Diversity & Inclusion

The GC Diversity & Inclusion Committee works to center the voices of students from underserved backgrounds, collaborate with existing D&I-focused groups, and establish initiatives that are geared towards both allyship and supporting graduate students from historically underrepresented groups.

The GC D&I Committee is working on these projects:

Project 1: D&I Graduate Student Organization Toolkit (Joe Reda)

  • A toolkit for graduate student organizations on how to make their organizations more inclusive

Project 2: Culture Spotlight (Gulzar Daya)

  • Highlighting meaningful commemorative days (e.g., religious observances, festivals, celebrations) among our graduate students (link here)

Project 3: Inclusive Pedagogy Workshops (Elena Cortes & Chanel Walker)

  • Incentivizing graduate students to participate in workshops geared towards inclusive pedagogy and bias training

Project 4: Anti-racist book distribution (Carolina Marques de Mesquita)

  • Distributing 210 anti-racist books for free to the graduate student community.

Project 5: UC Juneteenth Initiative (Adelia Davis, Rachel King, Lina Moreno, & Symphony Fletcher)

  • A series of workshops, talks, panels and volunteer opportunities to commemorate Juneteenth

Project 6: Inclusion question on course evaluations (Lily Upp and Aimee Gonzalez)

  • Advocating for a question on students’ feelings of inclusion on the forthcoming standardized course evaluation

Project 7: Mental health provider list for minority students (Michelle Shang)

  • Informal list of URM/minority health providers in the Chicago area

Tentative Projects :

 Funding for affinity groups and D&I related events and initiatives (Salman Safir)

  • Providing monetary support to student affinity groups and committees putting on D&I related initiatives and events

Questions or comments? Contact Graduate Council’s VP of Diversity & Inclusion Radhika Santhanagopalan and/or Deputy VP of Diversity & Inclusion Briana Banks.