EVANSTON - Professors Loren Ghiglione, a champion of Native American scholarship and inclusion on campus, and E. Patrick Johnson, a prolific arts scholar and performer who founded the community-focused Black Arts Initiative, are the inaugural recipients of the Provost Award for Faculty Excellence in Diversity and Equity.

Each will receive $5,000 to further their diversity initiatives, and12 inaugural recipients of the Provost Grant for Faculty Innovation in Diversity and Equity include both individual faculty members and groups of researchers. The grants to the recipients range from $5,000 to $20,000.

Through these two programs, Northwestern University’s Office of the Provost has awarded nearly $165,000 to faculty to build a more diverse, inclusive and equitable climate on campus. The programs are aimed at enhancing diversity across the spectrum, including race, gender, religion, socioeconomic status, age and political affiliation.

The grant recipients have proposed projects that will, for example, enhance female representation in STEM fields, expand media options for LGBT audiences and better serve individuals with visual, hearing or physical impairments.

“Understanding the diverse groups that make up our nation and the world is central to the critical thinking that is a hallmark of a university education,” Northwestern Provost Dan Linzer said. “And it is a privilege to honor faculty who, through their teaching and scholarship, are exploring diversity across disciplines to understand both the historic, economic and psychological consequences of biases as well as the incredibly rich ways that our differences contribute to our history, culture and art.”

The Provost Awards and Provost Grants will be given each year. The award nomination and grant application processes for 2017-18 will be announced on the Office of the Provost website during spring quarter 2017.

Recipients of Provost Awards for Faculty Excellence in Diversity and Equity Ghiglione and Johnson are recognized as exemplars working collaboratively to build a more diverse, inclusive and equitable climate at Northwestern. Loren Ghiglione , professor in the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, is recognized for his outstanding and ongoing work to illuminate and support the Native American population on campus. That includes his leadership of the 2015-16 One Book One Northwestern steering group and the 2016-17 Native American and Indigenous Peoples Steering Group, his successful efforts to recruit Native American faculty and his engagement of these issues with undergraduate students.





E. Patrick Johnson , chair of African-American Studies in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies in the School of Communication, is recognized for his tireless work in building an interdisciplinary research, practice and community-focused Black Arts Initiative at Northwestern.