Diversity Infusion Grant
The Diversity Infusion Grant (DIG) supports the research and resources necessary to make course revisions that broaden, refresh, and further SAIC’s curricular offerings in relation to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Grantees will receive $1000 to support this work. The Diversity Advisory Group’s Curriculum Committee has created the SAIC Diversity Infusion Grant (DIG) to facilitate more intentional DEI practices in classrooms by faculty. The funds are intended to support faculty incorporating more diverse reading selections, a greater variety of global images, guest speakers, DEI pedagogy, and/or diversity related project assignments.
2022-23 Recipients
Emilie Willis
Course
Vessel Construction (Fall 2022)
Department
Ceramics
This course investigated both on and off-wheel construction techniques. It explored wheel throwing and various hand building techniques to produce interpretations of the vessel in contemporary society. This grant supported a 45-minute lecture from Paul Briggs, an contemporary artist engaged in creating pinched vessels. His recent body of work “Cell Personae” is a firm and resolved protest against the startling statistic that Black people account for 40 percent of the U.S. prison population, despite accounting for only 6.5 percent of the total American population.
Kevin Carr
Course
Quilting for Painters (Fall 2022)
Department
Painting & Drawing
Quilting for Painters looks at the insistence and use of the grid through modern and contemporary art, the subversion of that grid, and further explores the materiality that pushes the boundaries between traditional painting and quilting. This grant supported three visiting artists and purchased resources that brought in varying perspectives and experiences, a well as a look into diverse histories of quilting.
Kristin McWhater
Course
New Realities: Simulations of Future Worlds (Spring 2023)
Department
Art & Technology Studies
New Realities: Simulations of Future Worlds technically and conceptually explores what it means to create and simulate new realities within game engines. This course offers students technical guidance in creating artistic output from game engine tools, while learning from artist practices that range from games, animation, simulation, to machinima. With this grant, McWharter produced a series of video tutorials that will supplement learning materials of the class to meet a greater number of learning needs that exist among students.
Marzena Abrahamik
Course
Girls in Contemporary Art (Fall 2022)
Department
Photography
This course will explore the figure of the girl which has been used by many artists to expand the discourse on gender by questioning the stability of sexual and gender identity. This course focuses on trends and approaches to art photography and how contemporary artists challenge, expand, and reinvent such traditional genres as self-portrait, portraiture, the nude, landscape, and still life photography. The grant will support a lecture and panel discussion and a final critique, during which the course will reflect on the dynamic relationships between feminism, heterosexuality, queer theory and race.
Sarah Rosengard
Course
Great Lakes Chemistry and Stewardship (Spring 2023)
Department
Liberal Arts
This course identifies the key ecosystem services that the Lakes provide to all communities around it and sustainability challenges that these communities face in stewarding such services. We will learn the processes that maintain and perturb these ecosystem services. In addition, we will explore the role of women, gender minorities, and Indigenous people in knowledge and stewardship of the North American Great Lakes. The grant will purchase scientific equipment, such as a DNA analysis kit. This will enable students to learn techniques in analyzing multiple environmental specimens and enable students to conduct research projects and gather data.
