Ratnesh Nagda has been selected to serve as an inaugural Diversity Scholar during the winter and spring 2014 academic quarters. In selecting School of Social Work Professor Nagda, the three-campus selection committee wrote: “[We] admire your career-long diversity leadership as a researcher, teacher and citizen-advocate. We are struck by the way your research, teaching and service inform and advance each other.”
The Diversity Scholars Program supports the implementation of the new diversity requirement that takes effect for undergraduate students entering the University in the 2014 Autumn Quarter. Hundreds of courses have already been approved in support of that requirement, which is part of a multi-year effort to transform curriculum and improve instruction methods.
Diversity Scholars will serve as resources for other faculty members in their respective disciplines to work on course content and teaching skills that are more inclusive. The scholars collaborate with faculty members who are adapting, developing or reframing courses to align with the new diversity standards. They will also collaborate as a team to create and facilitate learning communities, workshops and resource materials, which assist faculty members in the development of diversity-related teaching and learning.
The Diversity Scholars Program is funded through the UW Office of Undergraduate Academic Affairs and housed in the Center for Teaching and Learning. The following scholars are the inaugural Diversity Scholars: Sapna Cherya and Joyce Yen (Engineering), Robin Evans-Agnew (Nursing and Healthcare Leadership), Ralina Joseph (Communication), Ratnesh Nagda (Social Work), Anu Taranath (English/Comparative History of Ideas) and Wadiya Udell (Community Psychology).