Utah State University Presents 26th Annual Diversity Awards

The recipients of the 26th annual Utah State University Diversity Awards have been named. The honorees for the 2019-20 school year are the Cache Refugee and Immigrant Connection (CRIC), Melanie Domenech Rodríguez, Jeannie Sur, Ekeoma (Ugo) Ezeh and Ivan Gabriel Cardona. The Diversity Awards recognize individuals and/or organizations on campus and in communities served by USU who have made significant contributions to diversity and inclusion.

“Cultivating diversity of thought and culture is central to USU’s mission and essential to preparing our students to be local and global leaders,” said USU President Noelle E. Cockett. “For 26 years, we’ve honored those in our community who are doing exactly that.”

Community Organization

Cache Refugee Immigrant Connection

The Cache Refugee Immigrant Connection (CRIC) creates a community for everyone and works hard to support those leaving their homeland due to discrimination, violence and inequality. Founded in 2013, the nonprofit organization provides numerous resources for diverse refugees and immigrants, and helps to cultivate a safe and welcoming home for those adapting to life in a new place.

CRIC embodies inclusion and promotes diversity for individuals moving to Cache Valley as it serves more than 270 individuals from over 25 countries to support their integration into the community and country. The organization provides walk-in hours where refugees and immigrants can meet with community volunteers to complete job searches and immigration application, as well as receive education support. Over the years, CRIC has also provided several services that help refugees and immigrants integrate into the community, including a citizenship study group and a driver’s license study group.

By nourishing acceptance of individual differences, CRIC has become a beacon to those needing assistance as they embark on a journey aimed at self-improvement and protection of human rights. The organization strives to enhance community relations, hosting a Thanksgiving potluck dinner every year, and it grows a community garden every summer so that refugees and immigrants have an opportunity to grow and harvest fresh produce. CRIC supports children by collecting school supplies in an annual back-to-school-supply drive and encourages meaningful social connections through its Neighborhood Program. CRIC also works with USU to provide important educational experiences for students taking the Multicultural Psychology course, which provides for rich experiences to increase contact between students and refugees and immigrants.

Faculty

Melanie Domenech Rodríguez

A professor in the Psychology Department since 2000, Melanie Domenech Rodríguez is a quintessential scholar and teacher of diversity, as well as a human being who walks through life thinking of others. She dedicates herself to all three identities of a professor: researcher, teacher and colleague. Domenech Rodríguez’s work is squarely focused on promoting diversity and enhancing education opportunities to be more inclusive and mindful of individual and group differences.

Domenech Rodríguez has dedicated her professional life to the study of diversity and inclusion. Her research focuses on family processes in Spanish-speaking Latinx families and, more broadly, on multicultural issues in psychology. Her work in broader multicultural issues has spanned research on substance abuse, microaggressions and training. As a teacher, Domenech Rodríguez created the multicultural psychology class at USU, a widely popular course that focuses on teaching students about diversity and includes a community engagement component where students volunteer hours at a local organization while learning and interacting with diverse populations. Her book Multicultural Psychology: Understanding our Diverse Communities, now in its second edition, is used across the country as a “go-to-text” for undergraduate courses in multicultural psychology.

Domenech Rodríguez is dedicated to modeling behavior that promotes diversity and aids students and colleagues in understanding where their cultural “blind spots” lie. She has graduated more students of color from the Psychology Department’s doctoral program than any other faculty member in the department. Domenech Rodríguez is past president of the National Lantinx Psychological Association (2015-2017) and Psi Chi, the international honor society in psychology (2017-2020). She has served as the chair of the Institutional Review Board since 2012, where her primary focus has been to protect the vulnerable and underrepresented populations on campus, is a proud “Ally on Campus” and is on the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force.

Staff

Jeannie Sur

Jeannie Sur models diversity and is the only staff member (the rest are faculty) on the Diversity and Equity Committee in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHaSS). In her role as the business assistant in the Department of History and the scholarship specialist for the college, Sur displays a passion for social justice and diversity issues.

In her work with the Diversity and Equity Committee, Sur has been instrumental in bringing speakers to USU who focus on inclusion. She also spearheaded the creation of a climate survey aimed at staff in the college in order to give a voice to those who often feel underrepresented and unheard in university governance. Sur worked with faculty member Jess Lucero to test and administer the survey, and then analyzed the results with the college human resources specialist, Carson Esplin, in order to create workshops to address staff concerns. Sharing the results with leaders in the college helped all departments in CHaSS institute best practices and equality issues.

Sur has been key in making diversity, inclusion and equity issues more transparent for CHaSS with the goal of creating a welcome environment for all students, staff and faculty. She has taken a lead role in Religious Studies program events and actively participates in the fall social that brings students together to celebrate diverse global religious traditions. Sur decorates the office for the holidays and incorporates different faith traditions so all feel included.

Student

Ekeoma (Ugo) Ezeh

In both her personal and professional efforts, USU student Ekeoma (Ugo) Ezeh has dedicated herself to modeling behavior that promotes diversity and maximizes opportunities to achieve diversity. As a student of color, Ugo strives to be her authentic self and demonstrates why celebrating diversity makes USU a better place. She is a strong supporter of the work done by the Office of Global Engagement and the Inclusion Center’s staff and multicultural student groups, and she cultivates acceptance in her daily life in the way that she treats and engages with others.

As a student intern in the Office of Equity, Ezeh continually demonstrates her commitment to enhancing academic, employment and community relations among people who are different in numerous ways. She was instrumental in helping to develop and refine inclusion and implicit bias training for USU employees after conducting research at all Utah colleges, in order to develop recommendations for enhancing USU’s diversity and inclusion efforts. Ezeh also studied USU’s diversity and inclusion efforts in the classroom, leading to recommendations for improving the ways in which students are exposed to, and taught about, such topics. 

An active participant of student life, Ezeh serves as the student coordinator for the Anti-Racist Solidarity Group and is the vice president for the Black Student Union, where she frequently engages in dialogue related to giving marginalized groups, such as international students and student employees of color who have experienced bias, a voice.

Community Individual

Ivan Gabriel Cardona

Through compassion, patience and warmth, Ivan Gabriel Cardona embodies the spirit of diversity. Since 2013, he has been working at Fast Forward Charter High as a tutor/mentor supervisor and a math intervention specialist. Cardona mentors, guides and counsels students who need additional intervention due to academic and personal hardships, and he implements outreach events for students to volunteer in their community.

Cardona is an advocate and an upstander who is passionate about providing opportunities to underserved students to continue higher education. During his time at Fast Forward, Cardona has coordinated ACT preparation, presented to classes on the importance of a post-secondary education, assisted students with the college application process, organized campus visits to USU and been a supportive liaison between parents and students. From 2014-2016, he was part of the Global Aggie Program at USU where he mentored a group of Logan High School refugee and immigrant students by providing homework assistance and college advice, and also connected them with volunteer and leadership opportunities in the community.

As someone who is bicultural and an English language learner, Cardona understands the importance of letting students know they should have no shame in being themselves – regardless of looks, origin or sexual orientation. During his time as a student at USU, he cofounded the Latinx Creative Society with three fellow students and Spanish professor Crescencio López González in order to document Latino experiences in Cache Valley through literary and media art such as poetry, short story, documentary and filmmaking. In 2017, the society shared its documentary Logan, Somos tus Vecinos.