Change Makers
For more than 30 years, the Women’s Center has championed broad diversity, equity and inclusion efforts on behalf of Northwestern staff, faculty, and students. Since 2013, the Women's Center has sponsored a dialogue based series entitled, Change Makers. The Center staff developed the program in response to Northwestern staff and faculty members who were interested in engaging in personal journeys of social identity exploration over the course of an academic year. Primarily focusing on the social construct of race, the Change Makers curriculum is based on the Intergroup Dialogue (IGD) model developed by social scientists at the University of Michigan. The program is designed to supplement participants’ professional development and their ongoing commitments to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion here at Northwestern.
The Change Makers program predates the establishment of the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, and the office’s subsequent efforts to better align, communicate and coordinate University-wide diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and programming. In 2016, the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, Faculty and Human Resources began co-sponsoring the program allowing it to flourish but after six years, the program outgrew the capacity of the Women’s Center’s.
During the 2019 - 2020 academic year, the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion and Human Resources charged a committee to review Change Makers’ mission, operations, and desired impact moving forward. The review committee, co-chaired by Steve Adams and Francesca Gaiba, drew upon the 300+ staff and faculty who have participated in the program as their experiences and the program’s evaluation data informed the program’s future.
The review committee will publish their findings and the programs' recommended refinements in the Summer of 2020 and Change Makers, now an initiative within the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, will re-launch in the Fall quarter of 2020.
Charge
The Change Makers Committee will convene monthly between September 2019 and June 2020 to address the following objectives:
- To review current program components including application, selection, curriculum, facilitation, assessment, and ongoing engagement of participants and alumni; this would include an analysis and consideration of consultant, facilitator and participant demographics, and any impact on content and program delivery and efficacy both short and long-term.
- To explore alternative program models which may include benchmarking among peers
- To submit a report on findings and recommendations
Sponsors
Committee Members
- Francesca Gaiba (Co-Chair), Associate Director and Research Associate Professor, Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing
- Steven Adams (Co-Chair), Librarian for Academic Engagement, University Library
- Alex Birdwell, Associate Professor of Instruction and Academic Advisor for Undergraduate Engineering, McCormick
- Alex Rot, Senior Director for Faculty Operations, Office of the Provost
- Ana Maria Acosta, Associate Professor of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine
- Beth Bennett, Associate Dean, Medill School of Journalism
- Drew Clover, Library Assistant for Access Services, University Library
- Gina Logan, Assistant Professor for School of Education and Social Policy, School of Professional Studies
- Haydee Martinez, Lieutenant for Northwestern University Police Department
- John Dorr, Department Head for Research Services, University Library
- John E. Franklin, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine
- Kate Harrington Rosen, Equity Outreach and Education Specialist for Office of Equity, Office of the Provost
- Kathleen Dillon Narko, Professor of Instruction (Communication and Legal Reasoning), Pritzker School of Law
- Khalilah Gates, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Pulmonary Division, Feinberg School of Medicine
- Lee West, Director of Undergraduate Education, Office of the Provost
- Maureen Knight-Burrrell, Application Systems Manager for Administrative Systems, NUIT
- Michele Rogers, Assistant Professor, Kellogg School of Management
- Nancy L. Ruggeri, Director for Graduate and Postdoctoral Learning, Searle Center
- Omar Christopher Negron, Senior Technical Support Specialist for Technology Support Services, NUIT
- Stefanie Hicks, Talent Acquisition Partner, Office of Human Resources
- Stephanie Teterycz, Director of Operations, Chemistry, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
- Sumitrajit Dhar, Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders, School of Communication
- Theo Downs, Manager for User Support Services, Office for Research Information Technology
- Tiffany Simons Chan, Systems Analyst Associate, Kellogg School of Management
- Veronic Y. Womack, Project Administrator, Searle Center