STP Award for Promoting Diversity,
Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
(renamed effective April 16, 2024)

The Society for The Teaching of Psychology (STP; APA Division 2) is pleased to announce the STP Award for Promoting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging to recognize instructors who promote and prioritize these values in their teaching and mentoring. Consistent with our Mission Statement and the Statement on Addressing Systemic Racism and Inequity in STP, we encourage applications from colleagues who are from underrepresented groups and have diverse backgrounds and experiences.

This award recognizes diversity as inclusive of perspectives and experiences that are not traditionally highlighted in psychology curricula, in a reflection of broader societal power structures. These perspectives and experiences may derive from minoritized identities that include, but are not limited to: sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, social class, race/ethnicity, religion, and immigration status. The goal of this award is to recognize instructors of psychology who promote social justice, broadly construed, through their teaching via a variety of educational and academic activities, as per Goal 3 of the APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major.

2024 AWARD RECIPIENT

Leslie Berntsen, award chair, is pleased to announce Kim A. Case, Ph.D., as the recipient of the 2024 STP Promoting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Award. Dr. Case is a Professor of Psychology, the Director of Faculty Success, and the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence at Virginia Commonwealth University. Through her classroom teaching and faculty development work, she encourages both students and instructors alike to think about their privilege through an academic lens and use that privilege in the service of others.

The 2024 Promoting DEIB Award is just the latest recognition in honor of a decades-long career devoted to the study and practice of inclusive teaching. In addition to five university-wide teaching awards, Dr. Case is also the recipient of three teaching awards from the Society for the Psychological Study for Social Issues and the 2018 Robert S. Daniel Excellence in Teaching Award from STP. And even though her academic scholarship has been cited over 3000 times, Dr. Case’s work truly puts the “impact” in “impact factor.” To give just one example: During her time at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, she spearheaded the development of an Applied Social Issues master’s concentration. In serving as the instructor for this concentration’s internship course, she supervised nearly 250 graduate students placed in community-based organizations focused on adult literacy, developmental disabilities, food insecurity, homelessness, sexual violence, and more.

In recognition of her longstanding and widely impactful commitment to inclusive teaching, STP is pleased to present the 2024 Promoting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Award to Dr. Kim A. Case.

PAST AWARD RECIPIENTS

2023: Milton Fuentes, Montclair State University

2022: Viji Sathy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

2021: Michelle Reyna Nario-Redmond, Hiram College

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Teachers of psychology at any kind of institution and any stage of their career are eligible for this award. (Contributions and accomplishments will be evaluated relative to an applicant’s career stage.) Applicants must be members of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. (Click here to join if you are not already a member.) 

AWARD DEADLINE

February 1 of the award year

MATERIALS TO BE SUBMITTED

• Cover sheet that includes the applicant’s name, institution, and contact information, as well as a short description of the applicant’s teaching duties. Also include the name and contact information for the person who should be informed (e.g., chair, principal, supervisor, etc.) if the applicant wins the award. 

• Evidence of STP membership

• DEI-focused curriculum vitae

• Evidence to illustrate award criteria, along with a summary sheet that explains each piece of evidence in approximately 75 words or less (per piece of evidence, not total) 

AWARD CRITERIA + SUGGESTIONS FOR SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

This is a non-exhaustive list of suggestions for supporting evidence to illustrate the criteria for this award. Applicants need not have achieved recognition in all five criteria and are encouraged to only include evidence that meaningfully contributes to an overarching narrative about their commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging rather than taking a “checklist” approach. 

An overall teaching approach and/or specific teaching practices that amplify diverse perspectives and foster an equitable learning environment

• Teaching philosophy

• Summary of student evaluations (please do not include original evaluation forms) 

• Other informal student feedback  

• Sample teaching materials 

• Exemplary student work that demonstrates knowledge/appreciation of DEIB as related to course learning objectives

• Letters of support

Community-based educational initiatives that promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging outside of the classroom

• Sample teaching materials 

• Evidence of impact

Conference presentations and/or invited/public talks focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the teaching of psychology

• Representative conference posters

• List of talk titles/abstracts

Mentorship that is responsive to the needs of minoritized students, trainees, and colleagues

• Mentoring philosophy 

• Letters of support

Publications (whether academic or popular) focused on inclusive and equitable pedagogy

• Annotated bibliography (please include the DOI or link to each publication, but not the full-text publications themselves) 

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Please submit your dossier as one single PDF. You can merge documents in most PDF software or at www.ilovepdf.com, which also has a function to compress large files. 

Any letters of support can be included directly in the dossier or submitted separately by the referees. 

Submit your application here (requires login).

AWARD AND REVIEW DETAILS

Awards are only for STP members. Recipients will receive $1,500, a plaque, and (if they do not have travel funds from other sources) up to $1,500 to attend STP’s Annual Conference on Teaching to accept their award. 

Applications will be reviewed by the STP Promoting DEIB Award Committee. Applicants not receiving the award may apply again in future years. STP reserves the right not to make an award if the award committee believes no applicant is qualified in a particular year. Policies regarding STP grant programs can be found here.

If you have any questions about this award or the application process, please contact Leslie Berntsen, Inaugural Promoting DEIB Award Chair, at deib-award@teachpsych.org 

PROMOTING DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION, AND BELONGING AWARD COMMITTEE

• Leslie Berntsen (Chair), University of Southern California

• Arlen Garcia, Miami Dade College

• Dina Gohar, University of Michigan

• Jacqueline Goldman, Delta State University

• Amy Nusbaum, Heritage University