Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning announces 2020-2021 Diversity and Inclusion Grant recipients

The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning is pleased to announce the recipients of the 10th annual Diversity and Inclusion Grants for the 2020-2021 academic year. This year’s diversity and inclusion grant winners were selected from a highly competitive application pool.

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. (You can explore previous Diversity and Inclusion Grants and final reports and recommendations on the CATL website.)

2020-2021 Projects include:

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion in Exercise Science – Department of Exercise Science faculty members Professor Eric Hall, Assistant Professor Lauren Walker and Assistant Professor Aaron Piepmeier will assess the climate for Exercise Science students around issues of diversity, equity and 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, 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.

The Economics and Finance Gender Gap and Diversity Awareness across the Business Curriculum Stage II – Faculty from the Love School of Business, Assistant Professor Margarita Kaprielyan (Finance), Assistant Professor Adam Aiken (Finance), Assistant Professor Tonmoy Islam (Economics), Assistant Professor Brandon Sheridan (Economics) and Assistant Professor 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.

Revising Materials, Methods, and Resources in Education Literature Courses – Associate Professor Joan Barnatt and Allison Bryan, director of the Curriculum Resources Center, from the 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.

Best Practitioner Kit – Faculty from the Core Curriculum, Associate Professor Amy Johnson (History), Senior Lecturer Paula Patch (English), and Professor Naeemah Clark (Cinema and Television Arts) 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.

For questions about the Diversity and Inclusion Grant, or the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, email catl@elon.edu or visit our website.