Award for Innovative International Initiatives

The Office for International Initiatives in the College of Education and Human Development was instrumental in enabling an interdisciplinary group of faculty to travel to Brazil and form lasting collaborations.

In September 2018, eleven faculty from ten different degree programs traveled to Brazil to participate in the 5th World Conference on Remedies to Racial and Ethnic Economic Inequality. Before the conference, the delegation made a number of visits to communities and organizations to discuss indigenous rights, immigration, and education policies. During the conference, this diverse group of faculty participated in panel discussions, presented research, and engaged in important discussions with faculty at the host institution in Brazil.

For many faculty, this experience was the first time in their careers they had the opportunity to engage with one another in often difficult conversations about discrimination, racism, oppression, and inequality. Together they explored how the shared lens of their scholarship could be applied to study these issues with communities at home and abroad.