This is a student-led initiative to improve the campus climate at Utah State University. The Safe Passages team believes that all students have the right to obtain the best education possible on this campus and to feel safe and supported while doing so. Acts of discrimination and harassment interfere with opportunities to exercise that right. It is not enough to tell underrepresented students where they can go if discrimination and harassment occur. Members of our community should be proactively preventing or interrupting acts of discrimination and harassment. The purpose of this project is to increase awareness, knowledge, and skills surrounding diversity issues at USU using a novel and flexible approach that incorporates in-person training and a mobile application. The project supports two overarching goals related to diversity: 1) teach individuals to approach situations involving diversity and marginalized groups by developing awareness, knowledge, and skills; 2) create a mobile app to connect trained individuals, “buddies,” with students, “users,” who seek immediate support. As partners on this project, the LED Lab supported the mobile app portion of this grant work.
PI: Kaylee Litson (PhD student, Psychology)
Funding source: USU Diversity Council Long-Term Grant Submission, NSF
