By Cole Hatcher
Sixteen Ohio Wesleyan University students, faculty, and staff have earned $12,500 in OWU Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Grants this academic year.
The competitive grants support policy and program analysis, curricular and course development, small-scale survey work, creative projects, and community conversations intended to produce evidence-based, actionable recommendations for change. Recipients of Ohio Wesleyan’s 2024-2025 DEI Grants and their projects are as follows:
- Kaylen Brandt ’26 of Chicago, Illinois, for “You Aren’t Alone: Learning What it Means to be a Black Woman in Predominantly White European Spaces.” A Politics & Government and Communication double major and a Data & Society minor, Brandt will spend fall semester in Dublin, Ireland, and use her grant to complete research while abroad. “I want to be able to compare my experiences as a Black woman in Ireland, other European countries, and at Ohio Wesleyan,” Brandt said. “This international opportunity would allow me to learn more about how other Black women, who spent their lives in Irish spaces, have adapted and persevered. … I want to gain unique experiences so that when I return to campus, I can display how to be unapologetically yourself, even if you don’t see yourself (physically) reflected in the room.” Brandt is being mentored by Lisa Ho, associate director of International and Off-Campus Programs.
- Jemimah Chukwuemeka ’26 of Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria, for “From Experience to Access: Using My Clinical Internship to Uplift Underrepresented Pre-Meds.” A Biology and Pre-Medicine/Pre-Dentistry double major and a French minor, Chukwuemeka will spend the summer interning at the OhioHealth Delaware Medical Campus. “It’s a chance for me to learn what patient care actually looks like in real life – not just in textbooks – and start building the clinical skills I know I’ll need for med school and beyond,” she said. Chukwuemeka will use her grant to help other OWU pre-med students – especially first-generation and international students – by creating “a guide for other students who are navigating this path without a map.” She is being mentored by Phokeng Dailey, Ph.D., associate professor of Journalism & Communication and department chair.
- Destiny Coleman, director of The Woltemade Center for Economics, Business and Entrepreneurship, for “The Voice of Freedom.” A trained soprano, Coleman used her grant to present her performance piece celebrating African American narratives at OWU’s second Melvin Van Peebles Symposium in March. The piece included Coleman and five guest performers – three singers, a spoken word artist, and a pianist. “I seek to foster dialogue and understanding among diverse attendees,” Coleman said, “promoting appreciation for the richness of African American experiences [and] contribute to Ohio Wesleyan University’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion by creating an inclusive space where underrepresented voices are celebrated and discussed.”
- Pedro Oliveira Figueiredo ’26 of Salvador, Brazil, for “Inside the Film Industry at the Cannes Film Festival.” A Film Studies, Communication, and Theatre triple major, Figueiredo will use his grant to support traveling to France in May to attend the two-week Film and Business Program at the Cannes Film Festival. The experience, he said, will enable him “to bring all the skills in film, communication, and production that I have built since I started my education journey to a real-world, big-scale environment.” Figueiredo is being mentored by Eva Paris-Huesca, associate professor of Spanish and director of Ohio Wesleyan’s Film Studies Program.
- Nyx Forsythe ’27 of Lebanon, Ohio; John Krygier, Ph.D., professor of Environment & Sustainability and department chair; and David Soliday, instructional technologist and creator of the on-campus Upcycling Center, for “The Love Bus: Beauty and Waste in the Face of Climate Crisis.” The group used their grant funds to bring Cara Alhadeff and her partner, Wild Mies, to the university. Alhadeff, Ph.D., is an artist, author, professor, action-philosopher, and inspiring thought leader “with an important message of interfaith, environmental justice, and sustainability,” and Mies is a former wildlife biologist and woodworking artisan. They have lectured and shared their work worldwide, including living in a tiny home-converted bus, remodeled entirely from reclaimed and previously used materials. Forsythe, a Studio Art major and Spanish minor, said the couple’s visit provided an “amazing opportunity for students and staff alike to learn new things and see life through different perspectives.”
- Andrew Inamdar ’27 of Lewis Center, Ohio, for “Removing Barriers to Medical School Admissions for Underrepresented Pre-Medical Students.” A Microbiology and Pre-Medicine/Pre-Dentistry major and Chemistry minor, Inamdar will use his grant to purchase MCAT study resources for shared use, create a recurring shadowing day in collaboration with central Ohio physicians, and hold an ice cream social to support OWU’s underrepresented pre-medical students. “This project will be expanded into a student organization to continue these initiatives,” Inamdar said, “with the overarching goal of increasing medical school admissions for OWU students from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
- Ashley Kennard, Ph.D., assistant professor of Journalism & Communication, and Cole Hatcher, director of media and community relations, for the 2025 Melvin Van Peebles Symposium, an exploration and celebration of Black art and culture. Both were members of the symposium’s planning committee, and Kennard stated in their application that the event “creates space that centers the work of Black artists, writers, scholars, and performers in ways that aren’t happening at other PWIs (predominantly white organizations) –something I value deeply as one committed to the pursuit of diversity, justice, and equity in higher ed.”
- Hodan Khalif ’26 of Columbus, Ohio, for “Black Women Health in Southern Africa.” A Communication and Psychology double major, Khalif will visit Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana in May and June as part of an OWU Connection Travel-Learning Course being taught by Phokeng Dailey, Ph.D., associate professor of Journalism & Communication and department chair, and Dawn Chisebe, OWU’s chief diversity officer and part-time lecturer of Africana, Gender, and Identity Studies. Of the upcoming experience, Khalif said: “This experience aligns with my goal of becoming a licensed psychologist or something else related to health psychology. I will learn ways to best serve my patients, especially Black women, who have been overlooked and exploited in healthcare.”
- Marvella Kurniawan ’25 of West Jakarta, Indonesia, for “Food Justice, Advocacy, and Culture with Bryant Terry.” The project involved bringing the award-winning vegan chef and food justice advocate to campus in March for a cooking demonstration and a lecture at the intersection of food justice, Black food culture, and artistic expression. A Nutrition and Psychology double major and Biology minor, Kurniawan collaborated on the grant-funded project with OWU students Amara Carlson ’25 of Dublin, Ohio; Carley Lounsbury ’25 of Cazenovia, New York; Alyssa Markell ’26 of Leesburg, Virginia; and Anna Mussenden ’25 of Delaware, Ohio. They were mentored by Christopher Fink, Ph.D., professor of Health & Human Kinetics and co-director of Ohio Wesleyan’s Public Health Program. Fink first brought Terry to campus in 2012, when the chef spoke as part of a Sagan National Colloquium exploration of the “mutually transformative relationship between people and food.”
Ohio Wesleyan’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Grant program is overseen by the university’s Council on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. It was launched in 2021 and includes both student and faculty-staff funding categories. The program is part of the university’s larger Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Action Plan, which seeks to make the campus an antiracist space. Learn more about Ohio Wesleyan’s DEI Grant program at owu.edu/DEIGrants.
Source: OWU
