The WashU Libraries Summer Diversity Internship for High School Students is a new internship program and is also an integral part of the Library’s commitment to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA). This is a 2-week in-person paid internship for students who have completed their junior year of high school and the College Prep Program.
WashU does not have an MLS program, so we will be targeting a currently enrolled MLS student who has an interest in STEM. Mizzou is the closest MLS school, and it offers a fully-online program, so we’ll look for a student located in St. Louis who could come to campus. This program will expose the intern to the wide variety of work of a STEM librarian. The work will be based on a topic of their interest in STEM, like instruction, collection development, outreach, data, etc. Our exceptionally talented STEM librarians will serve as mentors during the semester.
Revisit and reconstruct the history of Asian Americans in Saint Louis utilizing an intuitive digital humanities tool, ArcGIS StoryMap. The story map, called Asia in Saint Louis, comprises images, interactive maps, narratives, and interview videos, and is conceptualized and structured around the four themes/sections: Historical traces, early Chinese Americans, early Japanese Americans, and Asian American civil rights. The story map will use primary sources from four local historical societies and archives: Washington University Libraries Special Collections, Missouri Historical Society, State Historical Society of Missouri-Saint Louis, and National Archives in Kansas City.
The Expanding Diversity in Academic Librarianship internship programs are an integral part of the Libraries’ commitment to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA) and contribute to a national effort to increase the number of diverse students who obtain Masters’ degrees in library and information studies. The programs will introduce students of color to libraries and library services, which are fundamental to college academic success, and encourage the students to consider academic librarianship as a career.
The members of our group – from local academic institutions, national parks, historic sites, and museums – are committed to challenging and correcting many of the incomplete and over-simplified histories we were taught in school, especially those related to the St. Louis area. The potential for collaboration with this organization is still developing.
The St. Louis Policy Initiative brings diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives to study policy in our region. Substantively, our research agendas engage with the most pressing policy challenges in society today. We will explore the relationship between racial segregation, political representation, housing policy, public health outcomes, and environmental outcomes in urban cores and their suburbs. For example, how does political representation translate into improved public health outcomes? To what extent do environmental factors drive disparities in home prices in Black and white neighborhoods?
Beginning Spring semester 2023, the Civil Rights & Restorative Justice (CRRJ) Action Research Lab at WashU will work with the award-winning CRRJ Clinic at Northeastern University Law School and other local and regional initiatives to research and redress histories and legacies of racial violence and repression in Missouri. The WU-CRRJ Action Research Lab at WashU is co-led by WashU faculty members and long time CRRJ research collaborators David Cunningham (Sociology) and Geoff Ward (AFAS).
The Program for the Elimination of Cancer Disparities (PECaD) at Siteman Cancer Center focuses on strengthening capacity to reduce cancer disparities by working with community organizations, cancer survivors, clinicians, researchers and advocates to enhance education and awareness about cancer risk, prevention, community resources and care centers. Details
Engineers in the Community is a community-engaged, project-based course where undergraduate engineering students complete projects for community partners in St. Louis. The partners range in areas from healthcare to environmental justice to educational equity, and beyond.
The Young Scientist Program brings historically-excluded groups in science to scientific resources and scientists directly from the St. Louis area. The program does this through “hands-on scientific demonstrations in local classrooms, field trips to the Washington University campuses, dissemination of teaching kits containing pre-planned lessons, individual and personalized mentoring, and loaning or donating laboratory equipment to classrooms in need.”