Featured this month
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Holiday greetings from OEDI
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Register now for the 2024 Diversity Forum, Jan. 23-24
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Scholarship opportunities for disability advocates
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Prevention at Pitt posts upcoming events
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LGBTQIA+ committee has support from ‘top down’
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Meet Autumn Amoroso
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Holiday greetings from OEDI ...
and best wishes for 2024
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As the semester winds to a close, Vice Chancellor Clyde Pickett and members of the OEDI staff are wishing everyone a safe and happy new year. “We encourage you to spend time with those that you are close to, and recharge,” he says. View the video now.
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Register now for the 2024 Diversity Forum
Two dynamic, nationally known speakers will headline the University of Pittsburgh’s 2024 Diversity Forum.
Remarks will be delivered by Feminista Jones (above left), an award-winning writer, public speaker, community activist, and retired social worker; and the Rev. Dr. William Barber II (above right), a social activist, Protestant minister, and founding director of the Center for Public Theology & Public Policy at Yale Divinity School.
Registration is now open for the two-day event, to be held Jan. 23 and 24 in online format. The event is free and open to the public.
The theme for this year’s Diversity Forum is “Amplifying Our Voices Through Active Listening and Constructive Dialogue.” The theme builds on 2023-24 being designated “The Year of Discourse and Dialogue” at the University of Pittsburgh.
“We are extremely excited to welcome Dr. William Barber and Feminista Jones to this signature event at the University of Pittsburgh,” said Chance Wideman, OEDI director of equity & inclusion programs.
“We’re eager to learn about their experiences facilitating productive dialogue and discourse around difficult topics, and we think their remarks are going to stimulate a lot of interesting conversations amongst students, faculty, and staff,” he said.
This Diversity Forum has been scheduled to coincide with the University’s annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Social Justice Week, which will begin Jan. 22 and culminate Jan. 26 with the presentation of Pitt’s “Creating a Just Community” and “UPSIDE" awards.
Barber will deliver a keynote address at 7 p.m. Jan. 23. Workshop sessions will held throughout the day Jan. 24, concluding with remarks by Jones at 5 p.m.
The social justice symposium will be held Jan. 25.
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Scholarship opportunities in January
Leigh Culley, director of Disability Resources & Services, has announced the availability of two scholarships whose application deadlines are fast approaching.
The Dick Thornburgh Forum Disability Service Award is available each year to a University of Pittsburgh student from any campus whose work has made a difference in the lives of children and adults with disabilities.
The award is $5,000 and is administered by the Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law & Public Policy. The applicant need not have a disability themselves. Candidates for this award may be nominated by a University of Pittsburgh faculty member or staff member or they may apply themselves. The deadline to apply is Jan. 15.
The Kevin Cecil Study Abroad Scholarship provides students financial assistance for a summer study abroad experience. This scholarship aims to empower persons with disabilities to go abroad and offset the cost.
Two $1,000 scholarships are awarded each year. All materials are due by Jan. 22.
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Busy lineup of events for Prevention at Pitt
The Prevention at Pitt team has scheduled events for January and February, and is hoping you’ll put them on your calendar, says Dev Hayostek, lead prevention educator.
Pitt’s Sexual Violence Prevention & Education Office works to promote ongoing dialogues with faculty, staff, and students around issues of consent, bystander intervention, harassment, and healthy relationships with the goal of eradicating sexual misconduct. Upcoming ways to get involved include:
Circle Up! for Faculty & Staff
11:30 a.m. Jan. 3
Join us on the 31st floor of the Cathedral of Learning for lunch, networking, and a dialogue about supporting our community members who may be experiencing bias or relationship violence. Register here.
Donuts & Discussion
10 a.m. Jan. 14
Join members of the Prevention at Pitt team as we work together to develop meaningful programming and outreach on campus to prevent sexual assault and misconduct. Upcoming dates include Feb. 9, March 20, and April 12. Email pittprevention@pitt.edu for a calendar invite.
Trauma-Informed Yoga
4 p.m. Jan. 23 and Feb. 6
Register here
Standing Firm
12 noon Jan. 11
“Standing Firm,” a program of the Women’s Center & Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh, is designed for staff and faculty to build an understanding of the complex issues around domestic and intimate partner violence and how it affects the workplace. Register now.
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LGBTQIA+ committee has support from ‘top down’
The new LGBTQIA+ Steering Committee that hopes to begin working in January has support from “the top down,” the University Times reported Dec. 14.
Angie Bedford-Jack, co-chair of the committee and interim director of strategic operations for the Office for Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion, told the University Senate’s Equity, Inclusion, & Anti-Discrimination Advocacy Committee that the LGBTQIA+ committee “very much has the seal of approval of the chancellor.”
The committee, also co-chaired by Todd Reeser, the Dietrich School of Arts & Science’s associate dean for faculty affairs, is searching for people who “have the ability to move policy and practices forward in their respective areas, to make sure that this is not a situation where we are just generating ideas and have no kind of power to move them forward,” Bedford-Jack said.
Read more in the University Times.
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Meet Autumn Amoroso
Autumn Amoroso has owned several businesses, including a yoga studio. She jokes that she joined the University of Pittsburgh in 2022 for practical reasons: “I wanted to have a normal job with normal pay and normal hours.”
But Amoroso, who lives in Murrysville with her children, ages 12 to 19, also was drawn to Pitt because of the breadth of its educational and research offerings. In November, she transitioned to the OEDI team to serve as executive assistant to Vice Chancellor Clyde Pickett. The office is a close fit for Amoroso’s own interests.
“My goal, as soon as my children are grown, is to work in human-rights law,” says the Robert Morris University graduate. “I’m thrilled that Pitt is so forward-thinking that we have an office that prioritizes these important issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
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Jurica named to IUP Alumni board
Chad Jurica, disability specialist in OEDI, has been named to the board of directors of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Alumni Association. He joined University of Pittsburgh in August 2018 and has worked in higher education for more than a decade.
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Thornburgh Lecture
1 p.m. Jan. 30
Pitt Law School Courtroom
Register now
Mary Crossley, interim dean of the Pitt School of Law, will deliver the Thornburgh Family Lecture on Disability Law and Policy, titled “Race-Disability Intersectionality as a Health Equity Imperative.” This program is sponsored by the Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law & Public Policy and co-sponored by the Institute of Politics, Pitt Law, Disability Resources & Services, the School of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences, and the David C. Frederick Honors College.
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