2 SSD PhD Students Recognized for Efforts to Drive Change
Diversity Advisory Board Awards honor 12 inaugural winners for efforts to drive change
This is an excerpt of a story published by UChicago News. Read the rest of the article here.
This year, the first-ever UChicagoGRAD Diversity Advisory Board (DAB) Awards were granted to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to diversity and inclusion efforts at the University of Chicago.
Sponsored by Graduate Council, the DAB Awards are designed to recognize a student from each academic unit. Conferring these accolades, said Diversity Advisory Board member Victoria Okuneye, is especially important as a matter of fairness.
“These awards honor students for work that doesn’t normally have a clear reward or recognition, or that is not recognized through the regular channels,” said Okuneye, a medical and doctoral student who joined DAB in 2018. “[This] work is not always equally distributed. We wanted to honor individuals who have been exemplary in their academic units, and to hopefully inspire others to follow suit.”
DAB selected 12 winners from over 70 nominations. While graduate students were nominated for a variety of activities and efforts, Okuneye noted some common themes: “Many winners are doing community education, organizing working with younger people, and working within departments.”
“We wanted to honor individuals who have been exemplary in their academic units, and to hopefully inspire others to follow suit.”
The DAB Awards reflect the University’s efforts to foster a more diverse and inclusive environment and build on the Diversity Leadership Awards, which this year began recognizing students in addition to faculty, staff, and alumni.
Dana Bozeman, who directs GRAD Diversity & Inclusion and advises DAB, credited the board’s two-year effort to push for funding and recognition for graduate students. Bozeman highlighted the work of Derek Nettingham, former communications chair for DAB, and Nova Smith, former programming chair, who together co-chaired DAB’s executive board during the selection process. “Tireless work of the DAB board made this happen,” Bozeman said of the awards.
“Recognizing the impactful efforts of students, who are making vital contributions in this area, is an important way we can acknowledge and reward those who are central in helping the University become and remain the welcoming, diverse, and inclusive institution that we aspire to be,” said Vice Provost Jason Merchant, who oversees graduate education.
In addition to celebrating the work of individuals across academic units, the DAB Awards program provides a community for underrepresented student leaders to learn from each other, share challenging issues facing their respective units, and work toward solutions.
Okuneye hopes the awards can also function as a recruitment tool. “The awards are a way of telling prospective graduate students that diverse graduate students are here,” she said. “Look for them, read about their works, and join our graduate community.”
Four graduate students received specialty awards honoring their efforts, and eight other winners represented their schools and divisions. Read below for information on the winners. For anyone interested in becoming a part of DAB or wishing to offer suggestions for future DAB awards, please contact Dana Bozeman.
Georgiana Simpson Research Award
The Georgiana Simpson Research Award is named after the University of Chicago alum who was the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in the United States. The award highlights scholarly work which critically looks at the current status of diversity in their given context. This year’s winner is Margaret Teresa Brower of the Department of Political Science.
Brower’s doctoral research investigates the experiences of people of color, especially women of color, to identify lawmaking and policies that better serve and represent their interests. Her scholarship with Cornell University’s Jamila Michener on the pandemic’s disproportionate negative impact on economic conditions for Black and Latina women in the workforce was featured in the Washington Post, MSNBC Live and NPR. She is currently researching how policymaking can better adapt to the intersectional experiences of women of color. She received grant awards from the Center for American Women and Politics, the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights, and the Women in Politics Centennial Center for Political Science.
Social Sciences Division
Jharnae Love is a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Mind and Biology, where she is one of the only BIPOC scientists in 10 research labs and willingly takes an active role in educating her peers through conversation and disseminating materials on how to build an “anti-racist lab.”
Love is one of the only BIPOC students in her program and hopes that changes prior to her graduation. To help drive this change, she took on a role as prospective student weekend coordinator and engaged with other opportunities focused on recruiting prospective students to the university. She is also involved with organizations including Black in Academia and Black Grad Coalition.
Read the rest of the awards here.