Climate Grant Projects

Black Graduate Student Transition Education Program (BG-STEP) 

Justin Coles, College of Education (Faculty) and Jamilia Lyiscott, College of Education (Faculty) 

Birthed out of a need to provide Black graduate students with a sense of community and beloning across disciplines, departments, and colleges, BG-STEP (pronounced as Big Step) is a 3-day event taking place prior to the Fall 2021 Semester that will introduce incoming Black grad students to each other and the Umass Amherst community. Programming includes a keynote and networking social brunch, a discussion panel featuring current Black grad students, workshops, a reception with Black faculty and administrators, and games and activities. 

Reimagining Accessibility 

Griffin Leistinger (Graduate Student) and Rachel Adams (Staff) 

With the goal toward building a fuller understanding of accessibility in the university community and eventually developing a robust, interactive, and community sourced map of accessibility and barriers for the Umass Amherst campus, we will host a year-long series of educational and interactive events. In addition to discussions and trainings from experts from the fields of disability justice field and ADA and AAB compliance, we will host a "Map-A-Thon," training and mapping event, and invite participants to travel the campus in teams and identify barriers to accessibility. The project will conclude with a Disability Graduation Ceremony with the campus Disability Community.  

Private Reporting Flowchart for Harassment, Assault, and Microaggressions 

Frances Griswold (Graduate Student), Julie Brigham-Grette, Geosciences (Faculty), and Laurie Brown, Geosciences (Faculty) 

We are creating a flowchart to assist our campus community in finding existing university resources to document and/or report an incident of sexual assault, and racial, sexual, or other forms of microaggression resulting from bias. Our goal is to take the burden of seeking the proper channels from the person reporting the incident, provide a simple and straightforward representation of the links to all the possible processes, and allow the tools provided by the university to be highlighted for use by students, faculty, and staff when needed. Beginning as a pilot program in Morrill Science Center, this flowchart will be printed and mounted in every bathroom stall for the privacy of the reporter, in a fire-code compliant plastic sleeve, allowing the contents to be easily updated annually, or by semester. We will work within the supportive ecosystem of University offices for incident reporting, to keep this resource current. We envision this flowchart will help foster a safe and inclusive environment for all members of our community.  

“Yes, and...”: Using Improv to Foster an Engaged Workplace Community in the Libraries 

Rebecca Seifried (Staff), John Slavkovsky (Staff), Alison Messier (Staff), Jaime Taylor (Staff)  

This training session will equip employees from a dozen departments across the University Libraries with improvisation-informed skills to promote a healthy and inclusive workplace environment. Attendees will learn how to communicate with a positive “Yes, and...” approach that encourages engagement and collaboration. The training will lay the groundwork for refocusing the Libraries’ workplace culture toward resilience and connection, thereby promoting greater job satisfaction and fostering employee retention. 

BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ Women, and Women with Disabilities in STEM 

Amrita Adak (Undergraduate Student), CEPA 

Our project centers around connecting women who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and/or disabled women in the Amherst area, especially from UMass Amherst, with contemporary female role models in STEM that reflect their marginalized identities, in a day-long speaker event. This event will include inspiring keynote speakers, one-on-one student interviews, engaging panel discussions with Q&A sections, and interactive workshops in which attendees will learn to advocate for their place within educational institutions. Among other crucial topics, speakers will address their interests and contributions within STEM as well as how their marginalized identities have impacted  their life journey. The event will hopefully remedy feelings of isolation by fostering connection and community between participants, creating a unique space for them at UMass that previously may not have existed. Attendees will also enjoy dinner that pays homage to the cultural identities found on campus and the opportunity to interact with peers and community members to create lasting connections founded on women’s empowerment.  

Launching the SACNAS Chapter at UMass Amherst

Nadia Fernandez (Graduate Student), Natasha De La Rosa-Rivera (Graduate Student), and Leah Travis-Taylor (Graduate Student)
The creation of a local chapter of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) at UMass Amherst. SACNAS promotes success in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), and facilitates the pursuit of academic degrees, careers, and positions of leadership from college students to professionals. Further, SACNAS provides a community of like-minded people who are interested in both science and culture, as well as a safe community to connect career background and cultural background. The Launch events this year will establish and increase membership for the campus chapter, build community and provide networking opportunities.

Disability Culture and Community: Past and Present 

Rachel Adams (Staff), Denny Bobot (Graduate Student), and Helene Grogan (Graduate Student)  
A year-long, disability speaker series to promote disability visibility and create opportunities for community-building. The series’ events include panelist from the UMass community, including current students, staff, faculty, and alumni who will discuss their disability identity and experiences at the university, and explore how disability intersects with other categories of identity such as gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and/or age. This series will offer spaces for critical reflection, and provide counter-narratives to address ableist conceptions by re-situating disability as a valued and celebrated part of diversity.

Faculty and Staff LGBTQIA Mentoring Program 

Tyler Bradley (Staff)
The program seeks to build bridges among LGBTQIA+ students and employees, with a large focus on career development, including, but not limited to: networking, resume review, interview skills, SMART goal setting, and navigating identity in hiring and the workplace. The pilot year includes undergraduate students living in the Spectrum Defined Residential Community, with the goal of expanding to more students the following year.

We Are For Freedoms: An exhibition and public program series at the University Museum of Contemporary Art (UMCA) 

Amanda Herman (Staff) and Loretta Yarlow (Staff)  
A broadening of the For Freedoms Town Hall of 2018, this interdisciplinary exhibition and program series—inspired by Norman Rockwell’s paintings of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms (1941)—will use art to deepen public discussions on civic issues and core values, and advocate for equality, dialogue, and civic participation. The series includes workshops and community conversations, and will present a multi-media interactive exhibition in the museum.  

“Can We Talk?” : Targeted workshops to promote understanding across difference 

Michele Cooke (Faculty) and Raquel Bryant (Graduate Student) 
A day of workshops with Dr. Kendall Moore, to facilitate conversations across difference among STEM faculty, staff, and Graduate students, to promote inclusive and supportive cultures for underrepresented students. Topics will include Allyship, isolation, and visibility, and will provide frameworks for mentorship and cohort relationships across ranks.  

Dinner with Du Bois 

Adam Holmes (Staff), Whitney Battle-Baptiste (Faculty) 
A monthly dinner series dedicated to engaging students of color from all across campus with the legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois, his relevance today, and the work of the Du Bois Center. Each session will begin with attendees reading Du Bois’ texts, followed by discussions of the texts and related topics. Attendees receive a free copy of The Souls of Black Folk. 

UMass Unions United Labor Chorus 

Donna Vanasse (Staff), Jackie Bishop (Staff), and Karen Lederer (Staff)  
This project establishes a labor chorus open to staff from all unions, as well as non-unit members, in order to build and maintain vital community connections among University staff, celebrate our diversity, promote inclusion, relieve stress, and build solidarity. Throughout the year the chorus will sing at campus events, in-person or virtual. 

AAPI in Leadership Panel Series 

Lily Tang (Undergraduate) and C.N. Le (Faculty)  
As national events have led to deeper conversations about race and opportunities to unpack our assumptions and acknowledge the complexities of our experiences, this series is intended to increase awareness of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community and their issues, and create a better understanding of diversity and build solidarity across underrepresented communities. This series will foster engagement, build community, and enhance understanding, by inviting the UMass community to engage in dialogue around social justice, diversity, and inclusion. It will also allow AAPI students the opportunity to engage with leaders across industries, and learn how to tap into their networks and platforms to promote positive change. 

Universal Design for Learning in Remote STEM Learning Environments 

Kelly McKeon (Graduate Student) and Forrest Bowlick (Faculty) 
A five-part remote workshop for STEM faculty and teaching assistants, dedicated to the design, implementation, and application of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in the STEM fields. This venture is a collaboration between CNS Faculty and Grad students, Faculty from the College of Education and staff affiliated with University Without Walls. The goal is to increase accessibility and inclusivity for students with disabilities. 

Accessibility Inclusion and Disability Etiquette – A.I.D.E. 

Jeffrey Edelstein (Graduate Student) and David Paquette (Graduate Student) 
A series of online trainings centered around disability inclusion and equity, through the lens of the social model of disability. The trainings will explore concepts of disability identity, ableism, microaggressions, and their impact on inclusion and accessible design. The trainings will focus heavily on disability etiquette, and the best ways to treat members of the disabled community inclusively and respectfully, and will push members of the community to consider how ableist attitudes and environments further exacerbate challenges to accessibility and inclusion. 

Making Art Yours

Karen Kurczynski, Art History (Faculty)
With Amanda Herman and Loretta Yarlow, UMCA (Staff), and Sid Ferreira, SACL (Staff)
This project aims to bring small groups of students into the University Museum of Contemporary Art to have a facilitated, personal conversation about art, accessibility, and identity. Groups of ca. 10 students each will share a casual dinner, provide critical commentary on the museum displays in regard to their clarity and inclusivity, and then share a small-group dialogue with myself and my co-facilitator, Sid Ferreira from Student Affairs. Two sessions will take place in the Fall (on Oct. 29 and Nov. 20, respectively), and two more in the Spring. Amanda Herman, Education Curator at the UMCA, is also helping facilitate this project, which is co-sponsored by the History of Art and Architecture Department and the UMCA.

Caring with a Purpose: Raising Awareness of Diversity in Healthcare

Heather Hamilton PhD, RN, Nursing (Faculty)
With Lisa Sommers, Communication Disorders (Faculty) and UMass Nursing Students Kyla Aldred, Lauren Barry, Megan Coughlan, Annie Dolan, Mia Ford,  Dylan Ha, Anna Kemp, Shauna Mahan, Jess McHugh,Erin Murphy,Clarissa Norton,Olivia Olsen,  Daniella Puche, Renee Ribecca,Colin Ryder,Samvit Pisal, Serena Silva and Maddi Terry
UMass Nursing students will work to spread awareness of disparities in healthcare, to make patient care more purposeful and effective for all, regardless of the patient’s background. “Caring with a Purpose,” focuses on educating future healthcare practitioners on the differences among patients, communicating about the drawbacks of subconscious biases, and ultimately the strides needed to diminish unequal medical treatment.

Using Feature Films to Open Up Conversations About Race in America—Past and Present

Benita J. Barnes, College of Education (Faculty)
With Sarah Fefer and Jennifer Randall, College of Education (Faculty)
While movies that deal with issues of race, class, ethnicity, gender, religion, and sexual orientation can serve as tools for creating opportunities for conversations, discussions, and learning, these conversations rarely happen organically. The purpose of this film series is to provide a forum for the College of Education community—faculty, staff, students—to come together to have conversations and achieve a greater understanding of difference. Over the course of the Fall, 2019 Semester, three movies will be viewed and discussed.

SPHHS Faculty Round Table

Nathaniel Whitmal, SPHHS (Faculty)
With Daniel Gerber, SPHHS (Faculty)
This project revives an informal seminar series in SPHHS, in which faculty proposed articles or videos to read/watch and discuss together. We will hold three lunch meetings to review articles and videos addressing topics of diversity and inclusion, including privilege and climate, the influence of stereotypes, and respectful communication.  Discussions will relate the media content to personal experiences in the classroom and workplace.

Sustainable Food Security for Students

Laura Hancock, OEB (Graduate Student)
With Eli Briskin, Student
This project consists of two main parts. First, it creates a “Food Justice Symposium” to provide awareness & education about food insecurity, and informs people about campus resources, especially student led initiatives. Second, it expands the capacity and efforts of the Student Food Pantry (SFP) to include needed fresh, healthy, and/or hot‐meal options. In both parts, the focus is on student to‐student education and student-led resources.

Voices of UMass

Peggy M. Woods and Anne Bello, Writing Center (Staff)
With Anna Floch Arcello and Anna Rita Napoleone, Writing Center (Staff)
We all have stories about our lives and sharing our stories is what connects us to one another. This groundbreaking six-week writing workshop invites UMass students and workers to explore and develop their voices, together, with a goal of sharing back their creative work with the campus community and beyond. Participants will identify a specific event or moment from their lives and develop it into a short piece to share with others. Class meetings will be a mix of writing exercises and activities to generate ideas and will include time for writing, and receiving feedback in a safe, supportive, non-judgmental setting. Participants will have the option of sharing their pieces in multiple ways: a digital recording, a public reading at the Building Bridges Showcase, or a memoir piece to be published in a collection to be distributed to the campus community, etc. Class time will also include the recording or editing of pieces. The final class meeting will be a celebration of our stories!

Picturing the Future of STEM

Nessim Watson CNS (Staff)
With Elizabeth Connor, CNS (Faculty), Tracie Gibson, CNS (Faculty), Erika Dawson-Head, CICS (Staff), and Paula Rees, Engineering (Faculty)
This project will create photo galleries of individuals and small groups of STEM students—from the College of Engineering, the College of Information and Computer Sciences, and the College of Natural Science—who are engaged in research or other experiential learning. These galleries will showcase the work and contributions of First-generation students and students from URM populations, to help create greater feelings of belonging and connection.

Women and Gender Non-binary People’s Leadership: Identity & Radical Self Care

Dee Boyle-Clapp, HFA (Staff), Staff
With Terre Vandale, HFA (Staff) and Hind Mari CWC (Staff)
This collaborative project, created by the Arts Extension Service and Women of Color Leadership Network (WOCLN) and faculty from the Music Department, will host a series of leadership development workshops, open to women and non‐binary folks, cultivating leadership qualities through identity expression and radical self‐care. The workshop series builds on the commonalities between artmaking and leadership, and offers tools to resist the glass ceiling that keeps women from attaining the leadership roles that men hold. The grant helps support to cultivate leadership qualities through a range of artistic or expressive modalities.

Books-to-Movies: Banned Books on Film Series

Ilse Allen, Libraries - Mt Ida (Staff)
With Laurence Mini and , Libraries - Mt Ida (Staff), and Margaret Felis, Residential Life – Mt Ida (Staff)
This series serves to connect students, staff, and faculty on the Mount Ida Campus through collectively reading a number of banned books, followed by discussion sessions about several related films throughout the 2019‐2020 AY. Student participants will join academic staff and faculty in small groups to discuss the major themes and issues around the titles, with in‐depth discussions of the film and books, the “banned” or “objectionable” materials, and how these books figure into discussions related to free speech and social justice themes related to their banned status.

Migration through Film & Facilitation Series

Leyla Keough, Institute of Diversity Sciences (Staff)
With Rebecca Hamlin and Scott Blinder, Migration Studies Working Group (Faculty), Kirsten Helmer, Center for Teaching and Learning (Faculty)
The purpose of this film and facilitation series is to promote better understanding and empathy for migrants, and to build and practice our skill at speaking about contentious issues across multiple perspectives. Facilitations will involve questioning the film’s representation of migration and migrants, compared to participants’ views and scholarship. We will explore how geography, citizenship, class, gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity, race and religion feature in these representations and in our community’s understandings. We see this as an opportunity for our campus community to practice speaking with dignity and respect to issues of inclusion and equity.

Narrative - UMass

Theodore Eagle (Student)
With Sophia Eytel (Student)
With the goal of eventually establishing a Narrative 4 chapter at UMass, select students and faculty will participate in an initial story exchange and will subsequently be trained as facilitators. The trained UMass facilitators will then be equipped with the necessary skills to facilitate story exchanges on campus to establish deep interpersonal connections across difference. There will be a core group of Narrative 4 facilitators who will eventually conduct an exchange every month and have monthly facilitator meetings.

International Graduate Students in STEM Initiative

Jennifer McDermott, Psychology (Faculty)
With Erika Dawson-Head, CICS (Staff), and Paula Rees, Engineering (Faculty)
This project aims to promote cohesion in support for international graduate students in STEM across CNS, COE and CICS and facilitate the ability for students to advocate through a formal and sustainable organization (e.g. a graduate student organization, GSO). This will be accomplished in two ways: first, to pilot a novel peer mentoring structure to connect more organically with international graduate students across CNS, COE and CICS in order to explore the creation of a formal self‐advocacy structure for international graduate students in STEM (i.e. a graduate student organization, GSO). Second, to convene key faculty/administrators across CNS, COE and CISC to develop best practices for supporting international graduate students in STEM.

Creating Judgement-Free Interactions Using Improvisation: Building Flexibility and Acceptance into our Work Day

Nancy Stewart, UMass Innovation Institute (Staff)
With Chris Burnett (Staff) and Martina Nieswandt (Faculty), Research and Engagement
Through improvisation training for staff and faculty from the different departments of Research & Engagement (R&E), the Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS), and Business Manager participants will learn how to meet change and challenges at work with greater flexibility and to practice tools that help to reframe changes at work – to handle them as judgment-free events rather than obstacles.

Passion For Justice Conference

Linell Kate Peralta (Student)
With Sonali Chigurupati (Student), and Victoria Ung (Student)  
Named after the 1993 documentary of our center’s namesake, “Yuri Kochiyama: A Passion for Justice,” this conference will bring together students, alumni, faculty and staff for a day long Saturday conference and luncheon in order to work together to build cross campus partnerships and dialogues on issues that are important to fostering a better campus climate. The goal of this conference is to have conversations across intersectional identities and issues. We will outreach to campus agencies and RSOs to host a series of workshops for participants to attend and learn from.

Yuri Kochiyama was an activist who was famed for working across differences and supporting efforts of not only Asian Americans, but also the efforts of African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. As such, we hope to create an annual conference for the YKCC with the same values of our namesake.

Drummers as Trendsetters and the Legacy of Max Roach

Yvonne Mendez, Fine Arts Center (Staff)
This conversation will focus on drummers making real music, and paying homage to the renowned drummer and former UMass faculty member Max Roach. His life and legacy will be presented in two panels: the first on October 23rd will focus on his musical artistry and will feature Terri Lyne Carrington, Makaya McCraven (protege and UMass alumni), and Sonia Sanchez. The second panel will take place on October 24th and will feature Maxine Roach (musician and daughter of Max Roach), Herb Boyd, Sonia Sanchez, and a concert by Teri Lyne Carrington.

Library to Promote Interdepartmental Experiences

Erin Flanagan, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (Staff)
With Erica Light, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (Staff) and Mariana Brena (Graduate Student)
By making improvements to the elevator lobby space on the 10th floor of LGRT outside the BMB department’s office wing, this project will invite individual reflection and to elicit friendly and meaningful interactions between members of communities that have few intentional spaces and opportunities to interact, and will introduce BMB undergraduates, graduate students, staff, and faculty, and members of neighboring departments in LGRT to each other, to the space, and to the intentions set for the space. This area is being developed into a communal work space, and the grant award will be used to purchase books, including Blindspot and What If I Say The Wrong Thing, for a communal public library. An inaugural event will introduce BMB community members and neighbors to the further developed space and a culminating event to wrap up the readings of the year.

Saloonee Adhikari, undergraduate student, UMass First-Generation and Low-Income Guidebook
A guidebook for UMass first-generation and low-income (FLI) students would serve as a vital resource to help students navigate their experience and improve their sense of belonging on campus. The guide would be written from a peer-to-peer perspective, allowing for first-gen and low-income peers who understand the nuances to give advice to other first-gen and low-income students. This would help FLI students feel a deeper sense of community at UMass, which is an essential component of creating a positive campus climate.

Mitch Boucher, Jacqueline Castledine, Julie Skogsbergh, faculty, Social Justice at the Intersections - Storytelling for Community Building Across Difference
Proposed by University Without Walls, this project will allow its participants to engage in a year-long dialogue to promote understanding of differences by producing and listening to personal narratives. Local community activists, faculty, staff, and students in the UWW program are invited to get involved through a series of workshops that teach oral interviewing, podcasting, and the uses of art as mediums for storytelling, collaboration, active listening, and conflict resolution. The proposed activities will promote a culture of effective listening and sharing of stories that will help to encourage understanding of each other and a healthy working and learning environment both within the UWW program and in the campus' collaborative relationships with community organizations. 

Christine Burnett, staff, Pass It On Book Circle
The Pass It On Book Circle is intended to encourage groups from across campus to read and discuss the same book: “Blind Spot, Hidden Biases of Good People” by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald. The book explores the hidden biases we each carry and encourages all to examine their attitudes about things such as ethnicity, gender, social class, disability status, and more. More than 20 copies will be available for use by a new reading group every two months. Groups will have 8-10 weeks to complete the book followed by a facilitated discussion. By reading and discussing the book, participants have an opportunity to engage in discussions across differences, build relationships, and think critically about hidden biases everyone has, recognizing them and promoting better understanding and improved relationships with people who are different from themselves.

Madeleine Charney and Jonathan Crowley, staff, Mindfulness for All
This eight-week series of one-hour sessions will offer secular mindfulness activities such as breathing, gratitude practice, music, mindful movement, contemplative listening, walking meditation, and more. The Mindfulness for All series invites all to participate in activities that may help reduce stress, contributing to the overall positive climate on campus, including in working and studying environments. The group is open to all and will be promoted widely across campus to ensure that everyone, including people from all levels of staff, people of color, transgender people, and differently-abled people, are aware of the opportunity to participate.

Iris Chelaru, staff, Mentorship Program for Campus IT Professionals
This pilot program connects UMass Amherst staff with information technology responsibilities across campus into a supportive community that promotes the sharing of professional and institutional knowledge, problem-solving using diverse perspectives, and career development. The program will be open to anyone with formal and informal IT responsibilities on campus, including but not limited to classified and professional staff. By expanding the boundaries of what's defined as an IT professional, the program will connect more campus groups and challenge a historically monolithic field with limited gender and racial diversity. This group will start a discussion about mentoring and will connect UMass Amherst staff with information technology responsibilities across campus into a community that promotes the sharing of professional and institutional knowledge, problem-solving using diverse perspectives, and career development.

Isabel Espinal and Pete Smith, staff, It Takes a Village to Mentor and Recruit Librarians of Color
The intent of this project is to inform UMass students of color about careers in library science and the importance of increasing diversity in this field. UMass librarians will provide informational sessions and one-on-one mentoring to build relationships with students and teach them more about the library as an inclusive space and library science as a potential career. In addition to mentorship activities with library staff, students will be invited to events in which recent graduates from Master of Library Science programs share their experiences. The project organizers will partner with the Afro American Studies Department, CMASS, and the SBS Academic Fellows program to facilitate positive and productive relationships with students of color across campus as well as a communication pipeline to inform those students about these events.

Keisha Green, faculty, NEPR Media Lab
The NEPR Media Lab is a free afterschool training program in broadcast journalism and radio and web production for high school students in Springfield and Holyoke. Undergraduate students from the journalism department serve as college interns for the program. During the program, high school students develop basic journalism and broadcast skills, including news and commentary writing, on-air announcing, and audio editing. Through this project, college and high school students will work to create and share podcasts with the UMass Amherst community to inspire intergroup dialogue and critical discussions related to the campus climate. The goal is to improve access to STEM programs for communities of color and ultimately create a more inclusive campus. Additionally, the audio content funded through this grant will educate the wide community about issues facing students of color at UMass.

Kirsten Helmer, faculty, First-Year Student Learning Community for Neurodiverse Students 
Co-Awardees: Undergraduate student leaders Kaitlin McCarthy and Catherine McEachern, staff and faculty liaisons Anne Ciecko (communication), Kirsten Helmer (Institute for Teaching Excellence & Faculty Development), Ashley Woodman (psychological and brain sciences), and Rebecca Francione (disability services) 
The learning community will provide structured support for neurodiverse first-year students who transition from a high-support secondary school environment into the university environment. In this instance, neurodiversity is defined in terms of creating awareness, acceptance, and appreciation of neurocognitive and social/behavioral difference such as autism, ADHD/ADD, dyslexia, and more. This year-long learning community will offer a space for neurodiverse students to come together, share experiences and resources, and support each other with the college transition process. The group will meet every week for one hour in an effort to increase a sense of belonging, support, and validation of invisible and less visible difference as constitutive of intersectional identities.

Bryan Monesson-Olson, faculty, Increase STEM Content Accessibility for Students
Project Team: Bryan Monesson-Olson (biochemistry and molecular biology), Kelsey Hall (assistive technology coordinator), Dennis Spencer (3D print services W.E.B. Dubois Digital Media Lab), Lara Al Hariri (chemistry), and Brokk Toggerson (physics)
The focus of this project is to increase STEM content accessibility for students, with the ultimate goal of increasing participation and retention in STEM majors for students with disabilities. STEM content is typically presented in two-dimensional illustrations, but the project team believes they can make these concepts and objects accessible for blind and low vision students by creating 3D models of physics, chemistry, and biological concepts and objects. Once created, the 3D models can be shared online to assist visually impaired students across the globe. In addition to students with disabilities, and in line with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, these materials would provide a new modality for diverse populations of students taking STEM classes.

Daniel Morales, graduate student, Promoting Our Wealth and Educational Resilience (POWER): Recognizing Community Cultural Wealth Through Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies​
POWER is a support group aimed at promoting a welcoming and sustaining environment for racially and linguistically diverse students and faculty on campus. To do this, the group will advocate for a curriculum within the College of Education that integrates racially and linguistically diverse topics and issues in all graduate courses. POWER will draw from ideas presented in the textbook “Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies,” which will be discussed by the support group, which will include 12 students and three faculty members from across the College of Education. This model can then be used within other schools and colleges at UMass Amherst.

Ivory Moulton, undergraduate student, Thank A Service Worker 
The Thank a Service Worker Project proposes linking students to dining hall workers in moments of gratitude. A “thank you card” station would be created with the help of SGA. The goal is to help students promote community by learning the names of the staff members who work in their dining hall and show gratitude for each service worker.

Aisha Murdaugh, staff, Disability Services Film Series 
The Disability Services Film Series will include three movie screenings followed by facilitated discussions. Staff members from Disability Services will recruit and organize interested UMass community members who experience disability to be part of a panel of students. Prior to a film screening, this group of panelists will briefly share a little about themselves and individual experiences as students with disabilities within the UMass community. The film shown will relate to college students with disabilities and will be shown with the goal of provoking thought and discussion around common challenges and experiences faced within a university setting.

Sonny Nordmarken, graduate student, Transgender Studies Mutual Mentoring Graduate Seminar 
The Transgender Studies Mutual Mentoring Graduate Seminar will offer a supportive, generative space where participants can present their research and get feedback from other emerging scholars in the field and foster mutual mentoring and encouragement among graduate students to help them make progress on their research projects. The seminar will meet during the 2018-19 academic year for six separate two-hour meetings. Faculty, staff, and undergraduates working in transgender studies in any discipline across the Five Colleges will also be invited to participate. This seminar, as a year-long effort, will help retain trans studies scholars and trans scholars (both graduate students and faculty) at UMass, which will also help retain trans undergraduate students and staff.

Autumn Phaneuf, graduate student, Engineering International and Immigrant Family Dinners
A community of support will be created through seven family dinners for international and immigrant graduate and undergraduate students in the College of Engineering. During these dinners, students will have a chance to connect with one another and meet peers who may have similar experiences. In addition, the dinners will include discussions and presentations on topics relevant to these students, including how to handle being homesick, ways to find common ground for inclusion and belonging, understanding the expectations of the U.S. education system, dealing with prejudice, and more. The final dinner will be an International Celebration Night open to the whole community within the College of Engineering as a way to foster connection across difference.

David Reinhard, faculty, Bridging the Great Divide: Democrat-Republican Rivalry and Its Consequences for Diversity, Disparity, and Inclusion on Campus 
Through this project, there will be several conversation groups at the undergraduate level, graduate student level, staff and faculty level to start discussions about political diversity in the UMass Amherst community. Educational materials will be developed to assist people as they learn how to manage political diversity and rivalry in a constructive manner that avoids polarization.

Korka Sall, graduate student, Bi-weekly Inter-departmental Brown Bag Series of African Graduate Students and Scholars
The goal of the bi-weekly Brown Bag Series is to share expertise from African scholars with UMass students in a format and space that is open to the whole campus community. The series will promotes debate, understanding, and learning, as well as celebrate African scholarship on campus, educating the campus community on research projects focusing on solving various issues different countries of the African continent are facing now. The speakers of the series come from diverse backgrounds but share successful embracing of differences and promoting inclusion. Of special importance is the fact that the series of discussions will be happening during the lunch time over the catered lunch thus highlighting one of the important features of African cultures as bringing together the community over the shared food.

Aurora Santiago-Ortiz, graduate student, Intergroup Study Circle
A diverse group of undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty will come together to engage in a series of facilitated discussions on issues of social justice that are intersectional and relevant to academic life and campus culture. Readings from the book “Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds” and other media will be discussed using intergroup dialogue practices, with the goal of building an inclusive and diverse community on campus and providing the opportunity for communication and learning across differences. Participants will be encouraged to use what they learn in the group, along with their own strengths and experiences, to create tangible action steps and proposals to meet the needs of various constituencies on campus.

Lily Tang, undergraduate student, Asian American Film Festival
The project consists of organizing UMass Asian American Film Festival to showcase three films by Asian American filmmakers who will be visiting campus as well. The film screenings will be followed by the discussion on how the filmmakers use their platform to spread knowledge and awareness of different social and historical issues. The organizers will select films/filmmakers who hold multiple identities (gender, sex, ability, etc.) outside of being Asian American in order to highlight how their intersectional identities impact the work they do. The main audience for the festival will be undergraduate students, but the event will be open to the whole campus community and will present an opportunity for all attendees to bond through a shared experience and spark conversation about issues of representation and diversity as well as what it means for UMass to not only celebrate diversity but also genuinely commit to the work. The goal is to empower participants to realize that they can tap into their networks and platforms in order to be a voice for change, as these filmmakers have used their craft to do so.

Loretta Yarlow, staff, For Freedoms Town Hall
This grant would help support two days of public lectures, artist visits, and a culminating public Town Hall art event with internationally-known artists, activists, and founders of For Freedoms Hank Willis-Thomas and Eric Gottesman. For Freedoms is the first artist-run super PAC, which is dedicated to using art as a catalyst for public critical discourse. It is in part inspired by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vision of the four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The series of campus-wide events will introduce the work of these artists. Using their model, the series will provide a platform to collectively examine these four freedoms and how they impact students’ experiences on campus. The primary goal includes offering an outlet for considering how personal and collective freedoms are impacted on campus, provide a structure of engagement that can be easily replicated, and build a network of like-minded people across campus who can continue to work together after these events.