March 5, 2015
Dr. Christy Rhodes Receives Promoting Diversity and Inclusion Mini-Grant
Drs. Christy Rhodes and Sheresa Blanchard are recipients of the “Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in the Curriculum” Mini-Grants. The selected proposals are going to tackle different aspects of diversity in the classrooms of ECU and in eastern North Carolina.
Dr. Christy Rhodes, assistant professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Professions, submitted a proposal with Drs. Kathy Lohr and Phyllis Broughton to facilitate a workshop for eastern North Carolina’s community college faculty and staff members.
Rhodes said they came to the decision to focus on community colleges because the department’s graduate students are preparing to become instructors at the community college level and because “they (community colleges) are the entry point for so many non-traditional learners.” She added, “they are experiencing diversity much more than universities are and other higher education (institutions).”
This proposal aims to work on institution-wide diversity by hosting a workshop for faculty and staff members currently at community colleges as well as the future educators enrolled in the departments graduate programs. The workshop will cover difficult conversations in the classroom and present participants with a toolkit of information to continue the important conversation. “Three hours isn’t enough,” said Rhodes.
“We’re excited that the grant allows us to put things in the toolkit that are helpful. During our workshop, we’re going to focus on the tips in the book that focuses on the difficult conversations,” said Rhodes. The toolkit is provided at the workshop to supply participants with resources to keep close.
Both program proposals are currently in progress and working to increase the diversity in our classrooms. The next Diversity Seminar will be on April 8, 2015 and attendees will be eligible for the two mini-grants to be awarded.
This article is an excerpt from the March 2015 Discovering Equity and Diversity newsletter.