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2017 Dr. Marva Rudolph Diversity and Inter-Culturalism Unit Excellence Award

The Dr. Marva Rudolph Diversity Award is given to an office, program, department, or college that has demonstrated outstanding leadership and made consistent contributions to advancing diversity and inclusion at UT. The award is named in memory of Marva Rudolph, an associate vice chancellor and director of the Office of Equity and Diversity who passed away in 2014 after more than 20 years with the university and more than 30 years of dedicated work in diversity and inclusion.

Department of Sociology

The Department of Sociology faced trying times this past year as outside forces worked to undermine UT’s commitment to diversity. Nevertheless, the department has remained a leading advocate for diversity on campus, working with student groups and individuals to raise awareness of diversity issues and support UT’s diversity institutions and personnel. The department is launching a new concentration in critical race and ethnic studies, and it organized the New Directions in Critical Criminology conference in 2016 to examine the unequal treatment of disadvantaged populations. The department’s curriculum addresses issues related to race, gender, and globalization, with faculty scholarship in areas including transformative justice, immigration, and inequities in worker conditions in global tourism. Its student body increasingly reflects its commitment to diversity: last year, 80 percent of incoming graduate students in sociology were from underrepresented groups.