Attiya Latif, a third-year College student and Jefferson and Echols scholar, and Randolph Canterbury, senior associate dean for education in the Medical School, are this year’s recipients of the John T. Casteen III Diversity-Equity-Inclusion Leadership Award.
The award is meant to recognize individuals who have made meaningful contributions towards diversity at the University.
Recipients are chosen based on nominations from students, faculty and staff. Once nominees are collected, they are evaluated based on a rubric in order to “standardize the evaluation,” according to Maria Chee, associate director of the East Asia Center and member of the selection committee.
“We critique each nomination to see how much they have demonstrated a commitment and passion for diversity and the leadership in increasing diversity, equity and inclusion and also how they’ve achieved a sustainable and quantifiable impact on diversity, equity and inclusion,” Chee said.
Evaluation is conducted anonymously, and each candidate is given a score before the committee meets to discuss the final decision. Chee said this is often an easy decision.
“Very often it’s quite obvious, those who really stand up to the top,” Chee said.
Latif, who has served as chair of the Minority Rights Coalition for the past year, said winning this award was a “touching and humbling” experience. She recalled feeling emotional upon finding out she had been recognized as one of the recipients.
“I try to bring people together, and I try to galvanize others so that they don't feel apathetic or they don't feel like nobody's listening, and I try to be as vocal as I can,” Latif said.
Latif helped organize the “Eliminate the Hate” campaign as well as rallies supporting students at the University after President Donald Trump announced his travel ban.
Latif said she sacrificed time she could have spent with friends or doing homework, but in the end it was all “worth it.”
She will serve as the student director of the Multicultural Student Center in the 2017-18 school year.
Canterbury made his impact as the admissions dean for the Medical School starting in 2003. By restructuring and reorganizing the admissions process and committees, the school saw a jump from having five percent of students from diverse backgrounds to over 25 percent in 10 years.
“I restructured the committee to create a more diverse committee of faculty and students, and that really did alter the way people looked at applicants, I think, and they started to look for more diversity and life experience,” Canterbury said.
Canterbury also broadened the definition of diversity to include people from the LGBTQ community, disadvantaged backgrounds, rural areas and urban poverty.
“I think when you broaden your definition of diversity, then it creates diversity of all types,” Canterbury said. “We're now approaching 40 some to 50 percent of our students are coming from backgrounds that are different from what we would consider sort of the norm.”
Canterbury and Latif will be honored at a luncheon Friday hosted by the Office for Diversity and Equity.
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