Xing Wu
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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 2022-2023 academic year.
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 2022-2023 academic year.
Since 2011, this grant program has supported small teams of teachers in the development of projects that focus on inclusive pedagogies, assignments, content and strategies to foster learning about human diversity. Previously awarded Diversity and Inclusion grants as well as final reports and recommendations can be viewed on the CATL website.
This year’s Diversity and Inclusion grant recipients were selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants and include the following teams for various educational departments:
Economy
Steve DeLoach, Brooks Depro and Casey DiRienzo from the Department of Economics will work on a project titled “Developing a Repository of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Materials for Principles of Economics Courses” .
Using 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 in the multi-section course Principles of Economics (ECO 1000). They will evaluate their project by incorporating relevant questions into their existing learning assurance program and their results will be shared with the economics department.
Education and well-being
Department of Education faculty members, 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 results.
Their project aims to align the four Elementary Methods courses and co-required field experiences to build on the continuum of developing teacher candidates as intercultural, anti-racist and culturally sensitive teachers who understand how to design and implement implementing equity-based practices; integrate and expand 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 Resource Center to implement programs around critical love and organize resources for teacher candidates and faculty toward these goals.
English and Belk Library
An interdisciplinary team of faculty and librarians will work together for this DIG project, including Lina Kuhn, English Lecturer, Patrick Rudd, Library Instruction Coordinator, Shannon Tennant, Library Collections Coordinator, Heather Lindenman, Assistant Professor of English , Michael Smith, assistant professor of English and Ayla Samli, assistant professor of English.
Their project, “Investigating Information Systems: Access, Creation, Misinformation and Privilege,” aims to investigate existing systems for collecting and disseminating information, including how these systems can often be inequitable and potentially dangerous.
They will focus on four distinct aspects of information systems in the context of ENG 1100 courses: how data algorithms play a role in the distribution of information, the publication and prevalence of misinformation, missing and marginalized perspectives in published research and the privilege of access to information. After researching these distinct areas, they aim to create a repository of material (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, professors in the Department of World Languages and Cultures, will focus on their research “Diversifying Antiquity: Diversity and Inclusion in a Classical Mythology Course.”
The team notes that classical studies holds a special place as a discipline historically implicated in Eurocentrism and colonialist ideologies. This project seeks to disrupt these narratives by highlighting the truly multicultural character of antiquity and its value for today’s inclusive social discourse. Their work will focus on developing and integrating DEI-focused content, assignments, and assessments to capture student learning across all sections of CLA 1100: Classical Mythology. The team will situate their work within the discipline and scholarship for teaching and learning (SoTL) best practices to create, test, and evaluate the impact of content-based interventions in this course.
Music
Music Department faculty Cora Palfy, Gerald Knight, Fred Johnson, and Stephen Futrell are collaborating on a project called “Survey of Music Department Student Perceptions of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).”
Their project is linked to current DCI efforts in the area of music, as national organizations have realized that to improve the impact on those served (e.g. students, performers, audiences, etc.), they must take social issues into account. Their project will build on such efforts across all sub-disciplines, such as the College Music Society publication “Transforming Music Study from its Foundations”, the National Association of Schools of Music Handbook for Accreditation (which includes standards set for the diversity of backgrounds and expertise represented among faculty members) and the DEI standards of the National Association for Music Education in the National Core Arts Standards.
Through this project, the team plans to determine if, or where, Elon’s music students engage with DEI issues and implement changes to the music curriculum based on their findings to help students to better understand DEI issues in music.
