News Release — For info contact Lori Melton, [email protected], 218-726-8830.
The University of Minnesota has awarded two Equity & Diversity Transformation Awards to UMD.
The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and the Department of Art & Design received an award for their Equity and Diversity in Latin America and Spain: Art, Lecture, and Film Series. The second award was given to Supporting Students of Color/International Students and Enhancing Cultural Diversity and Inclusivity: A Collaborative Project, established by UMD’s Employees of Color Mentoring Program.
The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures in the College of Liberal Arts and the Department of Art & Design in the School of Fine Arts received an award for their Equity and Diversity in Latin America and Spain: Art, Lecture, and Film Series. This series of events, which will take place in spring 2017, creates a strategic partnership between faculty members that research and teach in areas of equity and diversity in Hispanic and Latin American studies at UMD across collegiate units and departments. The series will seek to attract a wide audience of UMD students, staff, and faculty, as well as Twin Ports community members. It includes 1) an art exhibition; 2) five scholarly presentations by UMD faculty; and 3) the presentation, showing, and discussion of two films at Zinema in Duluth.
The second award was given to Supporting Students of Color/International Students and Enhancing Cultural Diversity and Inclusivity: A Collaborative Project, established by UMD’s Employees of Color Mentoring Program. This project is a series of planned activities which seeks to connect international students and students of color to employees of color (EOC), communities of color and communities of other nationalities for increased social support and mentoring; to facilitate the exposure of international student to the rich U.S. culture and thus enhance social interaction/inclusion; and to showcase the benefits of cultural diversity on the UMD campus. These activities include a meet-and-greet at the beginning of each semester, involvement of EOC in mentoring dyads/triads for students of color/international students, excursions to historical and U.S. traditional places and events, and hosting student panels.
About the Awards
Established by the Office for Equity and Diversity, the University of Minnesota’s Equity and Diversity Transformation Awards seek to infuse equity and diversity into every aspect of the University’s teaching, learning, research, service and outreach by funding creative yet pragmatic proposals for projects that support equity and diversity initiatives.
The focus for the 2016 Equity & Diversity Transformation Awards is building capacity for institutional change through the use of strategic partnerships. Partnerships must go beyond financial assistance/sponsorship and efforts must exemplify working in collaboration either as internal partnerships between two or more units/offices within a larger department or college or between two or more units/offices across various departments or colleges or as external partnerships between one or more units/departments with one or more external stakeholders (community organizations, corporations, etc.).