2014 Inclusive Excellence Awards announced

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion has honored two members of the Emerson community with 2014 Inclusive Excellence Awards for demonstrating leadership in advancing diversity and inclusion at the College.

Honorees are selected based on their commitment to social justice and their demonstration of creativity, innovation, and extraordinary accomplishment in effecting positive social change.

Mario Ernesto Osorio, a maintenance worker in Facilities Management, is honored for personal action that exemplifies inclusive excellence. He is a member of Emerson’s translingual writing course, a class that brings maintenance workers and students together to write as a means of overcoming obstructions to rhetorical mobility. This winter, Osorio displayed an extraordinary example of inclusive excellence when he served as a presenter at the National Conference on College Composition and Communication, reading one of his written works in English before an audience of conference attendees as part of Proyecto Carrito. Osorio’s willingness to share his most heartfelt feelings about education as a means of personal empowerment is a powerful display of what it means to give voice to the needs and desires of others despite your own vulnerability. Inclusive excellence will only be achieved at Emerson through individual acts of courage, authenticity, and compassion. The Office of Diversity and Inclusion is pleased to honor Osorio for displaying inclusive excellence through personal actions at the highest level.

Thomas Vogel, graduate program director for Global Marketing Communication and Advertising and associate professor in the Marketing Communication Department, is honored for his extraordinary work infusing the principles of inclusive excellence into teaching and learning. His work is guided by a set of values that affirms diversity as integral to learning and creative endeavors. These values are expressed in his use of holistic admission practices in the GMCA program, his attention to issues of climate and collaboration in the student cohort, and his active engagement in deepening structural support for diversity in the curriculum. Vogel attends to the holistic experience of students and challenges students to recognize their roles and responsibilities as members of a robust learning community. His intentional effort to create experiences that facilitate the intercultural development of students in the program is exemplary. The Office of Diversity and Inclusion is pleased to honor Vogel for his demonstration of excellence in inclusive practices in teaching and learning.