ICAT Playdate - Reimagining diVersiTy
Reimagining diVersiTy is a transdisciplinary team of faculty, staff, and students who engage in a critical reframing of traditional approaches to diversity. Historically, institutional practices of diversity have tended to appeal primarily to the social sciences and humanities, whether to embrace or critique said practices. We recognize that in order for diversity practices to be effective, they need to appeal to a larger audience and engage their multiple perspectives and experiences to move forward in a more equitable way. By developing a proprietary model that utilizes a decolonial and technological framework, Reimagining diVersiTy demonstrates the importance of technology to diversity and diversity to technology. We have been able to demonstrate the flexibility of our model through the creation of immersive experiences with a number of stakeholders, including the VT Science Festival, where our technology interns recreated immersive versions of exhibits to make them more accessible; the Ujima Living Learning Community for Black students at Virginia Tech interested in the history of race on campus; and the Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) Senior Design Program in the development of a recruitment platform for the purpose of attracting a more diverse student body to their department. These and other ongoing initiatives position Reimagining diVersiTy as an organization that is and will be instrumental in bridging the gap between diversity and technology and technology and diversity in both theory and practice.
Speakers: Quentin Baldwin, Rafael Patrick, Todd Ogle, Andrea Baldwin
Date: February 26, 2021
Time: 9am est