CILMAR announces recipients of 2023 Vision Award

The Center for Intercultural Learning, Mentorship, Assessment and Research has chosen the 2023 recipients of its Vision Award.

The honorees are Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication professor Mark Russell, Purdue Libraries associate professor Nastasha Johnson, and Purdue Polytechnic’s Director of Globalization Elizabeth Barajas.

“The vision of CILMAR is an inclusive and interculturally proficient Purdue community,” said Kris Acheson-Clair, director of CILMAR. “The CILMAR’s team strives to support intercultural learning, inclusive teaching and belongingness across campus, especially with innovations in the curriculum and co-curriculum. Each year as we celebrate the history of our center, we pause to honor visionaries across campus whose collaborative efforts make our mission possible.”

After this year, the CILMAR Vision Award will be retired. In its place, an annual $5,000 award will be inaugurated as the Mike Brzezinski Intercultural Learning Champion award to honor the legacy of Brzezinski, CILMAR’s founding leader and current vice president of Global Partnerships & Programs.

About the honorees

Russell was a champion of intercultural learning on campus long before CILMAR came to be in 2016. In addition to designing and leading multiple study abroad programs with an ICL focus, Russell was instrumental in the development of the Peace Corps Prep Certificate program at Purdue and co-created with CILMAR staff an ICL course for undergraduates in that program. Russell has supported both intercultural and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging curricular innovation efforts in the College of Agriculture. In particular, his nomination noted how he has effectively mentored many other faculty members as well as students over the years and emphasized his advocacy for experiential education and formative assessment across the curriculum.

Johnson also is a longtime collaborator of CILMAR, with several extensive research studies and joint projects in their history together. In fact, she was a co-principal investigator in CILMAR’s first successful grant proposal for external funding in 2018. Johnson’s nominator commented on her work at the intersection of ICL and DEIB – not only is she an advocate for and a recognized expert in ICL in the national arena in library sciences, but she also is active with the university Equity Task Force, Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, and many other efforts on campus to make Purdue a more inclusive institution. Like Russell, Johnson also is a qualified administrator of multiple intercultural assessment instruments such as the Intercultural Development Inventory and the Beliefs, Events and Values Inventory, and uses them extensively to both stimulate and document intercultural learning.

Barajas began her relationship with CILMAR in Purdue Polytechnic under the leadership of Robert Cox when he headed the Global Programs office there. Now a Polytechnic leader in her own right, Barajas promotes intercultural learning across the institute. For example, Polytechnic continues to lead the entire campus in large-scale assessment efforts, with an exemplary first/fourth-year longitudinal data collection model that provides invaluable evidence of growth and pain points in student learning outcomes. Barajas also has designed, implemented and assessed a demonstrably effective study abroad for pre-matriculation students, mentoring their ICL before they even come to campus, and she has been a strong voice in support of virtual exchange and other alternative intercultural learning opportunities.

Congratulations to these final recipients of the CILMAR Vision Award.