WASHINGTON - The American Council on Education announced today that the 2017 ACE State Network Leadership Award will be given to the Difference, Power and Discrimination program at Oregon State University.

This program was created in 1992 as a response to several bias incidents on campus. It works with all OSU faculty to develop inclusive curricula that address institutionalized systems of power, privilege, and inequity in the United States.

Since its launch, more than 200 faculty members, the majority of whom are women, have participated in the DPD Academy, and thousands of OSU undergraduates have taken related courses. The program helps raise consciousness about sexism as a system of oppression and its intersections with racism and other forms of oppression.

The award will be presented at ACE's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on March 11. Susan Capalbo, senior vice provost for academic affairs and Nana Osei-Kofi, director of the Difference, Power and Discrimination Program, will accept the award.

While there is wide variation in institutional diversity requirements across U.S. higher education, Osei-Kofi said, OSU's program is unique in that courses must center on the United States; explicitly address issues of power; and be completed by students in addition to a diversity requirement.

"This is about understanding our time in history, the social, political and economic climate we live in, and our role in that," Osei-Kofi said. "Work in DPD courses is really about providing students with tools for critical analysis of the world and the space they occupy in it."

Lynn M. Gangone, vice president of ACE Leadership, said that the OSU program "is an excellent example of a program that is confronting these challenging issues in an intentional and thoughtful way."

 

Story By: 

Kelli Meyer, 202-939-9328; [email protected]

Source: 

Nana Osei-Kofi, 541-737-2824 or [email protected]

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