Hancock unveiled the strategic visioning process during a March 9 forum, “Embracing the Past and Future of the Kirwan Institute.”  

“When we’re drawing boundaries two or three years from now around what Kirwan does do and what Kirwan does not have the capacity to do, it will have been the product of a collaborative process,” she said. “Key stakeholders, community partners, faculty and staff and students, we’re all going to talk about it and ask these questions. It’s going to be community-engaged.” 

Established in 2003, the Kirwan Institute is an interdisciplinary research institute named for former Ohio State President William E. “Brit” Kirwan in recognition of his efforts to champion diversity at Ohio State. The Kirwan Institute researchers, affiliated faculty, collaborators and community partners conduct research to inform policies and practices that help create a just and inclusive society.  

Hancock said becoming the Kirwan Institute’s executive director on Jan. 1 was a homecoming. A Columbus native and Thomas Worthington High School alumna, Hancock has a family connection to Ohio State. 

“My first home was on this campus,” she said, “and it is such a pleasure to be back.” 

Hancock shared that her father, Charles Hancock, graduated from Ohio State in 1970 in what is now the College of Education and Human Ecology (EHE). Charles Hancock taught in EHE for 26 years and directed the Young Scholars Program, which provides support and financial assistance to academically talented high school students who are the first in their families to receive bachelor’s degrees.  

Prior to joining the Kirwan Institute, Hancock had served as the University of Southern California’s department chair of political science and international relations since 2020. She also directed the USC Institute for Intersectionality and Social Transformation and the university’s Center for Leadership by Women of Color.  

Hancock’s experience positions her to lead the Kirwan Institute in furthering its mission of ensuring that all people and communities have an opportunity to succeed, said Wendy Smooth, Ohio State’s senior vice provost for inclusive excellence.  

“We have engaged with cutting-edge scholars who have worked with us over the years, from visiting associate professors, to postdoctoral students, as well as faculty on the campus of The Ohio State University,” Smooth said. “We’ve done this work for nearly 20 years, and we look forward to our next chapter, which begins with welcoming our new executive director.” 

Hancock said Kirwan’s strategic visioning process will kick off in April and continue through August, with opportunities for stakeholders throughout the university and the community at large to contribute. 

“We will ask you questions. We will invite you to the listening sessions,” she said. “We will ask for your feedback.” 

In the fourth quarter of 2023, Kirwan Institute staff will analyze the feedback they gather and begin implementing the new strategic plan in early 2024, Hancock said. For more information about the Kirwan Institute for Race and Ethnicity, visit kirwaninstitute.osu.edu. 

Lowe’s historical significance as the first Black designer to be recognized for her singular style cannot be overstated, said Gayle Strege, curator of the Historic Costumes and Textiles Collection.

“There were a lot of Black dressmakers and designers, but they weren’t necessarily whose name was on the label,” she said. “That recognition of the dressmaker was left out, so it’s nice to be able to bring that all to light.”

Lowe’s designs include a distinctive debutante dress that is housed at the Historic Costumes and Textiles Collection. Lowe also designed Jacqueline Bouvier’s wedding dress for her 1953 nuptials to then-Senator and future President John F. Kennedy. A reproduction of the wedding dress will be on display at the National First Ladies’ Library beginning in May, said Alison Caplan, the library’s director of education.

Succeeding against the odds

Lowe was born in rural Alabama in 1898. The granddaughter of slaves learned to sew and make clothes from her mother and grandmother. The family ran a seamstress business that created fashions for Alabama’s governor and state dignitaries.

Lowe came to prominence as a designer in her own right in the mid-20th century. Her life and career have been documented in several books, including author Piper Huguley’s new release, “By Her Own Design: A Novel of Ann Lowe, Fashion Designer to the Social Register.” Huguley discussed Lowe’s accomplishments during a Feb. 1 virtual presentation hosted by the First Ladies’ Library.  

In a conversation with Caplan, Huguley described how her work of historical fiction pays homage to Lowe. The book chronicles Lowe’s designs for high-profile clients like the Kennedys, the Rockefellers, the du Ponts and Olivia de Haviland, the Academy Award-winning actress. De Haviland donned one of Lowe’s designs in 1946 when she won the Best Actress Oscar for “To Each His Own.”

“I could immediately see upon looking at what Ann’s life was that it could be made into a novel,” Huguley said. “It was clear from the things that I saw initially that a historical fiction novel could be told about Ann Lowe.”

As the heroine of her own compelling story, Lowe often triumphed over adversity – including succeeding in a highly competitive industry as a woman and an African American in an era in which both groups struggled to achieve equality. She also battled glaucoma and ultimately retired in 1972 due to eyesight challenges.

A thrift-store donation reveals a priceless artifact

Before Lowe’s debutante dress was acquired by the Historic Costumes and Textiles Collection, the garment was in the possession of Columbus resident Jim Gessner for several decades. Gessner is the son of Florence Cowell Gessner, one of Lowe’s collaborators at Lowe’s A.F. Chantilly fashion label. Jim Gessner ran the business that housed the label.

After the A.F. Chantilly New York shop closed, Gessner held on to a selection of dresses made by Cowell Gessner and the debutante dress made by Lowe.

“He took the Ann Lowe gown to First Community Church’s clothing resale shop and gave it to them,” said Elizabeth McAllister, Gessner’s niece and Cowell Gessner's granddaughter, who also lives in central Ohio. “He had that dress in a storage unit for 50 years.”

Fortunately, employees with the Tri-Village Trading Post thrift store recognized the unique quality of the gold debutante dress with handmade floral embellishments that Gessner had donated. They contacted Ohio State about the possibility of acquiring it.

When First Community employees reached out to Strege, “I said, ‘Yeah, and how did you get one of her dresses? They’re so rare,’” she said. “She only designed one-of-a-kind dresses, so there aren’t going to be that many out there.”

Lowe’s legacy endures

In addition to the Historic Costumes and Textiles Collection, Lowe’s designs are housed in prestigious museums such as the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

The First Ladies’ Library acquired a reproduction of Jacqueline Kennedy’s wedding dress from the private collection of Monte Durham, host of the TLC reality show “Say Yes to the Dress.”    

“There’s no doubt that Jacqueline Kennedy’s dress is a masterpiece,” Caplan said. “It was kind of a showpiece that the Kennedys wanted to be created that would get the magazine coverage that they wanted to help propel (John F. Kennedy) into the spotlight.”

In a devastating turn of fate, the bridal and bridesmaids’ dresses that Lowe created for the Bouvier/Kennedy wedding were destroyed just 10 days before the ceremony when a pipe burst in Lowe’s New York City workroom. Forging ahead with her trademark tenacity, the designer painstakingly recreated the dresses at her own expense.

Losing money was unfortunately commonplace for Lowe and other Black designers of her day. Despite their wealth and privilege, many of Lowe’s clients devalued her work, refused to adequately compensate her and rarely gave her proper credit for designs because of her race, Huguley said.

“This is how someone who was Black in the first half of the 20th century, how you had to comport yourself,” she said. “It’s unpleasant to look back on and for us to think about, but that was a historical reality.”          

Strege said she is hopeful that the inclusion of Lowe’s designs in the college’s collection, the First Ladies’ Library and other museums around the country will bring awareness to Black fashion designers’ contributions.

“Because so many African Americans have been written out of our history, it’s great to have an example of her work,” she said. “To be able to share that history is good to bring to light.”

Lowe’s debutante dress can be viewed in a video on the EHE Education and Learning Design YouTube channel. (The gown is currently in storage for an upcoming renovation of Campbell Hall on Ohio State’s Columbus campus, where the collection is located.)

For information about Ohio State’s Historic Costumes and Textiles Collection, visit Costume.osu.edu. For more information about the First Ladies’ Library upcoming exhibit of the reproduction of Jacqueline Kennedy’s wedding dress, visit Firstladies.org.

This concept, put forward by Ohio State University Distinguished Professor Donna Y. Ford, is at the root of why the College of Education and Human Ecology prioritizes local and global engagement as one of its five foundational pillars.  

“When I say others, it could be regarding race, ethnicity or people living in poverty or the reverse, people with high income,” Ford said. “We want to miss those stereotypes, those biases and those lies about people we really don’t know.”

Gaining the benefits of new perspectives is why the German-American Fulbright Commission sent 23 German teachers to Ohio State and the college for 12 days in October for an in-person teacher seminar on equity, diversity and inclusion in the classroom.

The visit followed more than two months of virtual professional development in spring 2021. It was hosted, as was the in-person visit, by the college and the university’s offices of Diversity and Inclusion and International Affairs in partnership with Fulbright Germany. Ford’s workshop focused on how to create a culturally responsive curriculum. 

Ivan Stefano, director of Ohio State’s Intercultural English Language Programs and co-director for the seminar, emphasized that it was the college’s first hybrid Fulbright offering.

“The online seminar prepared the teachers with the concepts, the issues, the pedagogy,” he said. “Now they have seen it in practice and had conversations with some of the university’s top scholars in enacting equity, diversity and inclusion in the classroom, in addition to our partner schools in Franklin County.”

Teacher participants describe benefits of new perspectives

Stefano and Francis Troyan, associate professor of multilingual language education and co-director for the seminar, said the teachers agreed during the debriefing that the school visits were among the most rewarding aspects of their learning about how to incorporate culturally responsive teaching into the classroom. The teachers visited both public and charter schools.

“We structured the visits using what I would call an immersion model,” Troyan said. For instance, on one school visit, “The group that visited the World Language Middle School (a Columbus City School) arrived in the morning, and each (German teacher) was matched with a teacher in their field. They shadowed that teacher for a couple of class periods. Then we met as a group with the principal to talk about the school culture, how parent outreach is facilitated and how every aspect of school culture is nurtured.”  

At the Arts IMPACT Middle School, also a Columbus City School, Stefano said the principal offered several classrooms for the Fulbrighters to visit.

Leila El Berins, one of the visiting Fulbrighters, teaches grades five through 10 in Heidelberg.

“When I got the invitation, I was fascinated by the topic of diversity and inclusion,” she said, “because in my class of 26 students, they are from 12 or 13 countries with many different languages and histories, and they have been in Germany for one year. Others were born in Germany, so there are huge differences.”

El Berins had not found any professional development activities as extensive as this seminar, especially ones focused on teacher training. Her interest came, in part, from her own background. Her group visited three middle schools, including the charter Arts and College Preparatory Academy.

“The school visits were amazing for me,” she said. “I’m going to talk to my art teacher and say, ‘Let’s find a way to make everybody feel welcome, to make some bigger projects to include everyone, to find talent.' When kids are good in sports, it’s easier to fit in, even if the language is difficult. But with art projects, and music, you might reach a different group of students who might hide.” 

Ulf Gerdelmann is a teacher at a comprehensive school, grades five through 10, in Wiesbaden near Frankfurt. He said he had never experienced a professional development program in diversity, equity and inclusion with as much variety. 

“And I really like that,” he said, “because it’s made me think about how to deal with LGBTQ questions, with racial questions.”

He cited Carlotta Penn’s workshop about incorporating multicultural children’s literature into the classroom, so students see themselves represented. Penn directs global affairs in the college’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Global Engagement.  

“I found that (workshop) inspiring,” Gerdelmann said. “You have to really look at the individual child and think, ‘What do they need? What examples should I use in my teaching?’”

From the practical point of view, he appreciated the workshop by Moira Konrad, associate professor of special education, who presented the Individual Education Program (IEP) process used in American schools. She explainedhow to set goals and described high-leverage practices for teaching students with disabilities.

Guided daily by coordinator Zhenjie Weng, the visitors engaged with additional faculty and staff, both within the college and at Ohio State.

Plans are in the works now for a new group of German teachers in 2024.

The virtual event was held Nov. 9, hosted by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

“The President and Provost’s Diversity Lecture and Cultural Arts Series gives people at Ohio State and in our community fantastic opportunities to engage in dialogue about society’s most pressing problems and issues and work collectively to map out solutions,” Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson said. “For 24 years, this event has connected the community with thought leaders dedicated to advancing inclusion, excellence and diversity and broadening our understanding of each other.”

Elliott is among a series of speakers whose work promotes dialogue on issues that have a nationwide impact, said Yolanda Zepeda, assistant vice provost for the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

“These individuals exemplify inclusive excellence and whose cutting-edge thinking deserves a wider audience,” she said. “I hope that our students and the broader community will engage around the ideas shared tonight and will find their own perspectives challenged.”

Elliott is an investigative reporter for the New York Times. She received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her “Imam in America” series of articles about Muslim immigrants. She received the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for her book, “Invisible Child.”

The book expounds on a series of New York Times articles Elliott wrote about a young Black girl named Dasani whose family, including her parents and seven siblings, experienced homelessness throughout her childhood in New York City. For several years, Elliott chronicled the family’s struggles to find safe housing. Dasani’s parents also battled substance use disorders, which led to incidents in which authorities removed Dasani and her siblings from their parents’ care.

“It’s really hard to summarize the toll it takes to be in these systems and to be poor,” Elliott said. “People often assume that poverty is the result of ‘bad choices’… but I think it’s more often about the lack of any choice at all, the absence of true agency. Because when you are so busy surviving, you cannot possibly thrive.”

Elliott’s extensive research included genealogy, tracing Dasani’s family tree to study how generations of slavery and subsequent segregation had impacted the family’s current situation. Elliott found that Dasani’s maternal great-grandfather, World War II Army veteran Wesley Sykes, experienced discrimination that many Black veterans faced.

Denied mortgage assistance and other GI benefits, Wesley Sykes ended up settling in a rent-subsidized apartment in a Brooklyn complex that Dasani and her family would come to know as “the projects.”

“The exclusion of African Americans from real estate … the exclusion of their ability to attend college, to attain decent-paying jobs, to even have the ability to vote lay the foundations of a lasting poverty that Dasani would inherit,” Elliott said. “These historic injustices that were experienced by her family not as history … but as a continued reality is something that is connected to the past, but that is also playing out in real time.”

Education proved to be a lifeline for Dasani. She gained admission to the Milton Hershey School, a private prekindergarten-12th grade boarding school in Hershey, Pennsylvania, that aims to help children overcome poverty by providing them with a cost-free, high-quality education.

Before Dasani entered the Milton Hershey School, Elliott said the youth drew inspiration from New York City public school teachers such as Faith Hester, an accomplished Black woman who was Dasani’s sixth-grade teacher.          

“She’s just a phenomenal example, also, of someone who has survived,” Elliott said of Hester. “She got out of the projects by being bused into a white part of Brooklyn, she graduated high school early and then two master’s degrees later, she returned to her predominantly Black community to teach and to show through her own human example a way out. As if to say to her kids, ‘If I could do it, you could do it, too.’”

Now 21 years old, Dasani is attending community college, holds down a job in retail and is close with her family, who finally has stable housing, Elliott said.

“People always talk about the cycle of poverty,” she said, “but I also see this as a story about the cycle of power, the cycle of resilience that surviving poverty represents.”

The symposium was the culmination of efforts that began when the university established the Seed Fund for Racial Justice in 2020, said Ryan Schmiesing, senior vice provost for external engagement in the Office of Academic Affairs.

“The fund was designed to support projects that address the historic and contemporary effects of racism and racial disparities found in all aspects of American society,” Schmiesing said. Grant recipients embarked on “innovative, untested and exploratory research approaches and creative ideas that contribute to the elimination of racism and solve its underlying causes and consequences in our campuses, in our community and across the nation.”

In welcoming attendees to the symposium, President Kristina M. Johnson said the Seed Fund for Racial Justice is part of an array of Ohio State programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. One of those programs, she said, is the RAISE initiative (Race, Inclusion and Social Equity), which includes 47 new tenure-track positions, with faculty expected to begin joining the university in autumn 2023.

“These newly approved positions are part of seven cross-disciplinary, community-engaged proposals to enhance Ohio State’s world-class research program,” Johnson said. “In addition to that representation in our classrooms and lecture halls and labs, we are creating spaces that allow our community members to connect with their heritage and develop a sense of belonging.”

The symposium included a panel discussion on advancing equity in K-12 education. Dionne Custer Edwards, the Wexner Center for the Arts’ director of learning and public practice, spoke about the center’s project to implement arts-based, anti-racist initiatives in Ohio high schools. The Wexner Center received a $50,000 grant from the Seed Fund and partnered with Big Walnut High School in Sunbury.

The project has incorporated self-care practices for educators, students and facilitators involved in the project to maintain their well-being and sustain the work, Custer Edwards said.

“The arts are uniquely situated and equipped to do this work,” she said. “We’re not afraid of feelings in the arts, there’s a lot of emotions in the arts and we deal with materials. We have a multisensory, multidisciplinary practice that we can incorporate so that we might be in touch with our senses, so that we might take care of ourselves more holistically.”   

Another panel featured a discussion on programs that bring together university faculty and staff with community organizations to address issues that affect central Ohio.

Cecelia Mengo, associate professor in the College of Social Work, said the college’s $49,664 grant assists immigrant women in Columbus who experience domestic violence. The college has partnered with the Ohio Domestic Violence Network, the Center of Partner-Inflicted Brain Injury, Refugee Women in Action and community activists Noah Bagirinka and Rachel Ramirez.

“A lot of women are not able to really navigate the service system here in Columbus,” Mengo said. “There are so many services that they need – food, counseling, housing, financial assistance. Just having that person to work with them and hand-hold them and support them as they access these services is such a huge need.”  

The symposium also featured a series of “Lightning Talks” in which faculty and staff provided overviews of their ongoing work that received Seed Fund grants.

Wendy Smooth, senior vice provost for inclusive excellence, spoke about a nonpartisan effort, which received a $49,950 grant, to increase the number of Black women who hold elected office in Ohio.

“Ohio State’s decision to seed new research dollars to answer the call of the moment is in keeping with our mission as a land-grant institution, which calls us to make sense of the world in which we are living, using the tools of the academy in service to the citizens of Ohio,” Smooth said. 

The Seed Fund for Racial Justice is just one of a host of Ohio State initiatives that are designed to foster an inclusive environment on campus and the greater community, said Melissa Gilliam, executive president and provost.  

“These activities form a scaffold so that we can ensure what you have begun will continue,” Gilliam told attendees. “And this will enable us, along with the community members that you have partnered with, to ensure the campus, the community and eventually the nation will become more diverse, more inclusive and more just.”

Legends & Legacies honors humanitarians, activists and artists who have made a cultural impact on the world, said Demetries Neely, King Arts Complex executive director.

“At one of America’s largest and finest public universities, something very special has occurred under the leadership of President Kristina M. Johnson,” Neely said. “The Ohio State University presents a remarkable, diverse senior leadership team.”

In a conversation with Johnson during the event, Gilliam, Shivers and Smith shared personal and professional experiences and spoke about the path that led them to Ohio State and lessons learned along the way.

“I think you can all see why we at Ohio State in Columbus, in higher education, are blessed to have such exceptional leaders as the three of you,” Johnson said. “I’m honored to serve with you.” 

As Ohio State’s executive vice president and provost, Gilliam leads an academic enterprise that includes 15 colleges, more than 7,500 faculty members and more than 67,000 students on campuses in Columbus, Lima, Mansfield, Marion, Newark and Wooster.

An educator and physician, Gilliam joined Ohio State from the University of Chicago, where she was vice provost.

Gilliam said her father, Sam Gilliam, a renowned artist, and her mother, Dorothy Butler Gilliam, the first Black woman journalist at The Washington Post, set an example in pursuing excellence.

“I have so many ancestors that were blood-related and not blood-related, so many people who enabled me to do what I do,” Gilliam said. “You’re looking and thinking about something much bigger, much greater. I think it’s those things, coming from a tremendous family, tremendous communities, and just feeling grateful.”

Shivers oversees university operations affecting students outside the classroom, including the residential experience, dining services, student leadership and service, health care and wellness programs, mental health support, disability services and career development, among other responsibilities.

Shivers came to Ohio State from the University of Iowa, where she was vice president for student affairs.

Shivers, a first-generation college graduate, said her mother instilled the value of education while working three jobs to support Shivers and her sister on her own.

“I’m going to always attribute who I am and why I am to my mom. She is such an inspiration to me,” Shivers said. “Her full heart’s desire was just to see us be successful. Now walking into my 26th year of working in higher education and, specifically, student affairs, I believe that my calling and my hard work is to support students.”

Smith is in his 18th year as Ohio State’s athletics director – the third-longest tenure in the position behind only L.W. St. John and Richard Larkins.

Smith also credited his parents with encouraging him to pursue higher education and maximize his potential.

“I learned my work ethic from my dad. My dad was an electrician, and my heroes are the masonry guys, the carpenters and construction workers,” Smith said. “My mom taught me the greatest values – respect for others. She taught me respect, she taught me integrity, she taught me to appreciate all kinds of people. She taught me how to care, she taught me humility. She taught me all those values that brought me here today.” 

Gilliam, Shivers and Smith reflected on the legacy they would like to leave.  

Shivers said she would like to set an example for colleagues and students on achieving work-life balance.

“Over my career, I’ve gained a much deeper appreciation for being a great professional and being a great human,” she said. “What I hope my legacy will be at Ohio State is continuing that focus on student and staff success, but doing it in a way that actually accepts and invites people to take care of their own health and well-being first in order to be able to provide for and support our students.”

Smith said his mission is to provide student-athletes with resources and support to grow academically, athletically and socially during their time at Ohio State, and graduate with skills that transfer to success in life.

The Eugene D. Smith Leadership Institute – funded by private support – provides leadership, character and career development for all Ohio State student-athletes to prepare them for life after graduation. Programs include Bucks Go Pro internships, job shadowing and career fairs, among other resources.

Smith said he emphasizes “the holistic development of the student-athlete. I want student-athletes to truly grow as people.”              

Gilliam said her focus is on promoting excellence in every facet of university life.

“I deeply believe in young people with all my heart,” she said. “I just have so much confidence and so much faith in young people. Being on a college campus and looking out of my window and seeing college students, it really lifts my heart.”

During a Sept. 30 panel discussion at the Faculty Club, alumni who are professors and administrators at public school systems and institutions of higher learning around the country shared how attending Ohio State prepared them for career success. They also spoke about how they promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in education.

“We start with the admissions process, and we admit a diverse body of students,” said April Peters-Hawkins, associate chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in the University of Houston’s College of Education. “We get diverse perspectives in the classroom in terms of addressing issues of equity. The other thing we do is provide and require students to engage with diverse texts written by diverse scholars.”

Schools, both at the K-12 and collegiate levels, can advance DEI by providing opportunities for students to have real-world experiences in the communities that the schools serve, said Dionne Blue, Columbus City Schools chief equity officer.

Blue stressed the importance of “building partnerships with communities of color, intersectional communities where your university is, so that students can have a different perspective, not just the textbook perspective, and also have a more nuanced perspective.”

Panelists offered advice for current Ohio State students on how to make the most of their education.

“Read, and then read again, and then read some more, and then read some more. … It’s amazing how much reading can just open up whole different worlds,” said John Singer, associate dean for diversity and inclusion at Texas A&M University’s School of Education and Human Development. “Let’s not undervalue the importance of reading.”

The panel discussion also featured D-L Stewart, professor and chair of the Higher Education Department in the University of Denver’s Morgridge College of Education; Jamel Donnor, professor of education, William and Mary Law School; and moderator Mark Gooden, professor of education leadership, Columbia University’s Teachers College.

Prior to the panel discussion, retired Ohio State administrator Robert Ransom delivered a keynote address in which he reflected on his 30-year tenure at the university. Known to colleagues and students as “Dr. Bob,” Ransom served as director of several offices, including the Special Services Program, the Nigerian Education Program and the Office of Affirmative Action. He retired as director of EHE’s Office of Equity and Diversity.

Achieving longevity in a career requires mapping out a clear vision and staying focused on goals despite obstacles that arise, Ransom said.

“Remember who you are, remember what your mission is, what your goal is,” he said.

The EHE Black Alumni Reunion weekend also included an open house with Dean Don Pope-Davis, roundtable discussions with alumni and current students, a tailgate before the Buckeyes’ homecoming game against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, and participation in the unveiling and dedication of the new National Pan-Hellenic Council Plaza.

For more information, visit the Ohio State’s Black Alumni Society website.

Presented by the College of Education and Human Ecology (EHE), the certificate provides resources for current and future educators to examine issues of race and identity in the classroom and beyond, said Winston Thompson, an EHE associate professor who is administering the program.

“We see this as a certificate offering that’s going to be attractive to K-12 classroom teachers who are trying to navigate what’s going on in their classroom spaces,” he said. “We could also imagine that this is going to be attractive to folks who are current students at Ohio State. They might be graduate students and they want to think through how to better understand race in their own teaching. Or perhaps they’re graduate students who see teaching in their future and they want this certificate in preparation for that kind of work.”

One objective of the certificate is to address racial disparities in education, said Donna Ford, an EHE Distinguished Professor who is also administering the program.

“White teachers make up about 85% of all (K-12) teachers,” she said. “Out of all teachers, Black males are 1%, Black females are 6%, and for Hispanics, it’s 7% and it’s the same way in terms of the gender breakdown.”

Ford cited data she has compiled in her research indicating that while people of color are underrepresented in the teaching profession, Black students – especially Black males – are overrepresented in negative educational outcomes.

“Who is the majority getting disciplined? Who is being over-referred and placed in special education?” she said. “Who is not being referred to gifted programs, to advanced placement programs and so on?”

The graduate certificate in anti-racism in education curriculum is designed to dispel myths, Ford said.

“My parents called it ‘deficit thinking’ – the less you know about others, the more you make up. The less you know about minoritized children, the more you make up,” she said. “My goal is, instead of deficit thinking, I want dynamic thinking – the more you know, the less you make up.”

The program curriculum is relevant for white teachers who lead classrooms with students of color, as well as participants from diverse backgrounds, Ford said.

“Minoritized students will definitely benefit, as well, because we need to learn how to be global citizens. We travel, we interact with people who come from a culture and speak languages different from us,” she said. “I want to be culturally competent. I want our minoritized students, educators – everybody – to be culturally competent, so it’s a win-win for any student who is seeking to get this certificate.”

The certificate can be pursued concurrently with a graduate degree or as a stand-alone option for students who are not seeking a degree. Course offerings include “Cultural Diversity: Developing a Multicultural Awareness,” “Facilitating Intergroup Dialogues in Education,” and “Ethics and Education: Equality, Freedom and Justice in Schools.”

“Ohio State has long offered a number of really good and thoughtful courses that engage teachers in thinking through a lot of this work,” Thompson said. “Bringing them all together under the banner of an anti-racism in education certificate seems really appropriate in this moment.”

Applications for spring 2023 semester classes in the program are being accepted through Nov. 1. For more information and to apply, click here.

The National Science Foundation announced funding today for the Hybrid Autonomous Manufacturing, Moving from Evolution to Revolution (HAMMER) Engineering Research Center, for five years at $26 million with the ability to renew for another $26 million for an additional five years. If fully realized, it will be one of the largest research investments in the last decade for Ohio State.

Ohio State will partner with Case Western Reserve University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Northwestern University and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville along with more than 70 industry, educational and technical organization collaborators to develop and implement new manufacturing technologies for agile, high-performance and high-quality components.

Glenn Daehn, the Mars G. Fontana Professor of Metallurgical Engineering, will serve as the director of the center.

“This transformational investment for Ohio State is about much more than research, though that alone is certainly significant. It’s about enhancing U.S. innovation and reclaiming our nation’s position as a leader in domestic manufacturing,” said Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson. “We must invest in both American-made products and our local workforce to safeguard against future supply chain challenges and ensure we remain at the forefront of technological advancements that will transform the way we do business and improve our lives.”

Through basic, applied and translational research, HAMMER will accelerate the development and deployment of intelligent autonomous manufacturing systems that will use multiple processes to control material properties and component dimensions to allow rapid customization. These systems will learn from each operation, improving themselves over time.

The new research center and its partner network offers a rare opportunity to develop not only the future of engineering, but also future engineers. Robust partnerships with industry, educational and technical organizations will enable HAMMER to train personnel at many levels from pre-college to practicing engineers, at scale.

The HAMMER-led, next-generation certification standards will facilitate widespread adoption of advanced technologies and the associated workforce. Diversity and inclusion is one of the pillars of the new research center. Special emphasis will be focused on including urban, military and Appalachian communities in educational pipeline programs.

“HAMMER is one of the most significant, high-impact, large-scale research centers to be established at Ohio State. It will advance the current state of manufacturing technologies by uniting design, tools, intelligence and computational materials engineering into a single framework and providing new opportunities to commercialize research,” said Grace Wang, executive vice president of research, innovation and knowledge at Ohio State. “This will enable the agile production of new components in ways that are not now attainable, and with systems that allow for rapid customization and high-quality performance.”

In addition to the collaboration with the four partner universities, HAMMER will include convergent research across colleges at Ohio State. The College of Arts and Sciences, College of Medicine and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs join the College of Engineering in supporting the new engineering research center.

“The NSF investment affirms the visionary direction of Ohio State, as well as engineering’s prominence in AI and robotics,” said Dean of the College of Engineering Ayanna Howard. “We are committed to paving the way to a reimagined future that builds upon a culture of diversity and inclusion, strong workforce development efforts and an expanding innovation ecosystem. Most importantly, this collaboration will help catapult revolutionary ideas while training our most valuable asset, talented students.”

Daehn said the NSF and industry investment in HAMMER is only part of the broader future for the research center.

“We really want to develop what is a new industry based on hybrid, autonomous manufacturing. We have a team of nearly 40 of the best, most innovative academics in manufacturing, materials and artificial intelligence across five institutions, and over the past three years developed a vision of what is really a new way of manufacturing and developed plans to change the manufacturing industry,” he said. “We welcome people reaching out to us asking to be involved.” 

The NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) program supports convergent research, education and technology translation at U.S. universities to lead to strong societal impacts.

Each ERC has interacting foundational components that go beyond the research project, including engineering workforce development at all stages, a culture of diversity and inclusion where all participants gain mutual benefit and value creation within an innovation ecosystem that will outlast the lifetime of the ERC.

Since the program’s start in 1985, NSF has funded 75 ERCs throughout the United States. NSF supports each center for up to 10 years. This investment has led to many successes, including:

• More than 240 spinoff companies
• More than 900 patents
• More than 14,400 total bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees to ERC students
• Numerous research outcomes enabling new technologies

Over the years, the ERC program has adapted to meet the nation’s future workforce and technological needs.

“This is bittersweet news for Ohio State,” said Melissa L. Gilliam, executive vice president and provost, “but an exciting opportunity for Dr. Moore, who will extend his leadership and impact to a national level in leading EHR, which aims to achieve excellence in STEM education at all levels and in all settings across the country.”

EHR, one of seven NSF directorates, supports the development of a diverse and well-prepared workforce of scientists, technicians, engineers, mathematicians and educators.

"Becoming the new EHR assistant director is an opportunity that I do not take lightly. It extends the opportunity to be a part of the director's brain trust in bringing the 'Missing Millions' and developing critical strategy within NSF to attract, inspire and cultivate more U. S. citizens for careers in STEM," Moore said. "With the recent passing of the 'CHIPS and Science Act,' there are immense opportunities to improve STEM educational and workforce outcomes. I am very excited about the possibilities and ready to run the marathon at a sprinter's pace to put forth strong initiatives that build a robust, diverse and inclusive STEM workforce throughout the country."

This is the second time that Moore has been called to service at the federal level. From 2015 to 2017, he was a program director for Broadening Participation in Engineering in NSF’s Directorate for Engineering.

"James L. Moore III brings great leadership skills and vision to our agency and is poised to develop new mechanisms and models for reaching the missing millions in our country," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "His efforts will inspire the next-generation STEM workforce as they unleash their potential and advance discovery and innovation across the United States. I am thrilled to have him join the agency at this important time when access to quality STEM learning experiences for individuals, family and communities is recognized as a national imperative."

“This new appointment speaks to his national leadership in diversity and inclusion, STEM education and workforce development,” Gilliam said.

Moore has served as the university’s vice provost for diversity and inclusion, chief diversity officer (CDO), and leader of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) since 2017. He previously served as associate vice provost for diversity and inclusion from 2011 to 2015. Moore has served on the Ohio State faculty since 2002 and is the inaugural Education and Human Ecology Distinguished Professor of Urban Education, as well as the first executive director for the Todd Anthony Bell National Resource Center on the African American Male within ODI.

Moore’s accomplishments over his term as CDO and vice provost include implementing the ODI Strategic Roadmap; increasing grants, contracts and philanthropic contributions; improving student success and university experiences; and creating partnerships across the university, the state and other parts of the world.

A priority under Moore’s leadership was student success and working with the Office of International Affairs to enhance global education opportunities for students from underrepresented backgrounds. As a result of these efforts, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) honored Moore with the Michael P. Malone International Leadership Award.

Ohio State will remain Moore’s home institution while he serves at NSF, and he will continue to hold his faculty appointment.

A national search for ODI’s new leader will be launched soon. Until a new leader is in place, Assistant Vice Provost Yolanda Zepeda will serve as interim vice provost for ODI, and Andreá Williams, director of The Women’s Place and associate professor in the Department of English, will serve as interim associate vice provost.

Upward Bound encourages all five, he said.

“This program is a gem,” Moore said. “This is the kind of work that the Office of Diversity and Inclusion does and has done for over 50 years. It gives us a chance to have lasting impact – when you educate a generation of students, they influence the next generation.”

Upward Bound was born out of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 as a result of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty agenda. Through allocated grant funds from the U.S. Department of Education, high school students receive academic support, develop socialization and communication skills, and begin planning futures that may have seemed otherwise impossible. 

This year, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion was awarded three grants – totaling nearly $4.7 million over five years – from the U.S. Department of Education to reach high school students in different schools in Columbus, Wooster and Mansfield. “It is advantageous for institutions like Ohio State, with this storied land-grant mission to reach out to individuals who may not have had the same opportunities,” Moore said.

Citing economic struggles faced by communities in Columbus, Wooster and Mansfield, he went on: “One of the hallmarks of Ohio State is working with working-class and low-income communities in urban and rural settings. I know that is one of the main thrusts of the land-grant university. [Upward Bound] gives us a chance to bridge gaps for young people.”

The grants cover tutoring, weekend coursework and seminars that help high school students prepare for the rigors of college-level academics. Follow-up tracking allows Upward Bound program administrators to ensure that student successes can be replicated.

In addition to academic enrichment, participants develop what Moore calls “power skills,” social competencies that help them navigate social situations. Throughout the year, Upward Bound students are exposed to cultural events, community service opportunities and recreational activities to round out their experience. These kinds of experiences have positive effects on students’ confidence and commitment to the program, Moore said, which is crucial to a student’s success.

“Competence produces confidence,” Moore said. Some students have the skill but they don’t have the will, and vice versa. Building skill and will are two major facets of Upward Bound.”

To ensure student success, Upward Bound works closely with students’ families as well. In some of the communities within Columbus, Wooster and Mansfield, higher education is not seen as a next step among students and families because of the cost of college or the need to make money to assist with family living expenses. Moore notes that many students in the targeted schools come from dire economic household situations and will, in most cases, be the first in their families to obtain a college degree.

Upward Bound is, in part, about exposing students to mentors and role models from the area who have similar backgrounds or who can relate to them by sharing the different possibilities available through a college education. As Moore points out, many people in the targeted areas come from families that have done the same work for generations. Upward Bound highlights options that students may not have considered, not because of a lack of interest, but a lack of awareness.

“There are over 12,000 jobs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” Moore said. “Most people are not familiar with all of them, and young people foreclose on education and career opportunities when they’ve never been exposed to them.”

Upward Bound is a foundational program at Ohio State, Moore said, and one he has proudly worked on as the principal investigator for nearly 15 years. Receiving an Upward Bound grant is highly coveted and never guaranteed, which makes each award that much more meaningful.

“It’s some of the most honorable work that I am part of,” Moore said. “It’s work that I would do for free.”

Established in 2003, the Kirwan Institute is an interdisciplinary research institute named for former Ohio State President William E. “Brit” Kirwan in recognition of his efforts to champion diversity at Ohio State. The Kirwan Institute researchers, affiliated faculty, collaborators and community partners conduct research to inform policies and practices that help create a just and inclusive society where all people and communities have an opportunity to succeed.

“We are looking forward to Ange-Marie’s leadership,” said Ohio State Executive Vice President and Provost Melissa L. Gilliam. “An internationally recognized scholar, Dr. Hancock joins us from the University of Southern California, where she is a Dean’s Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations and the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies.”

Hancock, a Columbus native and Thomas Worthington High School alumna, has a family connection to Ohio State. Her father, Charles Hancock, graduated from Ohio State in 1970 in what is now the College of Education and Human Ecology (EHE). Charles Hancock taught in EHE for 26 years and directed the Young Scholars Program, which provides support and financial assistance to academically talented high school students who are the first in their families to receive bachelor’s degrees.

Ange-Marie Hancock has served as USC’s department chair of political science and international relations since 2020, and she also directs the USC Institute for Intersectionality and Social Transformation and the university’s Center for Leadership by Women of Color.

“Among her many accomplishments, Ange-Marie conducted the original survey research and designed the business model for what would become the Women’s National Basketball Association,” said Wendy G. Smooth, incoming senior vice provost for inclusive excellence. “She has written numerous articles and books, which explore how the intersection of race, gender, class, sexuality, citizenship and other categories of difference have an impact on policy.”

Her books include The Politics of Disgust and the Public Identity of the “Welfare Queen,” Solidarity Politics for Millennials: A Guide to Ending the Oppression Olympics, and Intersectionality: An Intellectual History.

In addition to directing the Kirwan Institute, Hancock will join the faculty of the Department of Political Science and hold an ENGIE-Axium Endowed Professorship.

Until Hancock’s arrival, Jason Reece, associate professor of city and regional planning, has agreed to provide interim leadership to the Kirwan Institute. Reece is a long-term faculty affiliate and a former staff member of the institute, and is currently involved in several ongoing institute research projects. He follows Beverly Vandiver, professor in the Department of Human Sciences and director of the Quantitative Methodology Center, who has served as interim executive director since autumn 2020.

“Under Beverly’s leadership, Kirwan has developed several new research areas, attracted national foundation funding and recruited postdoctoral scholars to the university,” Gilliam said. “Please join us in thanking Beverly, Jason and all Kirwan Institute staff and affiliates for providing continuity during the leadership transition.”

A partnership between Ohio State and COSI, the Language Pod (formally known as the Language Sciences Research Lab) marked its 10th anniversary with a June 2 celebration at the science museum. The COSI research pods, located on the museum’s second floor, are a part of a larger COSI exhibit on the life sciences. The pods are glass-enclosed research spaces where museum visitors can observe scientific research taking place in real time. 

“We are a working research lab, so we collect data, and we have a variety of faculty members with big grants to do that,” said Laura Wagner, professor of psychology and principal investigator for the Language Pod. “We study dialect, we study sentence processing. We work with children and adults. We have one researcher currently working with children with autism. We do all kinds of different studies.”

Since opening at COSI in 2012, the Language Pod has worked with 28,000 museum visitors, Wagner said.

“Our students wear lab coats and lanyards, and they literally walk outside the pod into the area where we are, and they walk up to visitors and they say, ‘Would you like to be in a science experiment?’” she said.

The Language Pod is administered by the Buckeye Language Network, which encourages interactions among Ohio State faculty, scholars and students engaged in language-oriented research. By engaging COSI visitors in their work, Language Pod researchers encourage young people to pursue careers in science, Wagner said.

“The thing that we do that is special is that because we’re at COSI, even when you’re doing research, you can’t avoid the fact that you’re doing public engagement,” she said. “We are dealing with families who come to COSI, and they’re willing to participate because they get to be in science.”

Language Pod researchers include students from community colleges as well as public and private four-year institutions, including Ohio State’s main and regional campuses.

Angélica Avilés, a doctoral student in Ohio State’s Department of Linguistics, said her first experience as a researcher with the Language Pod was in summer 2018 when she was an undergraduate student. She said the experience provided her with invaluable experience on how to interact with research subjects and analyze data. 

“I feel like it gives people the opportunity to know a bit more about linguistics, but also to have that hands-on experience of, let’s do an actual experiment,” Avilés said. “Having that opportunity to step away from academic – big talk, big words – and making it accessible to people who are not doing grad school or being a professor and making it accessible to them and seeing how they feel like, ‘Oh, this is very interesting, oh, this is something I do all the time,’ it’s that space for that.”

A’Niyah Brown, a master’s degree student in Ohio State’s Department of Speech and Hearing Science, said she gathers data that explores whether people see the connection between language and science. Like Avilés, Brown also started in the Language Pod as an undergraduate student in 2018 and has furthered her research at the graduate level. 

“I run a project now where I collect data for an automatic speech recognition project for artificial intelligence with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering,” said Brown, who is continuing her work with the Language Pod this summer. “It’s really a full circle moment for me – going from undergrad to a graduate student, from being a researcher to a project coordinator.”

Brown, who is African American, noted that people of color are underrepresented in academic fields that analyze language and culture. The Language Pod is working to bridge that divide, she said.

“Laura is a super champion for just grabbing people from the global majority and putting them in positions to not only get these types of experiences, but also to put them in leadership positions,” Brown said. “That, for me, is something that I want to highlight because I feel like that’s not done enough.”

Like Brown, Rutgers University student Melany Subina is working in the Language Pod this summer to track how automatic speech recognition systems process the human voice – children’s voices, in particular.

“We’re also doing one with a robot to see if children expand their vocabulary when there’s a robot around helping them,” Subina said.

Ohio State student Jordan Kightlinger and Case Western Reserve student Amber See said their research involves monitoring how people interpret visual language designed for individuals with hearing impairments.

“We’re going to be using American Sign Language and seeing how people are able to guess (signs),” See said.

“The plan is to ask (research participants) what they think the signs mean, how confident are they, and we’re going to see if ASL really is just ‘charades,’” Kightlinger said. “Spoiler alert, it’s not!”

For more information about the Language Pod, click here.

James L. Moore III, vice provost for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer at The Ohio State University, has been selected by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) as the recipient of the

Moore, a distinguished professor in the College of Education and Human Ecology and who leads the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI), has launched numerous international programmatic initiatives that have benefited Ohio State students across colleges, enabling them to engage in multicultural educational opportunities on campus and abroad. He has facilitated international partnerships and the sharing of best practices, provided professional opportunities for staff, and established funding sources that have made international experiences a reality for those underrepresented students who may never had thought they were possible.

The Office of International Affairs (OIA) submitted the successful nomination, which was based on the collaborative relationship between ODI and OIA and firsthand experience with Moore’s leadership and dedication to the importance of global engagement.

“I am deeply humbled and honored to receive the prestigious Michael P. Malone International Leadership Award,” Moore said. “In ODI, I have made major investments in education abroad experiences for our ODI scholars. I expect that these investments will continue in coming years. I look forward continuing to work with OIA to take things to another level.”

Throughout his career, Moore has focused on instilling an expectation in students that they will have an international experience during their college career. In the past five years, he has developed and led two major diversity, equity and inclusion-focused education abroad programs based on the theme of access to higher education that attracted over 200 students of diverse backgrounds.

He has also implemented the O-H-I-O education abroad scholarship and supported education abroad programming in the Fisher College of Business and the colleges of Arts and Sciences; Education and Human Ecology; Engineering; and Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences that include content related to such diversity and equity concerns as health disparities among populations, education, business, artistic expression and environmental sustainability.

Moore’s leadership and support also has benefited international and underrepresented student populations through a partnership with OIA and the creation of the Critical Dialogue Series and the Fall Break Social Justice trips. These experiential programs deepen student awareness and understanding of critical community and global issues and include field-based learning to local neighborhoods and U.S. cities of cultural and historical significance.

Another one of his major international exchange initiatives is the $4.5 million USAID grant in which ODI is the lead partner in the United States. Through the grant, higher education leaders from multiple institutions in the Dominican Republic and the U.S. connect to explore intervention programs supporting vulnerable and marginalized youth in the Dominican Republic. The ODI team and Moore have shared educational models designed to improve education and career outcomes for disadvantaged youth. Incorporating aspects from a variety of programs, such as the pre-collegiate and collegiate experiences and practices honed by ODI’s Young Scholars Program, Dominican counterparts have been able to design bridge projects that help students transition from secondary school to higher education.

“There are countless ways in which Dr. Moore has contributed immensely to the internationalization of the Ohio State campus, and he is most deserving of this prestigious award,” said Gil Latz, vice provost for global strategies and international affairs. “His international initiatives provide incomparable learning opportunities for students and powerful collaborations with faculty and partners across the globe.”

The Malone Award honors the legacy of the late Michael P. Malone, a champion of international education and one-time chair of the APLU Commission on International Education. The award was established in 2000 by APLU to provide national recognition for individuals who have made outstanding contributions to international education at APLU member institutions.

The brunch provided an opportunity for fellowship among LGBTQ Buckeyes and allies, Johnson said.

“The poet, writer and activist Audre Lorde once observed, it’s not our differences that divide us, it is our ability to recognize, accept and celebrate those differences. I think Buckeyes understand that deeply,” Johnson said. “The diversity of our vast Ohio State family is our greatest strength.”

Observing LGBTQ Pride Month is part of Ohio State’s mission to help all members of the Buckeye community realize their full potential, Johnson said.

“We have a big vision for The Ohio State University, and I want it to be one of the very best public institutions in the entire country,” she said. “We have to become that place where great faculty, great students, great staff want to come here because they can be the best versions of themselves, and they can do the kind of scholarship that they want to do.”

In addition to the Pride Brunch, a contingent of LGBTQ Buckeyes and allies will march in the Stonewall Columbus Pride March on June 18 at 10:30 a.m., joined by Brutus Buckeye, the TBDBITL Alumni Band and Alumni Spirit Squad.

The Pride Month events are among a host of events Ohio State presents year-round to support the LGBTQ community, said Ari Grubaugh, intercultural specialist for the Multicultural Center’s LGBTQ Initiatives.

Throughout the 2021-22 academic year, more than 500 people attended programming that included a welcome reception at the beginning of fall semester, LGBTQ History Month events in October, the “Holigay” Dinner in December, and the annual Rainbow Celebration and Graduation in May, Grubaugh said.

“That was really incredible to get to meet and see so many amazing people,” Grubaugh said. “On top of those who went to the larger-scale LGBTQ programs, I also do several workshops, and hundreds of people attended those, as well.”

Another organization that supports Ohio State’s LGBTQ Buckeyes, the Scarlet & Gay Alumni Society, marked its 20th anniversary this year, said Kristina Toliver, the society’s vice president. Last fall, Scarlet & Gay raised more than $51,000 as part of a National Coming Out Day scholarship fundraising challenge led by Ohio State’s first lady, Veronica Meinhard.  

Since the alumni society’s inception, “we’ve issued over $400,000 in scholarships,” Toliver said. “This past year at the Rainbow Celebration and Graduation, we awarded $12,000 to our students.”  

Scarlet & Gay is planning a 20^th anniversary celebration during a pre-game event at the Ohio State Buckeyes football team’s homecoming game against the Rutgers University Scarlet Knights on Oct. 1. For more information about the celebration and the Scarlet & Gay Alumni Society, click here.

That was the message from Shakeer Abdullah, keynote speaker of The Ohio State University’s first annual Juneteenth Celebration Luncheon. The luncheon is a new tradition hosted by the Frank W. Hale, Jr. Black Cultural Center with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

“What does this holiday mean to all Americans and what does it especially mean to Black Americans? We are at the beginning of this holiday, so we get to decide what this holiday is going to be. We get to decide how we want to celebrate and how we want this to be remembered,” said Abdullah, a senior project manager with Amazon’s Career Choice program and a university alumnus.

“We get to determine what Juneteenth is going to be. We now almost universally recognize [Martin Luther King Jr Day] as a day of serving, a day of service, and it is my hope that Juneteenth becomes a day of learning.”

University leaders, including President Kristina M. Johnson, Vice Provost and Chief Diversity Officer James L. Moore and Hale Center Interim Director Andre Brown, joined students, faculty and staff to fill the main dining room at the Faculty Club on Thursday. Jazz musician Vernon Hairston, an Ohio State graduate, provided music throughout the celebration.

Johnson said she was honored to be president when the university announced last year that Juneteenth would be an official university holiday.

“We’re so grateful that Ohio State has a history we can look back on with pride and also recognition that we can only be better,” Johnson said.

She pointed out that Ohio State never restricted admission to women or minorities. Johnson also acknowledged that it took student protests in the 1960s and 70s to prompt the university administration to act on issues including racial and gender inequity and inequality.

Moore said that while the country’s progress has been exceedingly slow, Black children in America are growing up in a world that is more accepting and just than preceding generations.

He also said the civil rights protests following the death of George Floyd at the hand of a police officer represented a missed opportunity to effect meaningful change. He said Ohio State is working to make progress on issues of inequity and inequality.

“At our own educational institution, a long self-examination resulted in the RAISE Initiative, designed to bring 50 new research faculty to our beloved university over the next decade to focus on race and inequity issues,” Moore said. “In my view, I hope this is a down payment on the promise of new orientation for our university.”

Abdullah said the university is working to rectify a checkered history with the promise of a debt-free bachelor’s degree as well as continuing to open new pathways to more students of color to attend Ohio State. But he said Juneteenth also offers the opportunity to make sure the full version of history is told.

“How we celebrate Juneteenth will be our legacy, because this is on us. We get to set it up. We get to say how we want to celebrate and how we want to move forward,” he said. “I say we make it a day of learning. Why? Because we’re seeing across the nation laws being passed where we cannot teach this history.

“We’re seeing critics and folks coming to the forefront and saying that the hard questions can’t be asked, the hard truth can’t be told. Let’s make this a day of learning. Let’s decide how we will celebrate Juneteenth moving forward.”

Ohio State was one of 50 colleges across the United States that participated in the institute – and one of nine that served as a leadership site that shared responsibility for planning and programming. The institute was co-presented by Georgetown University, Xavier University of Louisiana and the American Talent Initiative (ATI).

ATI is an alliance, which includes Ohio State, of high-graduation-rate colleges and universities committed to expanding access for low- and middle-income students.

In assembling the teams, Meg Daly, Ohio State’s associate dean of undergraduate education, said she and Shanna Jaggars, assistant vice provost in the Office of Academic Affairs, reached out to existing teams within the university as well as individuals with common interests who would benefit from collaboration.

“The goal of these workshops is for teams of people already working together or who intend to work together to use this institute as a catalyst,” Daly said. “Shanna and I really reached out very broadly through all the different networks of deans and vice provosts and just said, ‘Hey, here’s an opportunity to have focused time and support in terms of mentoring and inspiration to work on challenges that you’re working on already.’”

“They are putting together a concrete direction for where they want to go,” Jaggars said of Ohio State’s teams. “This is a great accelerator to get people from, ‘We kind of want to do this,’ to, ‘Here are the things we’re going to do.’”

Ohio State’s teams were among more than 70 teams nationwide made up of 250 faculty, staff and administrators who participated in this year’s institute – double the number of participants in 2019’s inaugural event, said Roderick Lee, a member of the ATI Summer Institute Leadership Advisory Board.  

“We realized institutions have projects designed to bridge equity gaps and enhance student success, but that work is disconnected,” said Lee, an associate professor of information systems at Penn State Harrisburg. “Expanding the ecosystem is an important part of this, because egg-crated silos and isolation impede progress.”

Ohio State’s teams, representing a broad spectrum of colleges and offices, worked in person on campus and in hybrid formats, brainstorming on such issues as:

• How to more fully understand and address academic equity issues.
• How to create global learning experiences for students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
• Developing a support plan for students of color in the university’s Honors and Scholars center.
• How to help leadership, faculty and staff to become more engaged in diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice (DEIJ) initiatives that support students.
• How to bolster an environment of inclusion in the university’s library system.  

Depending on the scope of the issue, strategies identified during the institute will be implemented right away or on a long-term basis, Daly said.

“Some of the teams have a very defined goal – ‘We’re trying to solve this problem,’” she said. “In those cases, I think there’s a very high probability that whatever plan they come up with will be implemented, and pretty quickly because the goal is so direct. In other cases, I think the goals are a little bit of a higher level. Will it be implemented? I’m sure, because it will change how people approach a problem and how they work together.”

Kate Hallihan, assistant dean of Students and Instruction and diversity officer for the John Glenn College of Public Affairs, said the institute enabled her team to map out DEIJ initiatives. She said they based the plan on the results of a recent survey that measured students’ sense of belonging in the college environment.  

Hallihan said she and John Glenn teammates Tasha Perdue, Meagen Rinard and Regina Robinson-Easter and student, Kendra Asiedu, benefited from conferring with colleagues from other departments, including the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. They also shared best practices with national counterparts who participated via Zoom, she said.

“Starting with the results from the belonging survey, we’ve been able to develop ongoing, sustainable initiatives that we’re going to embark on and/or continue, as well as several events that put action where our plans are,” Hallihan said. “This (institute) has allowed us time and space to take data and form a vision that’s attached to the university’s values and our college values and develop a plan to execute, starting in August. It’s been really powerful.”

After debuting as an internet radio program last year, the Wexner Center for the Arts’ All Day Blackness event will be presented in a hybrid format on June 18 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the center, 1871 N. High St.  

All Day Blackness activities will include a panel discussion with Black artists and business professionals, a meditation hour, an interactive art session, a community open mic with the Black Queer & Intersectional Collective and a DJ happy hour and networking session.

While All Day Blackness happens the same weekend as the Juneteenth holiday, which celebrates the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States, the event’s purpose is to highlight the contributions that African Americans make year-round, said Dionne Custer Edwards, the Wexner Center’s director of Learning and Public Practice.

“The intentions of All Day Blackness are inclusive, expansive and evolving, celebrating intersections of Black identity, Black artists and creatives, Black economic endeavors and business, and Black culture,” she said. “This year’s program is adjacent to Juneteenth, but it is important to note that this programming could take place at any time of the year. For instance, last year, All Day Blackness was in February, during Black History Month.”

The 2021 All Day Blackness event was broadcast on Columbus-based online radio station Verge.fm. This year’s programming will include livestreams of in-person activities held throughout the day, said Reg Zehner of Verge.fm., who organized last year’s event, is serving as this year’s curator and is the Wexner Center’s inaugural Path Fellow. The Path Fellowship is a one-year professional and training program that promotes diversity and inclusion in the arts.

“Being in person allows for a lot of new people to meet,” Zehner said. “This is a welcoming event for people to meet each other.”

All Day Blackness coincides with the Wexner Center’s new exhibition, “Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage,” on view through Aug. 14. Curated by jaamil olawale kosoko, the interdisciplinary exhibition features new works by kosoko, nora chipaumire, Jennifer Harge and Devin Drake, Dana Michel, Jasmine Murrell and Keioui Keijaun Thomas.

“Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage” includes installations and events centered on Black feminist and LGBTQ-plus theory, wellness practices, a film series, performances and an Instagram Live series.

“It’s so timely that jaamil is curating this body of work this summer,” Custer Edwards said. “It really does connect with All Day Blackness and asks the question, ‘What is community?’ We’re all a part of multiple communities.”

During All Day Blackness, the panel discussion will feature artists and business professionals sharing perspectives on their work in the community. Panelists include musician Dom Deshawn, Benjamin Willis of Parable Coffee, Tasha Lomo of Zora’s House, a nonprofit organization that promotes economic and personal development opportunities for women and non-binary people of color, and moderator Melissa Crum of the Mosaic Education Network.

“A lot of the conversation is going to center on, how do you navigate your identity as a Black business owner in Columbus and how do you sustain a career in the arts,” Zehner said. The panel will also address “how do you tell your story, and that story could inspire someone else.”

All Day Blackness in-person events will be streamed on the Wexner Center’s Instagram and Facebook pages. The livestream will be auto-captioned live on Facebook.

The hybrid event allows flexibility for individuals who participate in the entire day of programming as well as those who attend individual sessions, Custer Edwards said.

“We’re not trying to be one more event, we’re just adding to the collective energy,” she said. “You can go to all of these things or a few of things, and it’s all adding to the collective energy.”

All Day Blackness events are free. For more information, click here.

Ohio State will host a variety of Juneteenth events this week, including:

·         June 16, 11 a.m. – First annual Juneteenth Celebration Luncheon hosted by the Frank W. Hale Black Cultural Center at the Faculty Club, 181 Oval Drive South. The event will include a traditional Juneteenth meal, a performance by the African American Voices Gospel Choir and keynote speaker Shakeer Abdullah, principal consultant for Practical Diversity Associates.

·         June 16, 4 to 8 p.m. – Juneteenth Social at the Faculty Club. The event will feature a traditional Juneteenth buffet and live music by Second Wind, a top-40 cover band from Cincinnati.  

·         June 17 through mid-August – The Frank W. Hale Black Cultural Center will host a new exhibition featuring local artists Anku Golloh and Arris J. Cohen at the center, 154 W. 12th Ave.

For more information about Ohio State’s Juneteenth events, click here.

The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center has selected Dr. Chyke A. Doubeni to serve as chief health equity officer and lead the Office of Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, effective July 1. 

Doubeni will also be the associate director for diversity, equity and inclusion for The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute and will hold a faculty appointment in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at The Ohio State University College of Medicine.

In addition to his roles within the medical center, Doubeni will work closely with The Ohio State University Office of Academic Affairs. He will be a leader with the RAISE initiative focused on recruiting new faculty who have a research emphasis on health equity topics. Working with the Office of Academic Affairs and the health science colleges, he will lead the development and implementation of a new Center for Health Equity, an interdisciplinary incubator for health equity research collaboration across campus that will provide opportunities for professional development and training in the field.

“Chyke has dedicated his career to promoting health and well-being in underserved populations through research and an intentional focus on improving access to timely and effective health care,” said Dr. Andrew Thomas, interim co-leader and chief clinical officer at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center. “His exceptional experience as a physician, researcher and administrator will further our commitment to diversity, inclusion and health equity, and position our institution as a preeminent leader in advancing health equity in our community and nationally.”

Doubeni is tasked with leading Ohio State’s continued efforts to address the underlying drivers of disparities in health care that adversely impact marginalized groups. With a land-grant focus on research, education and patient care that improves the lives of people in central Ohio and across the state, Doubeni will set the vision and strategic direction of the medical center’s health equity and healthy community initiatives in collaboration with leaders, faculty, staff and learners.

“Ohio State has a fundamental commitment to diversity and inclusive excellence,” said Dr. Melissa L. Gilliam, executive vice president and provost of The Ohio State University. “In Ohio and across the country, there are many populations that do not have optimal health. Therefore, there is much work to be done to achieve health equity. By helping recruit faculty whose research furthers health equity, Chyke will enhance our world-class research program while narrowing disparities in health outcomes for the communities that we serve.”

Doubeni comes to Ohio State from Mayo Clinic, where he is the director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Health Equity and Community Engagement Research. In addition, he serves as director of the community engagement program in the Mayo Clinic Center for Clinical and Translational Science, deputy director for community outreach and engagement, including minority accrual on the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center Executive Committee, and professor of family medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. 

Nationally recognized for his work in cancer prevention and public health, Doubeni is a member of the National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute Board of Scientific Advisors, as well as current section editor for diversity, equity and inclusion of the American Gastroenterological Association’s Gastroenterology journal. From 2017 – 2021, he served as one of 16 members of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which makes evidence-based recommendations about clinical preventive services to promote the health of all Americans.

Doubeni received his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) from the University of Lagos College of Medicine in Nigeria. After additional training in the United Kingdom, he completed a family medicine residency at Duke University and a preventive medicine residency at the University of Massachusetts, where he also earned a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree. He also completed a fellowship with the National Cancer Institute Scholars Program.

Doubeni will succeed Dr. Cheryl Lee, who has served as interim director since July 2021 and is credited with launching the Office of Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Lee will continue to chair the Department of Urology.

“In this role, Wendy will provide institutional leadership as we advance a culture of inclusion and ensure that all can belong, fully participate, and thrive at Ohio State,” Gilliam said. “Here, we define diversity broadly, embracing differences not only across backgrounds and identities but also perspectives and ideas. Our Shared Values initiative informs this commitment we have as a university community. Wendy will be integral as we animate and operationalize these values.”

Smooth’s appointment begins Aug. 1.

Smooth will work closely with institutional leaders to integrate inclusive excellence into the university’s core work of teaching, learning, research and service. Her work will cover the arc from prevention to compliance, enabling the university to take a more streamlined and strategic approach to creating an inclusive culture. Smooth’s leadership is expected to guide, inform and amplify the strength of Ohio State’s existing footprint across several areas and units, including three that she will oversee:

• The Office of Diversity and Inclusion, led by Vice Provost James L. Moore, which supports the recruitment, retention and success of students, faculty and staff who enhance Ohio State’s diversity.
• The Office of Institutional Equity, led by Associate Vice President Keesha Mitchell, which educates and supports the Ohio State community in preventing and responding to all forms of harassment, discrimination and sexual misconduct.
• The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, led by Interim Executive Director Beverly Vandiver, an interdisciplinary research center and a hub for education, scholarship and outreach.

As associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion for the College of Arts and Sciences, Smooth has led the inclusive excellence vision for the college and supported initiatives across 38 departments and schools in addition to the college’s many research centers and institutes.

Among her many accomplishments, she designed and implemented yearlong learning communities for chairs and directors through which each leader developed an action plan for their department or school to advance equity and inclusion practices. Smooth has also worked with colleagues to integrate inclusive practices into all elements of the academic lifecycle in Arts and Sciences — including faculty recruitment and retention initiatives, annual reviews, and promotion and tenure.

Smooth’s leadership also extends across the university. She has played an invaluable role in developing and operationalizing the Race, Inclusion, and Social Equity (RAISE) initiative and is a member of its proposal advisory committee. She also has chaired the President and Provost’s Council on Women, the University Senate Diversity Committee and the Athletic Council. In 2020, Ohio State recognized her contributions with the President and Provost’s Award for Distinguished Faculty Service.

She is a faculty member in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Political Science and in the John Glenn College of Public Affairs. Her scholarship focuses on the experiences of women of color as lawmakers in American political institutions and women of color issues in public policy.

Smooth earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from Xavier University of Louisiana and her master’s and PhD degrees in government and politics as well as a certificate in women’s studies from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Part of Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective — published jointly by Ohio State and Miami University — Picturing Black History contributes to an ongoing public dialogue on the significance of Black history and Black life in the United States and around the world. Picturing Black History directly embraces the power of historical understanding to help re-examine visual history through digital formats, challenging the inherent biases of 200 years of photographic history.

“The issues of racism and Black lives have perhaps never been more urgent to our national conversation than they are right now, nor has it ever been more important to understand the history of Black America in all its complexity,” said Nicholas Breyfogle, associate professor of history at Ohio State and co-editor of Picturing Black History. “The challenge is to bring this history to wider audiences so that, with deeper understanding, we can forge a more equitable and just future. Picturing Black History and our exciting new collaboration with Getty Images strive to meet that challenge.”

By combining the breadth and depth of Getty Images’ archives with the renowned expertise of Origins and Ohio State’s Department of History, the project uses the power of visuals to highlight stories of oppression and resistance, perseverance and resilience, freedom dreams, imagination and joy within the United States and around the globe. To support the learning and expansion of these historical narratives, the editorial team at Picturing Black History features esteemed authors from across academia and cultural institutions matching in-depth essays with historical pictures. Stories include the revolution of Black women and girls, the life of Susie Baker and the drive for education equality before Brown v. Board of Education, and the Silver Jubilee of the Tuskegee Institute and work of Booker T. Washington, among many others.⁠

“By bringing historical perspective to rarely seen photos, Ohio State and Getty Images are bringing Black history to life through this collaboration,” said Melissa L. Gilliam, executive vice president and provost at Ohio State. “I am grateful to our faculty and students for letting us see these lesser-known figures and milestones, which deepens our understanding of American history.”

“Through this collaboration with Ohio State and Origins, we have an opportunity to challenge dated narratives and help enrich our learnings of Black history,” said Bob Ahern, director of archive photography at Getty Images. “By opening up our archives, we have a chance to embrace the power of photography and the written word to revisit histories that have so often been sidelined.”

The types of stories being explored for Picturing Black History are continuously expanding, and the partnership with Getty Images provides the project with an opportunity to present stories and narratives that often fail to make it into history books. The project intentionally examines historical actors, such as women, children and members of the LGBTQ+ community, who often do not get highlighted in historical examinations. These narratives are just as important as, and often intertwined with, narratives of civil rights and resistance.

“What has shifted in the past few years, especially following the murder of George Floyd, is the growing urgency and hunger from all people to better understand history, to be able to make broader connections, and to situate their own lived experiences within these historical narratives,” said Daniela Edmeier, a PhD student in the Department of History who is working on the Picturing Black History project. “These narratives that are simultaneously difficult to reckon with but that are of the utmost importance to embrace truthfully and examine with critical open eyes.”

“Picturing Black History is a partnership that highlights visual imagery of Black history that is too often veiled from public view,” said Damarius Johnson, another PhD student in the Department of History who is working on the project.

Through Getty Images, Picturing Black History also has access to archivists and photographers, contributing to behind-the-lens perspectives around how history is documented, cataloged and remembered. The project also has a growing body of essays that highlight the international networks of Black history.

To learn more about Picturing Black History, visit: https://www.picturingblackhistory.org/ and to explore photographs from Getty Images’ Archives, visit: https://www.gettyimages.com/collaboration/boards/rqjM4Ffvo0m_uPryDA5S_A

“Tenacity, endurance and fortitude have brought you to this point. When you get close to the finish line, sometimes we tend to ease up. But we have to run this marathon at a sprinter’s pace,” said Moore, vice provost for Diversity and Inclusion and chief diversity officer at The Ohio State University. “YSP is one of the gems of this university and represents a hallmark of what a land-grant university can do.”

Founded in 1988, the Young Scholars Program seeks to improve pre-collegiate preparation, retention and degree completion among academically talented, low-income, first-generation students. It serves students from the nine largest urban school districts in Ohio.

“We have a common goal. We work with the parents, the administrators and the school around the student so the student is not trying to figure this process out alone,” said Chila Thomas, executive director of the Young Scholars Program.

The commitment ceremony provides an opportunity for students to sign letters affirming their commitment to attend Ohio State in the fall. The 2022 event was the program’s fifth, and the first in-person in two years. More than 70 students from around the state attended with members of their families and school administrators.

“This has become our signature event,” Thomas said. “And what’s so amazing is that this is an academic program. These students are here because they’ve been working for four years to get to this institution and that deserves to be celebrated.”

Students weren’t the only ones given kudos. During his remarks, Moore asked all the parents in the room to rise for a round of applause. Incoming first-year student Soha Gewaly’s parents are thrilled she’ll be staying close to home while getting her education.

“It’s important to have a well-rounded personality and a well-rounded education,” said Amal Shahein, her mother. “It is important to have a dependable career in the future.”

“I am really proud of her,” said her father, Reda Gewaly.

Dezryana Peeks’ mother and grandmother joined her at the ceremony.

“I’m excited,” said Judy Darby, her grandmother. “She’s been working hard and she’s writing her name on her future.”

“It really hasn’t hit me yet, that I’m about to graduate high school and become a Young Scholar,” Peeks said.

Gewaly echoed that sentiment.

“I’ve been working at this since the eighth grade. I’m just excited to have made it and I’m looking forward to starting college. It feels good knowing I’ve finally achieved this thing,” she said.

Graduating Ohio State students, themselves members of the Young Scholars Program, spoke to the group about their experiences. Public health major Kasie Rogers spoke candidly about her struggles during her first year at the university.

“I had a 2.5 GPA during my first two semesters and that really hurt my spirit,” she said. “I thought, ‘this isn’t the person I thought I was.’ But I reminded myself that I could do this and now I’m on track to get a 4.0 for my last semester.”

“Like so many have said, YSP is a privilege, but it is also a compass,” Rogers continued. “YSP was there for me when I lost my way. And when I found my way and found my path, it reminded me that I was going in the right direction. So use your compass.”

Moore also described the program as a guiding force. He commended the students for their hard work and assured that them this commitment to the future was a sound one.

“I can tell you,” he said, “your education will change the hands you shake, the people you meet and the places you will go.”

This week, the Office of Academic Affairs approved 10 more faculty positions to be created through the RAISE (Race, Inclusion and Social Equity) initiative. In total, the university has approved 25 RAISE positions since the fall — significant progress toward the goal of attracting 50 RAISE research faculty within a decade.

“Our focus on research excellence reflects Ohio State’s land-grant commitment to serve communities,” said Executive Vice President and Provost Melissa L. Gilliam. “As we expand our faculty, Ohio State will be in an even stronger position to provide research-informed insights to address critical societal needs.”

For example, the College of Arts and Sciences, Moritz College of Law and John Glenn College of Public Affairs will be recruiting a cluster of four faculty members focused on police-citizen interactions, prosecutorial and judicial decision-making, and other aspects of the legal system. The interdisciplinary and community-engaged research proposals approved this week are:

• Advancing Racial and Criminal Justice through Collaborative Science (College of Arts and Sciences, Moritz College of Law and John Glenn College of Public Affairs)
• Critical STEM fields: Chemistry, Math, and Physics (College of Arts and Sciences)
• Buckeye Bilingual Speech-Language Program (College of Arts and Sciences)
• OSU Urban Extension: Equitable Engagement for Equitable Opportunity (College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences)

More information about the approved proposals is available on the RAISE webpage.

The university expects to fill the approved positions by autumn 2023. Searches are also underway for the RAISE research positions approved earlier this academic year, which include focus areas such as cardiovascular health, the impact of climate change and the physical design of communities.

Through the support of U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, Congress recently allocated $475,000 in the omnibus appropriations agreement for fiscal 2022 to support the RAISE initiative.

As Gilliam highlighted in her State of Academic Affairs address, RAISE is part of a larger university initiative to add 350 tenure-track faculty within a decade, while also enhancing academic and personal resources to support Ohio State scholars, educators and practitioners through all phases of their careers.

This broader faculty hiring and retention effort includes initiatives such as the Provost’s Tenure-Track Fellow to Faculty Program, the Distinguished Early Career Scholars Program, and the creation of the Office of Dual Careers and Faculty Relocation.

“What was my reaction after I passed out, you mean?” was Hood’s response to a question about his reaction to the award.

“I was humbled, very much humbled. And then after the humbleness, it called for a bit of introspection and reflection on my career,” he said. “And at that point, I was almost in tears.”

The Ruth C. Bailey award was established in 2012 by alumnus Vincenzo Ferranti to honor Bailey, his adviser and mentor and a member of the university’s international student services staff from 1937-1974. Recipients are selected based on their contributions to campus multicultural interaction and understanding.

“Dr. Hood has woven his passion for diversity enhancement and inclusive excellence through all facets of his career, bringing light to many important topics and issues through research, teaching and service,” said Amy Fairchild, dean, College of Public Health. “To work with Dr. Hood is to know an active recruiter for minority students and an advocate not only for faculty and students of color in the college, but across the university. Within the college, he regularly offers advice and support for junior faculty. This form of engaged mentorship is instrumental in the lives of those who are developing their careers and – importantly – it lifts us all.”

Hood’s academic research focus is in the area of environmental public health. All of his currently funded  projects use the Public Health Exposome framework and Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) analytics that  seeks to understand disparate health outcomes within the context of historical structural inequities observed through an environmental lens.

An example of this, Hood said, is the federal interstate highway system.

“Transportation is a good thing but there are unintended consequences. The highway system bisected many neighborhoods – most of them were minority neighborhoods,” he said. “So the Public Health Exposome framework allows us to look at the impact of traffic related and environmental pollution on the residents of those communities.”

Hood said he comes by this passion for understanding inequities honestly. His parents were actively involved with the civil rights movement. Hood himself was a plaintiff in Swan v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education which was argued before the Supreme Court on October 12, 1970 as one of the resulting test cases from Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The emphasis his family placed on justice and equality led him to his work today.

In addition to the community-facing nature of his work, Hood was honored for his collegiality inside the university. That spirit of collaboration is what brought him to Ohio State, he said.

“The generation of scientists that I was mentored by represented the highest level of commitment to the academy. You have to be collegial in the academy,” he said. “Discovery in and of itself comes about as the result of collegiality. That is one of the reasons I came to Ohio State – every resource that one might conceive of is at this institution and in Columbus.”

Hood attributes this focus on collaboration to the university’s leadership. He recalls an instance in which former President Michael V. Drake reminded researchers that Ohio State is an urban land-grant institution and that it is the university’s responsibility to serve its community.

More recently, Hood said he finds President Kristina M. Johnson and Provost Melissa L. Gilliam’s continuation of that push for outreach and engagement to be inspiring.

“There is a groundswell of enthusiasm for collaborative interactions and discovery,” he said. “Under President Johnson and Provost Gilliam, I think that we are going to be regarded as the model going forward for our community-facing participatory research programs.”

Hood remains excited by the possibilities unfolding in his work within the university and beyond.

“These are good days for Ohio State.”

Abdurraqib spoke with Marcus Jackson, associate professor in the Department of English, read a passage from an upcoming work and answered questions from the audience. 

“I never really thought about writing as a lifestyle,” Abdurraqib said. “I always thought about it as a way to exit the life I had, to be carried away elsewhere.”

This perspective brought questions about his approach to his audience. The author said he hardly thinks of his audience anymore.

“Once you do the work and put it out into the world, you don’t have access to it any longer,” he said. “While I have immense gratitude for folks who spend time with my work, I don’t know if there’s a single thing or even a handful of things that I hope people will gain from my writing – other than, perhaps, a more generous outlook on something that existed in one way for the reader and could now exist in another way.”

It was this notion, of a subject representing multiple things, that Abdurraqib and Jackson discussed most in-depth. The excerpt Abdurraqib shared began with an observation about professional basketball player LeBron James’ graying beard. From there, the passage unspooled into a rumination on age, baldness and mortality.

Sports, he said, offer a narrative framework that is useful for writing.

“I need to have a grounding point. A home base, if you will. If you get too far out, you’re vulnerable. You need to have a home base you can run back to. That’s what I use sports for here,” Abdurraqib said.

Continuing with this line of thought, Jackson offered that familiarity with sports trains the brain to plan for failure, in life and in writing.

“You plan for options in the play,” he said.

It is this flexibility that Abdurraqib said is essential to develop. When asked about advice for fellow writers, he said, “it depends on what that person wants out of that journey. So, the best advice I have is: Define what you want out of this journey. And then make clear to yourself that whatever you want can be malleable.

“Be honest with yourself about not only what you want, but what is acceptable,” he continued. “And then build a plan that can endure disappointments.”

A discussion about impostor syndrome led to a candid reflection from the author. It may have been hard for viewers to believe that a writer as accomplished as Abdurraqib, whose work has been published in Pen American, Vinyl, Pitchfork, The New Yorker and The New York Times, and who has won a Lenore Marshall Prize and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, still grapples with impostor syndrome.

“I’m an anxious person, I have an anxiety disorder, so to live a life believing oneself to be an impostor is almost baked into my DNA,” he said. “But the thing I constantly challenge myself on is: If I am an impostor, what is the worst that might happen? What is the worst that might happen in my work?”

Appropriately, the dialogue ended with a question about knowing when a work is finished. Abdurraqib argued that works are never done, and this open-endedness allows for further creative exploration in future endeavors. The works, he said, are never finished with him, either, and he revels in that feeling.

“So instead of asking the question, ‘Have I finished this?’ I return to the idea of: ‘Have I done the best that I can with the tools I have in this moment?’ That’s a way better question for me.”

“When we think about civil rights goals, we often think about somebody like Jackie Robinson and him breaking into the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945 and breaking the color barrier, de-segregating or integrating major league sports. … That is the beginning of something,” said Hasan Kwame Jeffries, associate professor of history at Ohio State. “It’s not the end.”

Jeffries’ presentation, “No Struggle, No Progress: Social Justice Organizing in the 21st Century,” kicked off the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity’s Spring 2022 Biweekly Forum Series. The online forums are free to attend and begin at 11 a.m. every other Thursday.

The movements led by Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. centered on basic human rights, transcending the push for the abolition of slavery in the 1800s and the struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and ’60s, Jeffries said.

“There’s nothing in the Constitution that says anything about housing, nothing in the Constitution that says anything about healthcare, but these were also fundamental goals of movement activists. And that human rights component sadly gets lost when we only talk about civil rights,” he said. “It’s really important not only to reframe and rethink what it is that Black folks were fighting for, but to think about it in broader terminology.” 

Human rights movements consist of both mobilizing and organizing strategies, Jeffries said. Mobilizing often takes the form of high-profile events such as the 1963 March on Washington and the social justice protests that occurred throughout the summer of 2020. Organizing involves long-term strategies that seldom make headlines, such as civil rights activists’ grassroots outreach efforts, he said.

“What they were doing was knocking on doors, they were canvassing, they were holding mass meetings,” he said. “They were talking to people, asking them what they wanted and what did they need, and seeing how they can connect what (citizens) articulated as their needs and wants with the resources and expertise that they were able to bring to the table as organizers.”

Rather than a specific goal, human rights movements encompass a broad spectrum of issues that affect communities’ overall quality of life, Jeffries said.

“The Kirwan Institute has done some wonderful work with this issue of life expectancy,” he said. “For a person born in the ZIP code that is the Near East Side (of Columbus), which means that this person is likely African American, why is their life expectancy 61 to 64 years? While a person born or living just 10 miles away in Upper Arlington, which is 95% white, why is their life expectancy 81 to 85? It’s a 20-year difference.”

The stark contrast in the life expectancy of residents living in neighboring communities illustrates the inequities that human rights movements past and present have attempted to remedy, Jeffries said.

“It has everything to do, not with just that moment in which you’re tabulating statistics, but this longer history of the way in which we have segregated resources,” he said, “the way in which we have limited resources and access to the things that a person needs in life in order to live a full, healthy and long life.”

Registration and more information for upcoming forums. 

This week, the Office of Academic Affairs announced that 15 faculty positions would be created to expand research into cardiovascular health, the impact of climate change, the physical design of communities and other topics. These 15 tenure-track positions are part of the university’s RAISE (Race, Inclusion and Social Equity) initiative, which will add at least 50 research faculty to the university within a decade.

Each of the selected proposals is interdisciplinary and/or engages community partners. The six colleges involved in first-round proposals will now begin the process to recruit faculty members who would start in autumn 2022 or later academic terms. A second call for proposals will identify up to 10 additional RAISE faculty positions by the end of the academic year.

“RAISE is part of a larger initiative to expand the size and impact of Ohio State’s faculty over the coming decade,” said Executive Vice President and Provost Melissa L. Gilliam. “Adding researchers in focused areas will enhance our outstanding faculty and inform solutions to intractable issues.”

The 15 new positions were identified after a competitive process in which academic leaders throughout the university proposed positions in three broad fields: health equity; resources and the environment; and the arts and creative expression. Several of the positions will be hired as a cluster to focus on aligned research.

“We were impressed by how colleges collaborated on these proposals, bringing new approaches and various disciplines together to address urgent topics,” said Trevon D. Logan, special assistant to the provost for the RAISE initiative. “This is exactly what RAISE was designed to do.”

For example, the colleges of Nursing and Education and Human Ecology will collaborate to create a team of researchers focused on improving cardiovascular health. Likewise, the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences will work with community partners throughout the state to address urban health and environmental problems that are experienced differentially based on race and class.

The full list of selected proposals are:

• Climate, Race and Place (colleges of Arts and Sciences; Engineering; and Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences)
• Community Collaborative for Dental Care and Research (College of Dentistry)
• Global Black Arts (College of Arts and Sciences)
• Race and the Built Environment: The Just City (colleges of Arts and Sciences and Engineering)
• Improving Cardiovascular Health (colleges of Education and Human Ecology and Nursing)
• Urban Health, Environment, and Race Outcomes (Urban HERO) Collaborative (College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences)

The spring 2022 call for proposals is focused on the three other RAISE research areas, involving the intersection of race and educational equity, with an emphasis on STEAM education; justice and public safety; and economic opportunity and leadership.

Information about RAISE, including the approved proposals and call for additional proposals, is available at go.osu.edu/raise.

RAISE is part of a larger university initiative to add 350 tenure-track faculty within a decade, while also enhancing academic and personal resources to support Ohio State scholars, educators and practitioners through all phases of their careers.

For example, to enhance recruiting of early-career scholars, the Office of Academic Affairs recently launched the Provost’s Tenure-Track Fellow to Faculty Program. For the 2022-23 academic year, the program aims to recruit 10 individuals who will enter as tenure-track fellows and then advance to become assistant professors.

“Diversity and inclusion efforts do not directly address long-term exposure to unequal and unhealthy living conditions,” Valdez said during a Dec. 6 visit to visit to The Ohio State University. “Including more diverse people in clinical research is no doubt a worthy and necessary cause, but I argue that to address issues of equity as distinct from diversity requires much better analysis.”

During her talk, presented by Ohio State’s Department of Anthropology, Valdez shared findings outlined in her new book, “Weighing the Future: Race, Science and Pregnancy Trials in the Postgenomic Era.” In her research, Valdez said she reviewed hundreds of clinical trials involving expectant mothers across the United States and the United Kingdom over the course of three years.

“I interviewed scientists and staff, I learned about their methods and procedures in implementing clinical trials and I participated as a staff member on one of the trials,” she said.

Valdez said her research found that clinical trials often fall short when not factoring in issues faced by participants of color and those from lower income levels. Those issues include housing instability, difficulty accessing prenatal care, and the disproportionate rates of premature birth and maternal and infant mortality among Black women.

“Black women in the United States have two to three times the rate of premature birth and maternal mortality compared to white women” for reasons that have not yet been fully determined by the medical community, Valdez said. “The U.S. racial disparity in premature birth and death has not changed in the past 60 years, and some trace this disparity back further to slavery.”

Racial disparities among pregnant populations also exist in the United Kingdom, Valdez said.

“Black women in the United Kingdom have a much higher chance of maternal mortality and pregnancy complications than white British women,” she said. “In addition, both the U.S. and U.K. have similar rates of obesity during pregnancy.”

To discourage a pregnant woman from gaining too much weight, a clinician may have good intentions when suggesting that a trial participant should snack on an apple instead of a candy bar and wear a pedometer to track her daily steps, Valdez said. Her research, however, determined that the root causes of obesity during pregnancy and gestational diabetes are far more complex.

“We already have a strong indicator for gestational diabetes, and it actually is homelessness or houseless-ness. Pregnant people who are houseless or have unstable housing have higher rates of (gestational diabetes), but that’s rarely studied in a clinical trial,” she said. “And there are such few forms of evidence-based methods for saying, ‘Instead of investing $10 million to $7 million into the clinical trials, we might be able to invest in providing stable housing for pregnant people, and that might have a better impact on avoiding gestational diabetes.’”

Programs like Ohio State Wexner Medical Center’s Moms2B aim to reduce racial and economic disparities among expectant mothers in Columbus by providing them and their families with food, education and support. Such programs advance a theory that is gaining traction that pregnant populations shouldn’t be solely responsible for fetal health, and that environmental and societal factors also play a significant role, Valdez said.

“We all contribute to the social, institutional and environmental circumstances that shape each pregnancy, birth and child,” she said. “Framing the maternal environment as only pregnant bodies and behaviors rather than understanding that it is everything that could influence a growing fetus like systems of poverty and racism entails social and material consequences for everyone – and particularly, vulnerable populations.”

Valdez said her research indicates that one strategy that could make a major impact in improving the health of expectant mothers is including them in the design of the very clinical trials that aim to help them.

“It’s the process that might generate different outcomes,” Valdez said, “so that people who are targeted for interventions get to make the decision about what those interventions are.”

Bickers, 30, who is pursuing a doctorate in history, has been selected a 2021-22 Ford Fellow.

Through its program of fellowships, the Ford Foundation seeks to increase the diversity of the nation’s college and university faculties by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity, maximize the educational benefits of diversity, and increase the number of professors who will foster diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students, according to the organization’s website.

Bickers is one of a small number of Native Americans across all disciplines and institutions to have received a Ford Fellowship in the history of the grant. He is an enrolled member of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and writes on Miami history.

“The number of Native Americans who have PhDs in history alone is very small. And then the number of those who do work on Native history or do work on their own tribes is even smaller,” Bickers said. “If we don’t tell our own stories, somebody else is going to, and they may not always have the knowledge or the care that we do in crafting these narratives.”

Bickers’ dissertation, “Miami Nation: A Middle Path for Indigenous Nationhood,” explores how the Miami people responded to challenges following the American Revolution, including federal and state policies of dispossession and removal.

“My dissertation, at its core, is a political history of the Miami tribe of Oklahoma, which is a Native American nation of which I’m a citizen myself,” Bickers said. “It is an exploration of how we created a centralized national government in the early 1800s in the face of early American expansion into the Great Lakes region, and how that government changed and evolved over the 19th century until we ratified our first written constitution in 1939.”

Bickers’ research is unique in that there are few Native Americans who are conducting research into Native American history. A 2014 National Science Foundation study found that fewer than 1% of doctoral degrees in any field are awarded to Native Americans each year.

“One of the goals of my work is, I want the next generation of Indigenous people to have more than I had,” Bickers said, “that they can look to my work and say, ‘This was written by a Miami person. This is a Miami perspective on our past.’”

Bickers is one of only 36 Ford Fellows nationwide in the 2021-22 cohort, which demonstrates the competitiveness of the program and the significance of his research, said Ohio State Professor of History Margaret Newell, his adviser.

“This is a grant which thousands and thousands of people from all over the country apply for every year and only a handful are awarded this incredibly prestigious grant,” she said. “I think it’s a commentary on the originality and excellence and potential contributions of John’s research, as well as a statement about the need to encourage more Native Americans to pursue careers in academia.”

Bickers said he is still exploring his career options and is interviewing for jobs in academia and public history. Either way he plans to continue to document and amplify the history and experiences of Native Americans.

“I think it’s really important for Indigenous scholars like myself to get into these levels of academia, rise through the ranks, make sure that we’re in these rooms where the decisions are being made – not just for Native people, but in terms of the larger university, structuring classes and policies,” he said. “Because if we’re not there, no one is going to speak for us.”

Wilkerson spoke about the civil rights gains that have been achieved in the past 156 years and the progress yet to be made during her Dec. 1 keynote address for The Ohio State University’s 23rd Annual President and Provost’s Diversity Lecture and Cultural Arts Series.

“Slavery lasted so long that it will not be until next year – 2022 – that the United States will have been a free, independent country for as long as slavery lasted,” Wilkerson said.

The lecture, held virtually this year, was presented by The Ohio State University Office of Diversity and Inclusion in collaboration with the College of Education and Human Ecology, the College of Dentistry and the College of Engineering.

“Programs like the President and Provost’s Diversity Lecture and Cultural Arts Series provide an environment where we learn from the most distinguished authors, scholars and thought leaders,” Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson said while introducing Wilkerson.

A Washington, D.C., native, Wilkerson studied journalism at Howard University and interned at the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 1994 as the New York Times’ Chicago bureau chief – making her the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for journalism.

Wilkerson is the author of “The Warmth of Other Suns,” which chronicles the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the North in the 20th century. The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Lynton History Prize from Harvard and Columbia universities, and the Stephen Ambrose Oral History Prize, among other honors.

Wilkerson’s latest book, “Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents,” explores the concept that a ranking of individuals has existed in the United States since the nation’s inception, similar to formal caste systems of countries such as India.

The caste system in the United States is based on racial and socioeconomic factors that perpetuate inequality, Wilkerson said.

“Caste is an arbitrary, artificial, graded ranking of one’s standing in society,” she said. “Caste is the infrastructure of our divisions.”

Beyond slavery, one of the starkest examples of how caste has manifested in American society, Wilkerson said, is the system of Jim Crow segregation that lasted from the late 19th century through the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. The Jim Crow system denied African Americans rights such as voting, equitable schooling and housing, and restricted their use of public facilities such as drinking fountains, swimming pools and public transportation.

Wilkerson said civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. commented on the parallels between American segregation and India’s caste system. When King visited India in 1959, he was asked how it felt to be an “untouchable” in the United States – sparking a realization that was, indeed, the status of African Americans at the time.

“What we have seen shows us that Dr. King’s mission has not been fulfilled,” Wilkerson said. “It will be up to all of us to make it so, not only for our children and grandchildren, but for the species and the good of the planet.”

During a question-and-answer session with attendees following her lecture, Wilkerson offered advice for aspiring writers. She said she received the most valuable advice on how to succeed as a writer when she was interning at the Washington Post. Dorothy Butler Gilliam, the Post’s first African-American female reporter (and mother of Ohio State Provost Melissa L. Gilliam), told Wilkerson, “Whatever you write, make it memorable.”

“I took that to mean that whatever you write, it needs to be so powerful that people never forget it,” Wilkerson said. “And that’s what I strive to do in my work.”

The culmination of the Multicultural Center’s 2021 Native American Heritage Month observance, the presentation was intended to promote dialogue about mascots that misrepresent Native Americans and provide information about how to support Indigenous people, said presenter Madison Eagle.

“These mascots are dehumanizing,” said Eagle, a specialist of Cherokee heritage with the Multicultural Center’s Native American and Indigenous Student Initiatives. “They’re a very prominent visual representation of Indigenous people for the majority of Americans.”

Debates have raged in recent years over teams that use names and mascots with Native American imagery, including Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team. Earlier this year, the team changed its name to the Cleveland Guardians after more than 100 years as the Cleveland Indians. And in 2018, the team retired the Chief Wahoo logo from its uniforms.

“This was a gradual shift that has been happening for a couple of years now,” Eagle said.

“Indians” originated as a nickname for the team in the 1890s when the Cleveland Spiders employed Native American player Louis Sockalexis. While some saw the “Indians” moniker as a tribute to Sockalexis, many Native Americans viewed the name as disrespectful from the beginning, and Sockalexis’ descendants and his Penobscot Nation petitioned the team to change its name several times over the years, Eagle said.

“They have never received compensation for this,” she said of Sockalexis’ family and nation, “so it’s just another instance of this logo not being connected and not benefiting the people that the fans say we’re honoring.”

Another team that recently changed its name is the Washington Football Team, which was formerly known as the Redskins. The team was established in 1932 as the Boston Braves and changed its name the following year to the Boston Redskins before relocating to Washington, D.C., in 1937, according to the team’s website.

The team changed its name to the Washington Football Team prior to the 2020 season and is set to announce a new name in early 2022. Native Americans found the “Redskins” name problematic for numerous reasons, Eagle said.

The term “redskin” is a “dictionary-defined racial slur. Its origins are not actually about the color of skin, it’s actually referring to bloody scalps,” she said. “It literally means the bloody scalp of a Native American – in the 1800s, sellers could exchange Native American scalps for money.”

Another reason that teams with Native American mascots are considered offensive is because many of the names and logos were adopted in the late 19th century and early 20th century when the federal government conducted initiatives to suppress Indigenous cultures, Eagle said. One of those initiatives was taking Native American children from reservations and sending them to government-run boarding schools to remove them from tribal traditions and encourage them to assimilate into “mainstream” American culture, according to the U.S. Library of Congress website.

“There were a bunch of different policies to … try to push this narrative of Native peoples needing to be ‘civilized’ and also to try and strip them of their traditional cultural practices – music, ceremony, religion,” Eagle said.

Though they represent 2.09% of the U.S. population, with 6.79 million people as of the 2020 Census, most Native Americans live in a handful of states in the west and northwest such as Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, the Dakotas, Colorado and Montana. In contrast, most of the 1,870 teams across the United States that have Native American mascots are located in the Midwest and the East, Eagle said.

“There’s more visual representation through mascots than there are of actual Indigenous people” in states with Native American team mascots, she said.

Eagle shared her own experience as one of only two Native American students at a high school in a rural Ohio community with a Native American team mascot. She said the bullying and discrimination she endured growing up is evidence that team mascots – combined with the dearth of accurate portrayals of Indigenous people in film, television and other mass media –promote stereotypes, rather than respect for Native American culture and traditions.

“It’s really striking when we see how these images are really offensive,” she said. “We don’t see these mascots for any other people, and it really contributes to this erasure of Indigenous people as real, as human, as existing in the present context.”

Those who wish to support Native Americans can do so, Eagle said, by following activists such as Amanda Blackhorse on social media; listening to podcasts such as “This Land,” which explores Native American legal rights; and visiting websites such as Beyondbuckskin.com, which features the work of Native American artisans and businesses.

“It’s very difficult to try and live in a world that thinks that you don’t exist except for in the context of these mascots,” she said. “They’re not valuing who we currently are and who we see ourselves as.”

A new round of grants focuses on Catalyst proposals, awarding up to $200,000 to teams whose research addresses challenges of national and international importance. Nine of Ohio State’s 15 colleges are represented in the seven proposals – demonstrating the interdisciplinary focus of the program, which is administered by the Office of Knowledge Enterprise.

The Catalyst Grant recipients include a proposal titled “University Collaboration on Overcoming Attitudinal and Situational Barriers to Collaborative Initiatives to Advance Racial Equity: A Confluence of Dispute Process Design, Law & Social Science.” The research effort will identify barriers to advancing racial equity, encompassing the law, social science and several other disciplines, said Carl Smallwood, one of the proposal’s co-investigators and director of the Divided Community Project at Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law.

Team members have been seeking ways to collaborate since the summer of 2020, when nationwide protests shone an international spotlight on social justice issues, Smallwood said.

“This particular grant will make possible the kind of interdisciplinary research that not only brings together… the Knowlton School of Architecture, but also social work and sociology and other disciplines at Ohio State to examine these attitudinal and situational barriers to making progress on initiatives to address race equity,” he said.

Team members will study best practices from countries that have convened truth and reconciliation commissions to explore solutions to historic injustices, said Sarah Cole, the proposal’s lead principal investigator (PI) and a professor at the Moritz College of Law. 

“There’s so many things that we can take a look at that have happened in other countries and conceptualizations: What does it mean to tell the truth? What kind of truth? What type of justice are we looking for? Is the focus going to be on punishment, is it going to be on repair, is it going to be on redistribution?” Cole said. “Who makes that decision? 

The Catalyst Grant will support team members in researching not only racial equity, but also societal challenges related to food, water, health and national security, among other issues, said Tijs Van Maasakkers, one of the proposal’s co-investigators and an associate professor in the City and Regional Planning section of the Knowlton School.

The research will examine “how people talk about issues related to police violence, issues related to, potentially, iconography or symbols in the public realm,” Maasakkers said. “For example, potentially a generational divide among activists or ways in which conversations either focus on the past or on the future, or which aspects of the past.”

The proposal will provide research opportunities for students in various disciplines, Maasakkers said.

“One of the things that’s exciting to me about the interdisciplinary nature of the team is that we’re also quite intent on recruiting interdisciplinary researchers,” he said. “We’re hoping to include a lot of Ohio State students at the undergrad and grad levels. We’re really trying to, again, have that interdisciplinary learning nature of the project reflected in the students that we recruit, as well.”

The research team also includes Teri Murphy and Korie Little Edwards, College of Arts and Sciences, and Tom Gregoire, dean of the College of Social Work.

The other 2021 Catalyst Grant recipients are:

“A New Paradigm in Foods for Health at Ohio State: Multi-Omics Integration in the Era of Precision Nutrition” – The project will use advanced data analytics to study microorganisms that can improve health. Lead PI: Steven Clinton, College of Medicine.

“Radioisotopically-Substituted Perovskites for Self-Powered Energy Storage and Photonic Applications” – The research will focus on renewable energy sources that can provide long-term sources of reliable power and nearly zero maintenance for a range of applications. Lead PI: Anne Co, College of Arts and Sciences. 

“Hybrid Autonomous Point-of-Care Manufacturing” – The proposal seeks to establish a center of excellence at Ohio State in the field of point-of-care manufacturing. The center would demonstrate real-time methods that close the gap between the design and fabrication of personalized medical devices. Lead PI: David Dean, College of Engineering.

“Brain Infrared Modulation of Pathways for Aging, Cognition, and movemenT (Brain IMPACT)” – The research team’s vision is to develop a non-invasive therapeutic tool that can treat brain disorders, including Parkinson’s disease and major depressive disorder. Lead PI: Sanjay Krishna, College of Engineering.

“Creating Quantum Bits Based on Rare-Earth Ions for Quantum Networking” – The research effort involves transforming the element erbium into advanced light-processing systems. Lead PI: Ronald Reano, College of Engineering. 

“CRANEES – Convergent Research for the Advancement of National Environmental Equity & Security” – The project aims to use data to make drinking water quality equity achievable in the United States. Lead PI: Mark Weir, College of Public Health.

The PRE program also offers Accelerator Grants of up to $50,000 to support small teams pursuing novel, high-risk, high-reward research. Nineteen teams were awarded funding though this mechanism earlier this year. Another request for proposals for Accelerator Grants is planned for spring 2022.

Full list of 2021 Accelerator Grant recipients

The Ohio State University is celebrating the Investiture of President Kristina M. Johnson. Ohio State News has special coverage this week about the president and the ceremony leading up to Friday’s special event.

As an engineer who leads one of the largest institutions of higher learning in the country, Ohio State University President Kristina M. Johnson is setting an example for young women who want to explore careers in science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics and medicine (STEAMM), say female engineering students who have taken on leadership roles themselves.

In advance of Johnson’s Nov. 19 investiture, in which she will be officially installed as Ohio State’s 16th president – and only the second woman – students offered perspectives on the importance of representation.

Seeing women in decision-making positions can have a positive impact, said Blythe Dumerer, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student who is president of Ohio State’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE).

“I think it helps to see that this is possible and that there’s various ways that you can continue on and pursue your dream, especially with how accomplished Dr. Johnson is,” Dumerer said. “That’s a really big influence at the moment for me. And once that happened, it was kind of like opening my eyes to all the various women who are in engineering.”

Johnson has emphasized education as an equalizer and focused on furthering the mission of land-grant universities to empower people to improve their lives. She announced the RAISE initiative during her State of the University address this year as part of her plan to hire 350 new Ohio State faculty. Short for Race, Inclusion and Social Equity, RAISE is focused on hiring and retaining faculty whose work addresses social equity and racial disparities across a range of disciplines.

In October, Ohio State announced a partnership with Fifth Third Bank to invest $20 million in the Near East Side of Columbus over the next three years. The investment is part of Ohio State’s work with Partners Achieving Community Transformation (PACT) and the national nonprofit organization Enterprise Community Partners to distribute the funds via loans, grants and small business support.

PACT, which has been active in the majority-African-American neighborhood for more than 10 years, started out as a partnership between Ohio State, the city of Columbus and the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority. PACT will use the Fifth Third funds to expand health services and create financial literacy and savings programs for area youth, among other goals.

Earlier this fall, Ohio State announced STEAMM Rising, a new partnership with the city of Columbus, the Columbus City Schools and Columbus State Community College to develop STEAMM talent in Columbus. STEAMM Rising is focused on growing the next generation of teachers and students focused on innovation, and ensuring that talent thrives in the university’s Innovation District and elsewhere.

Encouraging women to go into STEAMM has long been a priority for Johnson, who holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University. Prior to joining Ohio State in 2020, she served as the chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY).

At SUNY, Johnson launched PRODiG (Promoting Recruitment, Opportunity, Diversity, Inclusion and Growth), setting a goal to hire 1,000 underrepresented minorities and women in STEAMM by 2030.

Prior to her tenure at SUNY, Johnson founded and served as CEO of several successful science and technology companies, served as under secretary of energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, and held academic leadership positions at institutions such as Johns Hopkins University and Duke University.

As dean of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke, she worked closely with engineering faculty to increase the percentage of women faculty from 6% to 19%. In addition, Johnson served as professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder and as director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Optoelectronic Computing Systems at the University of Colorado and Colorado State University.

Johnson and Ayanna Howard, dean of Ohio State’s College of Engineering, who is African American, demonstrate that a viable career in engineering is a tangible reality for women, said Kamila Thompson, 22, a fourth-year electrical and computer engineering student and past NSBE president.

“When you see it, you’re able to envision it for yourself,” Thompson said. “With the current dean of the college, Dr. Ayanna Howard, just seeing a Black woman in that role, it’s very inspiring for people that are going through the programs. It gives them more hope to stay on and study a little harder and reach out to people because they see what the school can do and where it can take you.”

Kavya Narayanan, 21, a fourth-year biomedical engineering student who is president of Ohio State’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers, said Johnson and Howard represent progress in academia, the engineering field and society at large.

“I commend Ohio State for making that decision to have President Johnson lead our university. I think that is a huge advancement in being more accepting of women in higher positions. I think also having Dr. Ayanna Howard as our new dean of the College of Engineering, she has been a great role model,” Narayanan said. “Especially being a woman of color, that adds just another element of being like, ‘This is something I can do.’”

Many Americans define themselves by race. However, those who base their identity on skin color and other physical traits may be surprised to learn that race is a social rather than biological construct, researchers say.

In “Ideas of Race and Racism in History,” a virtual panel discussion held Oct. 12 by The Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences, professors who have studied the issue said racism is rooted in the false notion that there are separate races.

“This idea of race, it just simply isn’t real. It is not real in a biological sense,” said Hasan Jeffries, an associate professor in the Department of History. “But at the same time … it is socially meaningful – biologically meaningless, but socially meaningful – because it has structured global society for the last 500, 600 years.”

The discussion also featured Alice Conklin, Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor in the Department of History; Robin Judd, an associate professor in the Department of History; and Deondre Smiles, an associate professor of geography at the University of Victoria, Canada. Nicholas Breyfogle, an associate professor in the Department of History and director of the Harvey Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, moderated the discussion.

The concept of race emerged in the mid-17th century as a means for justifying the enslavement of Africans in colonial America, Conklin said, and scientists eventually devised theories to uphold the system of forced labor.

“The idea of race as something biologically real came into existence first as a folk idea and then as a scientific one,” she said. “This idea was arguably the greatest error modern Western science ever made.”

The error was based on three false premises, Conklin said.

“One, that biologically distinct races existed in nature; two, that some races were more intelligent than others,” she said, “and three, that these races could be classified and ranked from superior to inferior according to the typical brain, shape, weight or size for each so-called ‘race.’”

The catastrophic effects of racism are evident in the genocide of Jews in Nazi Germany during World War II, Judd said.

“Even before the Nazis are coming into power and then consolidating power, there’s first an understanding of ‘racial purity,’” she said. “There’s a belief that there’s something that can allow for a ‘pure race’ and something that can allow for an ‘impure race,’ and that there is a hierarchy of races and there’s a superiority of one particular race.”

Categorizing people by phenotype runs contrary to the worldview of many Native Americans and other indigenous peoples, said Smiles, who claims African, European and Ojibwe Native American heritage.

“Sometimes people will refer to indigenous peoples as a race. And if you ask many indigenous peoples, they’ll oftentimes say, ‘Well, we’re not a race, we’re a nation,’” he said. “I can speak for my own people, where the Ojibwe, we have a long history of viewing our tribal identity, as viewing it in political and kinship frameworks rather than racial or biological constructs.”

When people refer to “race,” they’re most likely using the term as a stand-in for cultural heritage and ancestry, Jeffries said.

“We cannot pretend as though race itself isn’t a meaningful, impactful construct in the lives of all people,” he said, “and certainly all Americans.”

Smooth, associate professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at The Ohio State University, sees the power of Harris’ rise to the vice presidency not just through a mother’s lens, but as a scholar who has studied race, gender and American politics for some 20 years.

For the duration of Harris’ tenure, Smooth will be watching closely as part of her longtime research program and as one of eight members appointed to the national advisory board of the Kamala Harris Project. The project, based at the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Center for Leadership by Women of Color, is a collective of academics who will track all aspects of Harris’ vice presidency.

Major areas of analysis include media coverage of Harris, her policy leadership within the Biden administration, the influence of her electoral success on girls and women as potential candidates for office, and the international impact of a woman of color holding such a high-profile executive position in the United States.

The project is hosting its first public event Friday – a symposium examining Harris’ first 100 days as vice president.

“We’ve galvanized this conversation among academics,” Smooth said, “as a very broad attempt to say, ‘We are living in the midst of history. How do we both bear witness and help others make sense of the historic significance of Vice President Harris’ service?’”

Smooth says women of color, and particularly Black women, have been the cornerstone of the new American electorate since they showed up in 2008 to support Barack Obama, the first president to win office without overwhelming support from white male voters. Smooth observed in a chapter of the recently published book After Obama that despite the dedication of that critical voting bloc, Obama did not acknowledge the particular policy concerns of African American women until September 2015, during an address to the Congressional Black Caucus, which was quite late in his second term of office.

At the 2016 Democratic Convention, Hillary Clinton placed African American women center-stage during prime-time TV coverage, Smooth wrote in a chapter of the book Gender and Elections: African American Women and Electoral Politics, noting that Clinton needed Black women to turn out in support of her as they had done for Obama in 2008.

By the time Joe Biden became the Democratic nominee for president, Black women involved in politics were not waiting for outside recognition. They conveyed their expectations by sending his campaign a letter signed by thousands of scholars, researchers, activists and elected officials calling for the appointment of a running mate that reflected the power of Black women as voters. Smooth was among the signatories of that letter.

“Biden enjoyed the pressures of African American women … who made the sage argument that the most strategic way to excite and elevate, and to respect the role that African American women have been playing in driving the politics of the Democratic party, was to run with an African American woman,” she said. “And it proved fruitful because Kamala Harris delivered. More than 90% of African American women supported the Biden ticket and continue to be some of the most ardent defenders and supporters of the administration.”

Harris’ selection was not simply about identity politics, Smooth noted: She had been heavily vetted during her own presidential run and rounded out the ticket as an extraordinarily prepared running mate with policy expertise and a depth of experience in critical issues affecting the nation – including criminal justice reform and race and policing. And, Smooth said, Harris proved capable of raising money – a key determinant of whether a political candidate is considered viable.

Though it’s too soon to tell whether Harris’ ascendancy has moved women of color to pursue political office in Congress, statehouses and municipalities, Smooth will be watching for that, too – it’s a question she has been pursuing for some time.

She is currently co-leading a project charting the grassroots work of women of color in the United States whose organizations are deepening political engagement by identifying women of color candidates for office and preparing them for a run. Smooth has also proposed a collaboration with Tina Pierce, program manager of the Glenn College of Public Affairs’  professional development programs, and the Ohio Unity Coalition to connect civically minded Black women in Ohio to opportunities for political training that could lead to public office candidacy.

“I’m also ecstatic for what Madame Vice President means for young girls,” said Smooth, also associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion in the College of Arts and Sciences. “From a research perspective, we know the power of role models – when girls, and especially girls of color, see women of color leading, they’re more likely to say they, too, can be leaders.

“I am very hopeful that Kamala Harris’ service as vice president normalizes the idea that women of color are strong, formidable candidates, that they can raise the money, that they can speak credibly to the issues and they are capable of representing the complexities of the American citizenry.”

Other members of the Kamala Harris Project advisory board are Nadia Brown of Georgetown University, Pearl K. Dowe of Emory University, Brooklyne Gipson of the University of Illinois, Duchess Harris of Macalester College, Angela Lewis Maddox of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, Sangay Mishra of Drew University and Sara Sadhwani of Pomona College. The project’s conveners are University of Southern California professors Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, Jane Junn, Oneka LaBennett and Francille Wilson.

Wilson Figueroa, senior consulting research statistician at the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Evaluation Studies (HOPES), received $75,000 to study the impacts of daily stress on queer people of color, and Jennifer Hefner, assistant professor of health services management and policy, received $25,000 to evaluate 911 response to mental health crises in Columbus.

The racial justice seed grants are designed to help researchers get their ideas off the ground as they work toward larger projects, said Bill Miller, senior associate dean of research and professor of epidemiology.

“By offering these grants, the college is showing its commitment to understanding the effect of racism on public health and, more importantly, to intervening to reduce that impact,” Miller said. 

Wilson Figueroa: Daily stress in queer people of color

Compared to heterosexual people, those who identify as LGBTQ experience health disparities including higher rates of depression, anxiety and cardiovascular problems. Black Americans, straight and queer, face profound health inequity across nearly all measures. Yet few studies look at the intersection of these groups to assess health outcomes for Black sexual minorities, said Figueroa, whose project will focus on daily stressors and health in queer Black individuals.

The study will enlist Black queer adults and white queer adults in central Ohio. They will be asked to answer nightly questionnaires for a week and provide daily saliva samples to be tested for cortisol, a stress hormone linked to health problems.

“Cortisol is released in times of stress, but for some people it becomes dysregulated. Over time this can be harmful and lead to things like heart disease and cancer, which you see a high amount of in queer folk already,” Figueroa said. “This may be related to increased experiences of stress in daily life, such as microaggressions or discrimination.”

The research team — which includes HOPES Research Specialist Kristin Harlow and Ohio University’s Peggy Zoccola — will also analyze diary entries for stress measures and identify potential factors that could contribute to a participant’s resiliency, such as community connectedness and social support.

“One of the bigger things I hope comes from this study is identifying points of intervention — where we might somehow prevent the cycle of stress leading to dysregulation and eventually health disparities,” Figueroa said.

Jennifer Hefner: 911 response to mental health crises

Black people and people with mental illnesses are overrepresented in the American criminal justice system — an injustice at the forefront of the Black Lives Matter movement. In response to community demands, cities across the U.S., including Columbus, have begun exploring alternative public safety responses that better incorporate mental health services.

Hefner’s study will evaluate outcomes and community perceptions of the three behavioral/mental crisis response models currently employed in Columbus:

1. Traditional police officer response.
2. Police response including one or more officers with at least 40 hours of training from the National Alliance of Mental Illness Crisis Intervention Team program.
3. Mobile Crisis Response Units, which include a police officer and a mental health clinician employed by Netcare Access, a local mental health crisis triage center.

“For each model, we’re hoping to get data such as use of force, health care utilization and financial cost, as well as identify any outcome disparities by race,” said Hefner, who’s working with co-principal investigator Leah Bevis (College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences), co-investigator Steve David (College of Social Work) and community partners from Netcare and Columbus Public Safety.

The team — which connected at Ohio State’s STEAM Factory — will conduct interviews and focus groups with advocacy groups and people of color, as well as consult an advisory board of crisis response administrators, to explore how different stakeholders experience different approaches.

“When you criminalize mental illness, you send people to potentially the wrong sector of society. Instead of getting treatment and being connected to social services, someone could end up going to court or jail,” Hefner said, adding that criminalizing the behavior can be more resource-intensive than alternatives.

With Columbus poised to create a fourth, non-police mental health crisis response option in the near future, Hefner said she hopes the research will provide valuable information to the community.

“There’s a lot of research to be done to make sure these approaches are responding to residents’ needs while also keeping everyone safe,” she added. “It’s not about cutting the police department out of public safety — it’s about developing the right relationships so you can properly triage cases to the right level of care.”

The research showed that Black adults who had enrolled in an HBCUs had a 35% lower probability of developing metabolic syndrome by midlife compared to Black adults who enrolled in predominantly white schools. Additionally, the benefit of attending an HBCU was more pronounced in African Americans who grew up in more segregated environments.

Metabolic syndrome is defined as the presence of at least three of five factors that increase the risk for heart disease, diabetes and stroke – excess belly fat, elevated blood pressure, low “good” cholesterol, and high levels of blood glucose and triglycerides.

“We’ve known for a very long time that the more years of completed schooling someone has, the better their health is likely to be across the life course, but there’s been very little research looking at the different contexts in which education occurs and their impact on subsequent health outcomes,” said Cynthia Colen, lead author of the study and associate professor of sociology at The Ohio State University.

“This study really points to a strength of HBCUs that people don’t normally think about: Not only can they be health protective, but they can be health protective for years to come, not just while people are in school.”

Colen conducted the study with Nicolo Pinchak, an Ohio State graduate student in sociology, and Kierra Barnett, a postdoctoral researcher in Ohio State’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. The research is published online in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The team used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), which consists of periodic interviews with people who were middle- and high-school students in grades 7-12 in 1994-95. Colen specifically used information collected during follow-up interviews that were conducted in 1996, 2001 and 2008.

The 727 Black respondents in the final study sample attended a total of 319 institutions of higher learning – 273 predominantly white institutions and 46 HBCUs. The National Center for Education Statistics describes Historically Black Colleges and Universities as “institutions that were established prior to 1964 with the principal mission of educating Black Americans.”

This national survey (Add Health) collected detailed health data during all interview waves, providing the Ohio State researchers with the specific measures they used to assess whether the Add Health respondents had developed metabolic syndrome by 2008 when they were in their late 20s and early 30s.

Colen and colleagues constructed statistical models to determine the extent to which HBCU attendance was associated with metabolic syndrome in midlife. These models controlled for a number of characteristics that could influence both HBCU enrollment and adult health, such as age, sex and region of the country, as well as a series of family, school and neighborhood conditions they experienced during their childhoods.

The analysis showed that 31% of the respondents who had attended predominantly white institutions had metabolic syndrome by midlife, compared to 23% of those who had attended HBCUs, and that HBCU attendance was associated with a 35% reduction in the odds of having metabolic syndrome among college-educated African Americans. The researchers noted that this kind of health benefit mirrors the risk reduction that scientific studies suggest people can achieve through change in diet or exercise.

Overall, almost 30% of college-educated Black adults in the study sample developed metabolic syndrome by the time of their interviews in 2008, when they were still relatively young.

“That is the time period of the life course, when people are in their 30s and 40s, when we see the fastest growth in Black/white health disparities. This is largely driven by the emergence of chronic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity,” Colen said.

What is notable about this particular study is that college-educated African Americans were not being compared to whites – which was a strength of this research, she said: “Here, we are looking at how health is unequally distributed among African Americans. And we identify HBCUs as an opportunity not only for upward mobility, but as a potential driver of better health over the life course for individuals who spent their formative years at these types of institutions of higher learning.”

Though the available data can’t explain why or how former HBCU students’ risk for metabolic syndrome is lower than those who attended predominantly white schools, Colen has some possible theories: At HBCUs, Black students regularly interact with African American faculty, staff and students who can serve as mentors, and they are less likely to be chronically exposed to the racial discrimination that has been shown to erode both mental and physical health years after people first encounter this type of unfair treatment.

Similarly, the researchers can only speculate about why the health-protective benefits of HBCUs are stronger for Black adults who grew up in more segregated environments.

“Our findings suggest that HBCUs are likely to be health protective for the segment of society who needs it most – those growing up in the most racially isolated environments,” the researchers noted. “Moreover, this finding underscores the important role that place, in general, and segregation, specifically, plays in the unequal distribution of health.”

The holiday is celebrated on the second Monday of October in the United States in place of, or along with, Columbus Day, depending on the state or municipality. The observance is a way to honor the past, present and future of Native peoples throughout the country and acknowledges the negative impact of colonialism on Indigenous communities.

“I think it’s a really important moment for us to reconsider the narrative that has been taught in many public schools and across the U.S. – this idea of Christopher Columbus discovering America when the fact is that he didn’t really discover anything because there were hundreds and hundreds of Native nations that were already here,” said Melissa Beard Jacob, intercultural specialist for Native American and Indigenous students.

The day also promotes the visibility of Native peoples rather than treating their communities as a curiosity or a vanishing culture. It connects Indigenous peoples in the U.S. to other Native peoples around the world. 

“I think it’s also nice to recognize the Native students on campus. It’s a great time to give them some visibility and give them a chance to really represent their community – their stories, their histories and to kind of give them the spotlight,” Jacob said.

Berkeley, California, was the first city in the U.S. to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 1992. Currently in Ohio, Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland also recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Jacob will join Daniel Rivers, associate professor in the Department of History, on Monday for a virtual conversation about Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Jacob is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Rivers is a citizen of the Choctaw nation of Oklahoma and is Chickasaw by descendance. 

“I think it will be great because both of us come to Ohio State as Indigenous people and we’ll be bringing our perspective. I think Daniel is going to bring some really great historical knowledge to the conversation,” Jacob said. “For me, it’s really important to highlight some of the student activism that’s happening on campus and to provide ways for folks to support Native students, for those wanting to get involved and support the community.”

The Student Life Multicultural Center is one place to find opportunities to connect with the Ohio State Native and Indigenous community. Ohio State’s American Indian Studies program also plays a vital role through scholarship and collaborative engagement with the Newark Earthworks Center in Newark. The center contains the largest contiguous earthworks of the Hopewell peoples.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day also offers an opportunity to reflect on the historical foundation of the university. Ohio State occupies the ancestral and contemporary lands of the Shawnee, Potawatomi, Delaware, Miami, Peoria, Seneca, Wyandotte, Ojibwe and Cherokee peoples.

“I think it’s important that we acknowledge it since we’re a land-grant institution, and the fact that a lot of folks don’t realize that land-grant universities came from the displacement of Native tribes,” Jacob said. “So, I think it’s really important for the university, just to acknowledge that history. Obviously, Ohio State and education is a wonderful thing, but [we should] just recognize the detriment that played in terms of taking land from Native nations.”

Walker’s “How to Make a Slave and Other Essays” is one of 25 finalists for the 2020 National Book Awards for Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature. The five finalists in each category were selected by a panel of literary experts, and were advanced from a list of nominees announced in September.

“The National Book Award is the most prestigious award a U.S. publisher and author can receive for their work and we’re delighted to have one of our books selected as a finalist,” said Tony Sanfilippo, director of The Ohio State University Press. “We’re incredibly proud of the work of our editor, Kristen Elias Rowley, and our author, Jerald Walker. They well deserve this honor, a first in the history of the Ohio State University Press.”

Walker’s collection includes reflections on his experiences in academia such as racial profiling by a campus security guard, accounts of discussing race with his children, and contemplations on disability and family. It will be published in November.

He is the author of “The World in Flames: A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult” and “Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption,” winner of the 2011 PEN New England Award for nonfiction. Walker has published in magazines such as Creative Nonfiction, Harvard Review, Mother Jones and Oxford American. The recipient of James A. Michener and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, he is a professor of creative writing at Emerson College in Boston.

The university press is committed to advancing knowledge, and has been disseminating scholarship in the humanities and the social sciences since 1957. As the publishing branch of Ohio State, the university press publishes peer-reviewed scholarly works through its books and journals program, promoting the work of academics throughout the world.

The National Book Award winners will be announced in a ceremony on Nov. 18. The ceremony will be streamed on YouTube and also available at the foundation’s website: www.nationalbook.org.

Winners of the National Book Awards receive $10,000 and a bronze medal and statue. Finalists receive $1,000 and a bronze medal.

These four programs have again received the INSIGHT into Diversity magazine 2020 Health Professions Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award. INSIGHT into Diversity magazine is the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education.

This is the second consecutive year that all four programs have been named as a Health Professions HEED Award recipient. Ohio State is the only academic institution in the country to have four colleges receive the 2020 Health Professions HEED award. The colleges of nursing, medicine and veterinary medicine have received the award in previous years as well.

“Our standards are high, and we look for institutions where diversity and inclusion are woven into the work being done every day across their campus,” said INSIGHT Into Diversity publisher Lenore Pearlstein.

The award recognizes the university’s efforts in recruitment and retention of students and employees, continued leadership support for diversity, and other aspects of campus diversity and inclusion.

“Ohio State’s colleges are focused on diversity and inclusion as essential components of our mission,” said Executive Vice President and Provost Bruce A. McPheron. “By fostering these values in the health sciences, our students, faculty and staff are prepared to serve Ohioans well in the future.”

Each of the health sciences colleges incorporates diversity and inclusion throughout its student recruitment, teaching, research and service, including the creation and implementation of an Anti-Racism Action Plan that creates a foundation for structural and systemic change.

“I am extraordinarily proud of the continued advancements in diversity and inclusion that led INSIGHT Into Diversity to recognize Ohio State’s health science colleges. Much has been accomplished, but there is undoubtedly more to do,” said Dr. Hal Paz, executive vice president and chancellor for health affairs at Ohio State and CEO of Ohio State Wexner Medical Center. “As educators, researchers and caregivers, we are committed to improving health and building a culture of equity to better care for the communities we serve.”

Below are highlights of the colleges’ diversity and inclusion efforts.

College of Medicine – There is a history of recruiting and supporting under-represented minority students – 24% of students are underrepresented minorities. The college also follows a holistic admissions process, and everyone on the selection committee receives Implicit Bias training. There is diversity among the faculty and college leadership. The college requires a diverse pool of applicants in the hiring process and requires search firms it uses to include diverse candidates in the final pool of all candidates.

College of Nursing – The Ohio State College of Nursing earned its fifth consecutive HEED award, in part because of its ability to build on progress made in academics, research, student engagement and community impact. Several College of Nursing faculty have current research focused on reducing health disparities; the college’s population of underrepresented students increased across academic programs; and the college leveraged technology to host a five-week virtual Summer Success Series that aimed to help develop soft skills in under-represented undergraduate students. The college also formed the affinity group Nursing Students of Color to retain and support students as they move toward graduation, and continued its Health Resources and Services Administration grant-funded work to support the education and development of community health workers to improve the health and well-being of their own neighborhoods.

College of Optometry – The College of Optometry focused on several key initiatives to foster diversity and inclusion in 2020, including: reimagining the role of the college’s chief diversity officer to be more broadly integrated into the structure of the college; enhancing the admissions process for diverse underrepresented students by employing mitigation strategies against implicit bias and searching for inclusive behaviors in all applicants; educating all faculty, staff and students on implicit bias and anti-racism; engaging in purposeful relationship-building between our diverse students and diverse alumni; integrating diversity, equity and inclusion in the policy documents that govern the college; and developing a pathway for diverse underrepresented students to become faculty. The college also updated its Improving Diversity in Optometric Careers program this year to be virtual, ensuring that this annual summer program continued its mission to attract underrepresented minority undergraduate students from across the U.S. to learn about optics, eye anatomy and vision disorders as well as the College of Optometry admissions process.

College of Veterinary Medicine – The College of Veterinary Medicine is focusing on recruiting underrepresented minorities and first-generation students by reducing barriers to enter the profession, providing engaging learning opportunities, and creating an academic community that fosters inclusion. An increase in scholarship awards helps alleviate some of the debt burden many students face. Be Well programming teaches a foundation of health and well-being skills before students enter their professional career. Outreach and engagement opportunities such as the Pet Owner and Pet Care Program and the Veterinary Medicine Outreach Program provide care to underserved populations and unique service-learning experiences for students.

A part of the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative, the RADx Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) program will support research that aims to better understand COVID-19 testing patterns among minority and vulnerable populations; strengthen the data on disparities in infection rates, disease progression and outcomes; and develop strategies to reduce the disparities in COVID-19 testing, treatment and contact tracing.

“We decided to pursue this opportunity to benefit the residents of Ohio, especially minority and vulnerable populations who bear the brunt of COVID and its impacts in all facets of life,” said multiple-principal investigator Electra Paskett, director of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control in the Department of Internal Medicine at The Ohio State University College of Medicine.

As of Aug. 1, Ohio had reported 91,159 COVID-19 cases and 3,489 deaths, and the burden of COVID-19 had disproportionally impacted Ohio’s Black and Latinos/Latinas communities. Although only 13.1% and 4% of Ohio’s population is Black and/or Hispanic/Latino respectively, 26% of Ohio’s cases are among African-American residents and 7% are among Hispanic/Latino populations, researchers wrote in their proposal.

“We plan to go to the populations within communities with the highest rates of health disparities to understand and develop ways to help increase education, testing and contact tracing in concert with the communities. We’ll also facilitate access to testing to those populations,” said Paskett, director of the Diversity Enhancement Program at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Center.

The research team includes more than a dozen investigators at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center; Ohio State’s Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Medicine, Public Health and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs, and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity; Nationwide Children’s Hospital; and the State of Ohio. The award is linked to Ohio State’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards grant.

“This project reflects our ongoing commitment to apply rigorous scientific methods embedded in community-engaged research to improve health equity and address the most pressing health issues for Ohioans. If successful, RADx-UP Ohio can be disseminated throughout Ohio and across the United States to scale-up COVID-19 testing and, later, vaccination in minority, underserved and vulnerable populations,” said multiple-principal investigator Rebecca Jackson, director of The Ohio State University Center for Clinical and Translational Science and associate dean for clinical translational research.

Using data from an Ohio State and Ohio Department of Health study, researchers have chosen 12 at-risk counties in Ohio that contain multiple census tracks with disproportionately high concentrations of minority and vulnerable populations and few or no COVID-19 testing sites. The six urban counties in this project are Butler, Cuyahoga, Franklin, Jefferson, Lucas and Trumbull, while the six rural counties are Hardin, Meigs, Muskingum, Ross, Scioto and Washington.

“It is critical that all Americans have access to rapid, accurate diagnostics for COVID-19, especially underserved and vulnerable populations who are bearing the brunt of this disease,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins. “The RADx-UP program will help us better understand and alleviate the barriers to testing for those most vulnerable and reduce the burden of this disease.”

The university announced this month it is now an Aira Access location. Aira is a service that connects people with blindness or low-vision to trained, remotely located agents. Through a smartphone app and camera, users are able to access visual information at the touch of a button.

Nolan Crabb, director of assistive technology for the ADA Coordinator’s Office, said the service is revolutionary.

“In addition to the camera images the remote agents can see, they’re able to use some pretty detailed maps of the campus and to really give users good, solid input as to what’s around them,” he said. “Using the camera of your smartphone, the agent can read to you any signage that you’re going to encounter and, in these days of COVID-19, signage on campus is going to become pretty important. It’s a big deal.”

Aira agents can assist users as they navigate campus, find classrooms or offices, or read classroom materials. Crabb is helping with implementation of the service on campus and is also a user of Aira.

“I’ve been on the campus 13 years and there are still a lot of buildings I’ve never visited. After all these years, it would be difficult for me to find them without some kind of help,” he said. “This service really enables folks to be much more mobile and more capable, and have more confidence in the outcome of what they’re trying to accomplish.”

Any faculty, staff, student or visitor can use Aira for free in the following locations:

• The Columbus and regional campuses
• The Wexner Medical Center and Wexner Medical Center East
• Ohio State Outpatient Care Upper Arlington
• Ohio State Havener Eye Institute
• The Stefanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Center

Users need an Android or iPhone smartphone and can sign-up as an Aira guest. Once signed up and in an Aira access location, they call an Aira agent for assistance. The service is free at the university locations.

Ohio State can provide students, faculty and staff with access outside the on-campus Aira locations. Users are asked to send an email to accessibility@osu.edu to start the process. Contact ada-osu@osu.edu or 614-292-6207 for additional support.

The discussion was part of a new monthly corporate equity and justice webinar hosted by the university called Driving Change. Hosted by James L. Moore III, vice provost for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer, the new series offers sustainable solutions for advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in the corporate sector and beyond.

“When we think about the work we do at the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, I see it as connecting the aspirations of our students with all of the opportunities we can offer. This is where our corporate partners can help the most,” Moore said.

Moore was joined by Tom Gregoire, dean of the College of Social Work, for the initial conversation. Moore and Gregoire are co-chairs of the university’s 17-member Task Force on Racism and Racial Inequities.

Their guest was Jeffrey Lyttle, executive director for university relations and workforce at JPMorgan Chase.

The banking firm made a $2.5 million investment in 2019 in both the Young Scholars Program and Morrill Scholarship Program, Ohio State’s flagship diversity scholarship programs. Lyttle spoke about the value of both programs.

“It's a real opportunity for both our organizations to embrace this partnership, and it’s been great for us and also the students we are trying to serve,” he said.

Moore asked both Lyttle and Gregoire how their organizations have changed in the wake of civil rights protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minnesota police officers.

“It’s a call to action. We have done that in Columbus, listening to organizations like the Columbus Urban League and the YWCA and YMCA. They are addressing these issues and lifting the community conversation and putting programs in place that directly address the emotion and the anger and frustration that so many neighbors are feeling,” Lyttle said. “In addition to opening up and listening and telling our stories, we are also jumping into action and investing and being personally involved in this work in the community.”

Gregoire said it’s inspiring to see students at Ohio State take a leading role in creating meaningful change.

“We are letting our students lead here at our academic institution,” Gregoire said. “[We] have many students of color. … A lot of our undergrads, almost 40%, are first-generation students. That feels so profound to lead here at this institution.

“We are listening to them, asking how they are doing. Our students have led forums with faculty and staff, looking at what action can look like going forward.”

Moore also asked where and how corporations should invest in higher education. For Gregoire, one opportunity for investment exists for students who have just finished their academic career and are about to join the workforce.

“In social work, we are looking at not stopping the investment once the student leaves. We are thinking about scholarships at Ohio State that might start two to three years before they get here. But why do they have to stop when they leave? In social work, for example, if you come here as low-income, you leave the same way,” he said. “We maintain a career closet for students who don’t have the clothing they need. What if we supported people to launch their careers as well?”

Lyttle said any investment in higher education should come with clear goals and expectations. He said communication is critical.

“Make sure your university partner understands your goals and what you want to accomplish through investment of your time and finances,” he said. “One mistake could be leading with that checkbook and not really getting into the level of detail that will help you be successful – both the organization and the students.”

Future guests for the monthly one-on-one conversations and panel discussions will include university leaders, faculty, students, and corporate and community leaders across Ohio and beyond.

“Ohio State’s scope is unparalleled. Within the diversity and inclusion space, I believe our institution will play a critical role in eradicating racism and some of the things that separate us,” Moore said. “Having a college education, as we know, is a public good, and Ohio State certainly does its share of educating in the state of Ohio and beyond.”

Executive Vice President and Provost Bruce A. McPheron and Dr. Hal Paz, executive vice president and chancellor for health affairs and CEO of the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, delivered the joint message today (July 16.):

Racism and racial inequities must be addressed with sustained action, and we stand united in our commitment to create lasting change. While these problems are persistent, the terrible events that have taken place this year have reinforced the need to act now and into the future to bend the arc of history toward justice.

Today, we are writing to share updates about three key elements of our action plan. We have established:

• A university-wide task force on racism and racial inequities to provide tangible recommendations to create a more equitable, healthy, supportive, and nurturing community. This 17-member group, which includes students, faculty and staff, will be engaging broadly with the Ohio State community to identify and propose action steps.
• A $1 million seed fund for interdisciplinary research and creative work that can contribute to the elimination of racism and solve its underlying causes and consequences. With an emphasis on impact, projects will be required to include substantive involvement of community partners.
• An Anti-Racism Action Plan that engages the Wexner Medical Center and the health sciences colleges to address racism as a social determinant of health. The Anti-Racism Action Plan will accelerate structural and systemic change supporting equity in health and well-being.

These initiatives were launched with the expectation that each will generate a multitude of action steps that will take root on our campuses and in our community for generations to come. Above all, each is designed to confront racism and racial inequities with specific, practical solutions.

Beyond these enterprise-scale initiatives, many colleges and units throughout the university and medical center have begun planning specific steps to address racism within their areas of focus. We support these efforts and will continue to look for opportunities to coordinate, connect and scale up the most promising ideas.

In addition to these steps, the university last month announced a number of immediate and long-term steps to address concerns about policing and public safety, including the creation of a Public Safety Advisory Committee composed of Ohio State students, faculty, staff and other critical non-university stakeholders.

Task Force on Racism and Racial Inequities

The co-chairs of the task force — James L. Moore III, vice provost for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer, and Tom Gregoire, dean of the College of Social Work — have committed to work that is focused on engagement and action.

The task force has been asked to propose “serious, achievable action steps that will advance principles of and promote an equitable, healthy, supportive and nurturing university community.”

Other elements of the charge include hosting inclusive, candid conversations about racism; identifying aspects of Ohio State that contribute to inequities and differential outcomes; identifying effective practices that address these problems, and transcending prior approaches.

Vice Provost Moore and Dean Gregoire are working with the task force members to begin their work and develop a process that invites the broader Ohio State community to participate in the discussion.

“We will seize this moment by leveraging our Buckeye community to make lasting change. We are committed to engaging our Ohio State community and searching for meaningful action,” Vice Provost Moore and Dean Gregoire said.

See the task force website for the full charge and list of members.

Seed Fund for Racial Justice

This week, the university is extending a call for proposals from principal investigators for research and creative projects that address structural or institutional racism; implicit bias and privilege; and racial and cultural disparities.

The $1 million Seed Fund for Racial Justice has a clear call to action: “Ohio State has both the opportunity and the responsibility to lead reconciliation and drive transformational and sustainable change at this pivotal moment in our nation’s history.”

The first set of grants will be awarded in December 2020. Ohio State will issue grants of up to $50,000 in two phases over the next two years.

To review the request for proposals and apply, see the Office of Research website.

Anti-Racism Action Plan to improve health equity

The Wexner Medical Center and health science colleges have made “anti-racism efforts our very foundation” in declaring racism a social determinant of health that is damaging to our community, patients, faculty, staff and trainees.

The Anti-Racism Action Plan to improve health equity involves five key actions: to elevate the cause of anti-racism; engage our faculty, staff, students, patients and communities with opportunities to learn and participate; equip team members with tools, resources and communication channels; empower people to address racism; and to evaluate and review efforts regularly.

For more information, see the Anti-Racism Action Plan website.

Dear Ohio State Community:

Juneteenth celebrates the day, June 19, 1865, when enslaved people still in bondage in Texas, on the western edge of the confederacy, were finally read the federal orders that legally freed them under the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation was dated January 1, 1863, but only applied to slaves held in the confederacy and thus had no power of enforcement until the end of the Civil War. And although the confederacy had surrendered two months before, federal troops bearing the news did not arrive in Texas until June. The celebration of that day is now observed officially in 49 states (Ohio’s recognition dates to 2006), and there is a movement, which I support, to declare it as a federal holiday.

It is important that we reflect on the significance of Juneteenth every year. This year, it has taken on special importance. As we see in stark terms every day, freedom is more than the absence of bondage. One hundred and fifty-five years after the end of the Civil War, we still struggle as a nation to rid ourselves of the yoke of our original constitutional sin. 

As frustrating and infuriating as the progress-backlash cycle of human justice can be, there are from time to time hopeful signs. Over these past three weeks, people around the world have raised their voices and demonstrated passionately. We are denouncing racism and all forms of bigotry. We demand a better world. In towns large and small, new allies have emerged to join the fight. 

Policies are under review, and change is underway. Meaningful change is difficult and elusive. But change we must. And change we will. 

As a member of our Ohio State community, in recognition and celebration of Juneteenth, please set aside a part of your day today to contemplate and reflect on the meaning of emancipation, the importance of freedom, and the obligation that we all share to make this world a better place.

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion has compiled information on a number of ways we can commemorate Juneteenth:

• Learn how other countries have sought to reconcile their difficult histories: South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission or Rwanda’s Justice and Reconciliation Process.
• Volunteer with a local service and/or social justice organization whose work aligns with the spirit and intent of Juneteenth.
• Attend a virtual or socially distanced Juneteenth event in your area. Columbus is hosting many events from which to choose. 
• Read a book about Juneteenth.
• Virtually explore the National Museum of African American History & Culture.

I am proud of our community, and I know that we have the power to make a difference.

Sincerely,

Michael V. Drake, MD

“I wish it did not end so soon. I was really looking forward to finishing the year off in school, not at home. The COVID-19 ruined the great times we could have.”

“I’m doing well, just a bit disappointed. Although I know that it’s necessary and I want everyone to be safe, there is a selfish part of me that grieves my senior year.”

Ohio seniors have put pen to paper to lament the loss of traditions, celebrations and the conclusions of the final months of their high school career. Their thoughts, often raw, angry and emotional, are now on display at a website built by The Ohio State University’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

Dear Senior Year is a project created through the university’s Young Scholars Program. Program leaders asked members of the 2020 graduating class to write a letter to their senior year.

Cianna Agosto, a senior at McKinley Senior High School in Canton, was the author of one of the letters.

“I had a lot of stuff planned with my friends. I miss seeing people every day,” said Agosto, a Young Scholar since eighth grade. “And my teachers, I miss seeing them. I made really good connections with them. I think the thing I miss the most is the traditions that go in to the end of the year, and how much bonding and closure you get at the end of the year.”

Young Scholars program coordinator Lisa Gissendaner came up with the senior letter idea in April as she was checking in with the scholars she supports in the Canton area.

“I just wanted to know how they were feeling and if they could share their thoughts with me,” she said. “I immediately got a response back from one of my scholars, and she had written about two paragraphs and it just stunned me. I wasn’t really expecting a quick return like that but it really kind of made me sad.”

“I really do trust Ms. G, so I just laid it all out. I was very open with how I was feeling because I know I can trust her,” Agosto said. “I was really open to the idea and I don’t mind sharing. There’s nothing wrong with being disappointed about how things ended up.”

Gissendaner said students appreciated that someone was asking how they were feeling as stay-at-home orders kept them isolated from their friends and community. The writing project became cathartic for some of the students.

“It made perfect sense to have all the seniors write a letter to their senior year. But we did not anticipate that type of response,” said Chila Thomas, executive director of the Young Scholars Program. “But to read it and to see it in writing, personally, I can only get to get through two or three at a time and I’m crying because they’re so sentimental. You’re reading through a lot of loss.”

The openness and vulnerability in the students’ letters is the result of the close relationships built in the Young Scholars Program. The program serves academically talented first-generation college students from economically challenged backgrounds who live in nine of the largest urban school districts in Ohio.

“When you think about the Young Scholars, many of these students attend some of the most vulnerable school systems in the state of Ohio, and arguably in the United States. So there’s a lot of fragility that you find in their lives,” said Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer James L. Moore III. “What we’re trying to do and what we’ve always done is to be a bridge to help people work through these emotions, while remaining steadfast in their focus and matriculating to The Ohio State University.”

The writing project helps inform program leaders about the mindset of the students before they begin their college coursework. They know this abrupt end to such an important moment of these students’ lives will have a long-term impact.

“I think that this initiative helped our university pay attention to what’s going on with the students before they enroll at Ohio State,” Thomas said. “This is a brief insight, it’s small, but it’s enough, especially when you think about who the Young Scholars students are. They’re first generation. Many of the students come from modest homes. But I don’t think that they are the only ones who are having those sentiments.”

Gissendaner agreed: “For our scholars, just being able to contact them, as we’re doing on a weekly basis, provides a lot of encouragement and stability for them right now at this time.”

“Blue Bird,” Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, 1947

Charlie Parker was a leader of the bebop jazz movement of the 1940s, when the music moved from big band-dominated dance music to more musician-focused songs that demanded virtuosity of the soloists. It was meant more to be listened to than danced to. The song “Blue Bird” by Parker was an early example of this new direction. The song features a very young Miles Davis, who showed himself from the very beginning to be a star.

“Boplicity,” Miles Davis, 1957

On the record “Birth of the Cool,” Davis began to take music that he had learned as a teenager and put his own signature on it. He thought a lot about phrasing and actively used silence. “Boplicity” is a bit of a bridge between these two eras of jazz – big band and bebop. It’s still a little bit “bandy,” with all of the musicians playing the melody together as the song begins, but it also has passages that signal where the music would be headed in the future.

“All Blues,” Miles Davis, 1959

“Kind of Blue” is considered one of the greatest jazz albums of all time. This is Miles Davis playing more thoughtful and evocative music. It’s also an all-star group of musicians who played together for only a short period of time. “All Blues” is one of the key songs from this incredible sextet, which featured legendary musicians Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb.

“My Favorite Things,” John Coltrane, 1961

John Coltrane was a great leader in both the interpretation of music and the different ways of looking at music. Coltrane began using show tunes as a framework, improvising in a multitude of directions. “My Favorite Things” is from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music,” but Coltrane gives it a new life. He shows all of the things you can do with a horn to make it almost a spiritual melody. It’s a great song with such great virtuosity exhibited.

“Alabama,” John Coltrane, 1963

“Alabama” was a song Coltrane wrote just a few weeks after the murder of four young girls by a terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. The piece captures the depth of despair and horror that the community and country felt in the wake of this event.

“Lush Life,” John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, 1963

Thus far, we have featured instrumental music, with the instruments giving voice to the feelings and emotions of the musicians. On “Lush Life,” Johnny Hartman adds his voice and lyrics to create a mood. The merger of his voice and John Coltrane’s saxophone creates this great song.

“I Loves You Porgy,” Nina Simone, 1958

Jazz singer-songwriter, pianist and civil rights activist Nina Simone also interpreted show tunes as she did when she recorded George and Ira Gershwin’s “I Loves You Porgy” in 1958. This is a wonderful weaving together of voice and instrument to great impact.

“In a Silent Way,” Miles Davis, 1969

During the 1960s, many types of musical styles were overlapping. There was a revolution in electronic music with electric bass, electric pianos and synthesizers becoming popular in jazz. Miles Davis was always interested in being on the cutting edge of musical directions. “In a Silent Way” represented that next step into electric music by Miles Davis at the end of the ’60s.

“Country Preacher,” The Cannonball Adderley Quintet, 1969

The song “In a Silent Way” was featured on Davis’ album of the same name, written by keyboard player Joe Zawinul, who ultimately played as a member of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet (and ultimately was a founder and leader of the jazz fusion band Weather Report). The quintet was playing as part of a community celebration in 1969. Zawinul wrote this song to honor a young Jessie Jackson.

The Council of Graduate Students, Inter-Professional Council and Undergraduate Student Government are starting 2020 with a new phase of a shared diversity campaign. Part of the campaign began last week with a photo shoot of students supporting the university’s history of diversity and inclusion.

Dozens of students lined up at the Ohio Union to have their photos taken in T-shirts that include the names of Ohio State faculty or alumni who have led the way to make the university more inclusive. Some of those celebrated include Distinguished University Professor Frederick Luis Aldama, Black Student Union leader John S. Evans and Ohio State law school graduate Yvette McGee Brown, the first African American female justice to serve on the Ohio Supreme Court.

“[The T-shirts] are about highlighting these students and community members who have minoritized identities and saying that it is good to act with their intentions, because they’re all groundbreaking in their own ways,” said Andrea Davis, an education studies graduate student and chair of the organizations’ Diversity and Inclusion Committee. “They are all trying to make, or they tried to make, the campus more accessible and equitable.”

The photos from the event will be on display in the Ohio Union and other campus buildings from March 16 to 31 and on all CABS buses starting Feb. 23. The diversity campaign will also include a student-led video. These events continue a focus on diversity and inclusion that started last year.

The campaign builds upon work started autumn 2019, when CGS launched its Diversity Dialogue Series, IPC created its first-ever Diversity and Inclusion Committee and appointed a student chair, and USG prepared its Embrace the Difference campaign. The three organizations also established the first-ever cross-governmental Diversity and Inclusion Committee, which is being co-chaired by representatives from each of the three student government administrations.

“One thing about a university with such a wide audience of people here at Ohio State is that no matter where you go every day, you’re going to engage with someone from a different background or identity from yourself,” said DaVonti' Haynes, Council of Graduate Students treasurer. “So [the campaign] is really about helping students, faculty and staff understand why it’s important to be a partner, to be a part of a diverse community, and really to get them to think about some of the benefits that we get by being engaged and involved in such a diverse community on a daily basis.”

This semester, the student government organizations will partner on more events to spread the message. They include:

• The inaugural Buckeye Chat is an evening of conversations designed to help students, faculty and staff develop new relationships and ways of thinking and collaborating through understanding of Ohio State’s diverse campus community needs.
• The Buckeye Diversity Dialogue Series provides opportunities for graduate students, faculty, staff and community leaders to have intentional conversations about relevant issues of equity, diversity, social justice and much more. The conversations are designed to be an informal gathering, over lunch, to allow participants to learn from and educate one another.
• USG, the Office of Student Life Multicultural Center and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion are planning a Diversity Summit to discuss the building partnerships with different communities at Ohio State and generating action items to promote diversity and inclusion on campus.

“I think currently, about one out of every four or every five students identifies as being part of a minority community at Ohio State, for undergrads at least. So we wanted to make it feel like this is a place where they’re able to say, ‘Yes, I’m part of a diverse community. I am here, part of this community and I care about other people,’” Davis said. “I think it’s especially important as we are in a new decade and we want everyone to feel like they’re part of something.”