Action Item (as stated with DEI strategic plan launch in 2016)
The university will establish a new career award, administered biennially by the National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) and the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI), to celebrate and honor faculty whose scholarship has contributed significantly to our understanding or appreciation of groups that have traditionally been understudied. Primary goals of this award are to build a more robust body of knowledge and teaching in these areas, elevate these research foci nationally, and provide important recognition to scholars whose work may have been undervalued in the past.
DEI 1.0 Evaluation Update
Established in 2017, the James S. Jackson Distinguished Career Award for Diversity Scholarship is named for its first recipient—whose passing on September 1, 2020 was a major loss to our community. Since 2017, a total of three recipients have been named.
- In 2017, the inaugural award was presented to James S. Jackson, the Daniel Katz Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and former director of the Institute for Social Research, in honor of his outstanding contributions to understanding diversity and addressing disparities in contemporary society.
- The 2019 award recipient was Patricia Gurin, the Nancy Cantor Distinguished University Professor Emerita of Psychology and Women’s Studies. A social psychologist, Dr. Gurin’s work has focused on social identity, the role of social identity in political attitudes and behavior, motivation and cognition in achievement settings, and the role of social structure in intergroup relations.
- In 2021, the award was bestowed upon Arline T. Geronimus, professor of health behavior & health education and associate director & research professor at the Population Studies Center in the Institute for Social Research. Dr. Geronimus has made unique and seminal contributions to theory, empirical research, methodology and practice as it relates to diversity in public health, medicine, economics, political science, critical race theory and applied anthropology.
Responsibility: National Center for Institutional Diversity