South PIC Meeting 2022

Members of the Inclusive Excellence Project at Virginia Tech traveled to Towson University to attend the 2022 South PIC Meeting on June 1-3.

Virginia Tech was represented by

• Jill Sible (Program Director)
• Debby Good (Human Nutrition, Food, and Exercise)
• Cindy Wood (Animal and Poultry Science)
• Chevon Thorpe (Biochemistry)
• Michael Schulz (Chemistry)
• Evelyn Compton (Program Coordinator)

As part of the Inclusive Excellence project, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute organized grant recipients into regional groups or Peer Implementation Clusters (PICs). The annual meeting of the South PIC brought together Inclusive Excellence practitioners from Virginia Tech, Towson University, Radford University, and Trinity Washington University.

This meeting was held at the new Towson University Science Complex and featured an impressive lineup of speakers/ meeting leaders. The keynote was given by April Hill, Wagner Family Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM form Bates College. Other speakers and meeting leaders included Melanie Perreault, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs at Towson University, Brian Jara, Assistant Director of Diversity Training and Education at Towson University, and Patricia Soochan, Program Officer at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

At the meeting, participants celebrated various victories and reflected on the journey of building capacity for inclusion and equity for students and all individuals in STEM at the represented universities. Additionally, participants discussed how these efforts to promote inclusion and equity at their respective universities might be sustained as we close out the final year of the five-year grant funding period.