Many departments, curricula, centers and programs across the College of Arts and Sciences foster  faculty and student diversity and provide opportunities to learn about different backgrounds and cultures from diverse perspectives. Here are some highlights:

 

  • Academic Advising Program: Partnered with N.C. A & T University to host a professional national advising conference at UNC to highlight diversity in academic advising. Presented a program to Upward Bound Students and  co-sponsored  lunches for UNC professionals focusing on issues relating to gender, race, religious beliefs, socioeconomic matters, nationality, and mental health.
  • Center for Student Success and Academic Counseling: Is dedicated to promoting academic excellence by assisting students in achieving their academic goals.  Provides support for students from varied backgrounds in developing the skills and strategies needed to achieve academic success.
  • Department of African and Afro-American Studies: Recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of establishing this academic field at UNC.  Some of the former UNC students involved in promoting African and Afro-American studies then were invited back to campus to share their perspective with today’s  colleagues and students.
  • Department of American Studies: Began offering a concentration in American Indian Studies as an academic major and minor.
  • Department of Anthropology: Focuses on the study of diverse human beings, cultures and societies at all times and places.
  • Department of Asian Studies: Explores the cultures and languages of Asia including: Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi-Urdu, Japanese, Korean and Persian.  Hosted speakers and films on Israel, Palestine, China, Korea, Turkey and Iran and sponsored  a symposium on South Asia.
  • Department of Chemistry: Professor Joseph DeSimone received the 2010 Mentor Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for mentoring 34 minorities and women doctoral candidates in chemistry. He and Professor Valerie Ashby launched a Chapel Hill chapter of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers, and Ashby chaired the College’s Diversity Task Force.
  • Department of Dramatic Art: Commissioned alumnus Mike Wiley to create and produce “The Parchman Hour,” a play about the civil rights-era FreedomRides, with an all-student cast.  The play was performed at UNC, in Mississippi, and as part of  PlayMakers Repertory Company’s 2011/12 season.
  • Department of English and Comparative Literature : Pulitzer-Prize-wining African American writer Edward P. Jones was the 2010 Morgan Writer in Residence.  The department also includes one of the top African American literature programs in the country and the first program in the South to offer an academic minor in Latina/Latino studies.
  • Department of Geography: Focuses on teaching and exploring the human, social, environmental and physical geography of regions throughout the world.
  • Department of History:  Sponsored several major events to foster awareness and understanding of historical diversity including workshops on gender and history, an annual conference on “New Perspectives on African American History and Culture,” and programs on “The Long Civil Rights Movement.” The department provided funding to the Southern Oral History Program to help document the 50th anniversary conference celebrating the founding of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a project carried out in collaboration with Duke University.
  • Department of Music: Department chair Terry Rhodes and undergraduate Andrew Lu won diversity won 2011 University Diversity Awards from the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs for “significant contributions to the enhancement, support and/or furtherance of diversity on the campus and in the community.”
  • Department of Physics and Astronomy: Professor and former chair Laurie McNeil won the College of Arts and Sciences Bill Little Award for distinguished leadership and service, including her work to advance opportunities for women in science. She was instrumental in developing the Working on Women in the Sciences (WOWS) initiative and she served as one of the first WOWS Scholars.
  • Department of Political Science: Launched a multi-year speaker series featuring African American political scientists.
  • Department of Psychology: The department has successfully recruited additional minority faculty in recent years. In addition, a major external grant for research focusing on “Black Child Development” has provided support for doctoral students and attracted minority graduate students who are interested in this issue.
  • Department of Public Policy:  Projects undertaken by the department’s Policy Clinic and practicum in the community have attracted an increasing number and proportion of minority students to the academic major.  Practicum examples include a number of policy analysis projects with the Durham Housing Authority, Boys and Girls Clubs of Durham, and others directly engaging with and benefiting underrepresented minorities.
  • Department of Religious Studies: Faculty strengths include expertise on the history and practice of diverse religions including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and the religions of Asia and the Americas.
  • Department of  Sociology: Considered one of the top programs in the country, its faculty strengths include expertise in social inequality, marriage and family, aging, the changing workforce and economy, religion, formal organizations, sex and gender, social movements, population and migration, poverty and welfare, medical sociology, social networks, education and political sociology.
  • Department of Women’s Studies: Teaches and explores the complexities of defining women and understanding gender while also emphasizing related issues including race, class and sexuality. Classes include, for example: African gender history, the international politics of reproductive and sexual health, and women’s spirituality across cultures.
  • First Year Seminar Program: Many of the seminars address diversity topics:  Africa’s Bumpy Road to Democracy; Defining Blackness: National and International Approaches to African American Identity; Masquerades of Blackness; Research and Community Engagement in Chicago’s Black Metropolis; Introduction to African American Art ; Collective Leadership for Community Change; Discrimination and Sport; Ideology and Revolution in Latin America; The Political Economy of African American Music; Race, Sex and Place in America; Spanish and Entrepreneurship: Languages, Cultures, and North Carolina Communities; Immigration in Contemporary America .
  • Global Programs: The College includes eight centers, institutes, and programs that focus on  international and/or regional teaching, research, engagement and study abroad.
  • Institute for the Study of the Americas: Continued its Latino Migration Project to examine the impact and implications of the expanding Latina/o presence in North Carolina. The project hosted a series of community conferences, films, lectures and a service-learning course where faculty, students, staff and community members discussed critical issues.
  • Office of Undergraduate Education:  Sponsored a brown-bag lunch series on academic, wellness and engagement including discussions on the needs and interests of students from different religious and ethnic backgrounds, LGBTQ students, first-generation college students and transfer students, and students  with LD/ADHD. The office also supports programs promoting community, cultural identity, and a sense of belonging at Carolina.
  • Office for Undergraduate Researchhas two high-profile programs that increase research opportunities for under-represented minorities. Through a major grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, OUR provides financial support for 12 Carolina Covenant Scholars to engage in research during two consecutive summers.  The National Science Foundation-supported Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation mentors and encourages minorities to pursue research careers.
    • Program in Sexuality Studies: This academic minor is designed for students interested in exploring the study of sexual/gender identities, as well as the full range of human sexual behaviors and identities in diverse cultures and historical periods.