group wanted to go into sustainable energy research for graduate school. Researching into energy poverty in Africa was quite an eye-opening experience for me. Living in America, it is easy to take running water and electricity for granted, and sometimes it can be hard to realize that not everyone is as lucky as us here.