LGBTQ Life at Johns Hopkins University was awarded a Diversity Innovation Grant by the Johns Hopkins Diversity Leadership Council (DLC) to support the creation of a video project aiming to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and cultural humility. The idea for the project first emerged in July 2019 following student concerns about the lack of diverse representation of LGBTQ+ narratives.
We are calling for volunteers to join as production team members (i.e., behind-the-scenes) and/or as prospective "storytellers" (i.e., people featured in video-recorded interviews). We are specifically looking for support in the following areas from students, postgraduate trainees, staff, and faculty at JHU who are interested in joining our initiative:
- Drafting the interview guide and voluntary follow-up survey
- Filming interviews
- Editing videos
- Recruiting and/or volunteering as storytellers: Thanks to the support of the DLC, we are able to offer a small honorarium to storytellers as a show of appreciation for their time.
If you are potentially interested in volunteering as either a production team member and/ or storyteller (i.e., interviewee*), please complete this form with your information, and we will reach out soon. If you have any follow-up questions, you can email either Jon Suen (Suen@jhmi.edu) or Demere Woolway (Dwoolwa1@jhu.edu).
Project Name: "All That I Am and All That I Bring: Celebrating the Strengths of LGBTQ+ Experiences"
Project Goals:
- To highlight and celebrate how our diverse lived experiences as LGBTQ+ people have shaped who we are today and how we subsequently approach our lives and work in academic settings.
- An emphasis will be placed on exploring intersectionality for educating viewers (allies and LGBTQ+ alike) of diversity within the broader LGBTQ+ community and coalitions. We believe that recognizing this "internal diversity" is crucial for equity, inclusion, and cultural humility.
- Our team prioritizes a strengths-based approach for elevating authentic narratives (e.g., How do your experiences make your perspectives unique and valuable within a team? What would you say to someone whose goal is to be an effective ally?) rather than limiting messages to highlighting persistent barriers and discrimination. The latter, however, would not necessarily be omitted in editing.
