Digital DEI Grant Awarded

The Digital Scholarship Team at St. Lawrence University is excited to announce it has been awarded nearly $12,000 from the Northern New York Library Network (NNYLN) to fund DEI-related programming for its Digital Scholarship Fellowship program.

In its award letter, NNYLN called the team’s successful grant application “inspiring,” and noted that they appreciated how well the proposed activities “correspond[ed] to established programs and infrastructure.”

The proposed programming, Digital DEI: Making Digital Scholarship More Equitable and Inclusive, aims to close the digital equity gap at SLU by making new digital cameras, microphones, field recorders, and web hosting subscriptions available for use by all sophomores participating in the DSF program.

As the team wrote in its grant application, “Our Digital Scholarship team is committed to supporting a learning experience that does not disadvantage students with limited financial resources or whose pre-college education limited their exposure to and familiarity with the digital tools and resources used to create digital scholarship. This proposal is our effort to take concrete action to minimize student barriers to access, participation, and collaboration in our DSF program and in our broader campus environment.”

As part of this plan, the Digital Scholarship team will teach a series of DSF workshops on web design, digital storytelling, digital accessibility, video creation, digital rights management, project management, writing for the web, virtual/extended/augmented reality, and more. Students in these workshops will learn specific digital skills while considering issues related to social justice and digital technologies, while keeping conversations about digital equity/inclusion at the forefront.

The final project phase will involve reflection on the year’s workshops, discussions, and their overall body of digital work, including feedback on the newly integrated DEI components. The Digital Scholarship team envisions using the digital equipment with upcoming DSF cohorts and continuing to enhance their future studies, internships, and careers.