Carnegie Mellon University
November 03, 2020

Program Aims To Enhance Inclusive Teaching

Provost's Inclusive Teaching Fellows explore ways to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in CMU's course offerings

By Heidi Opdyke

Jason Maderer
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Julie Mattera
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A new program at Carnegie Mellon University is providing support to faculty to help students thrive in more inclusive classroom experiences.

The Provost's Inclusive Teaching Fellows (PITF) provides a $5,000 fellowship for an academic year for faculty who are working with the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation to develop and disseminate new approaches to inclusive and equitable teaching in their classrooms. The program, announced in December 2019, was designed and implemented by the Eberly Center and is co-funded by the Office of the Provost and a gift from the Posner Foundation of Pittsburgh that funds elements of academic success.

Christina Bjorndahl, special faculty of philosophy; Felipe Gómez, teaching professor of Hispanic studies; and Necia Werner, associate teaching professor of English are the PITF recipients from the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

"As the national conversation pivots to finding real-world solutions to racial and cultural inequity, we saw this as an opportunity to operationalize our commitment to inclusion and quickly identified the classroom as one of the most, if not the most, critical venues to be discussing and demonstrating the practice and benefits of full inclusion and equity in our community," said James H. Garrett, Jr., provost and chief academic officer for CMU.

In addition, the program is one of the Strategic Actions for Confronting Racism and Promoting Equity and Inclusion announced this summer aimed at engaging every member of the CMU community to work together to build and sustain an inclusive culture that promotes equity for all and is intolerant of racism, discrimination and bias.

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