Please RSVP below for our DEI seminar on April 1st at 2:00pm in IGB 612, "Enhancing Our Cross-Cultural Mentorship" with Ross Wantland.

As we each work to increase pathways and broaden participation in STEM, we will often serve as formal and informal mentors to students and newer professionals with different backgrounds and life experiences than ourselves. What do we need to know in order to best mentor across cultural difference? Join Ross Wantland from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for a conversation about the skills of cross-cultural mentorship and support. This session will focus on the experiences of historically under-served and under-represented students, including a look at research and some basic strategies for improving our mentorship with students of color, women and transgender students, students with disabilities, and other groups. Through this interactive session, participants will learn about utilizing a framework of “equity mindedness,” which “call[s] attention to patterns of inequity in student outcomes” (USC’s Center for Urban Education), while improving our skills for strengths-based, dynamic mentorship.

Ross Wantland is the Director of Curriculum Development and Education in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Ross is a farm-raised social justice and violence prevention educator, who received his Master’s in Education in Educational Policy Studies and BS in Psychology with a minor in Women's Studies, all at the University of Illinois. Ross lives in Champaign with his incredible partner, emo teen, and pandemic garden.