Five faculty members were recently honored with the 2022 Provost’s Award for Diversity in the Curriculum. The award formally recognizes faculty’s efforts in integrating equity, diversity and inclusion concepts into their courses and curricula.

The winners are:

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 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.

Diego Chaves-Gnecco, School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, for designing a course for third- and fourth-year medical students to have a rotation at Salud Para Niños, the first pediatric bilingual-bicultural clinic in southwestern Pennsylvania. Students attend the free pediatric weekly clinics where medical students and residents see, on average, seven mostly Latinx and uninsured patients 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.

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

Olga Klimova, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, Department of Slavic Languages & Literature, for designing a 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 cultures.

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.