Message from the Director

Welcome to Purdue’s Center for Research on Diversity and Inclusion (CRDI), based in the College of Liberal Arts! Unlike the many administrative bodies focused on managing diversity and inclusion in the University, CRID aims to support and highlight the excellent scholarly work on diversity and inclusion happening in Liberal Arts and across the University. CRDI also fosters and facilitates more such innovative research, pushing into new areas and looking at old questions in new ways.

Since the establishment of CRDI, the center has made efforts on several fronts. Our faculty advisory committee attract 16 faculty members from a wide range of discipline: Anthropology, Political Science, Philosophy, Sociology, American Studies, African American Studies, Jewish Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, Education, History, Communication, English, Spanish, and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. Currently, we have 43 faculty affiliates from a variety of departments and colleges across the university, working on a wide range of topics related to diversity and inclusion. We have more people expressing interest in CRDI every day. Together, our faculty members help CRDI push the frontiers of existing knowledge and support critical administrative functions of the center.    

The CRDI offers several competitive research awards and grants to support its mission of celebrating and recognizing the research accomplishments of our faculty and promoting scholarly exploration in the many fields related to diversity and inclusion. Over the past several years, CRDI has recognized more than 10 graduate, undergraduate and faculty research projects and provided small grants to faculty to support and cultivate new projects. To learn more about each individual receipt of award, please consult the Grants and Awards section of this website. This year, we continue to receive applications and nominations for our grants and awards.

Every year, we host a stellar group of invited speakers for our lecture series. We hope to continue to sponsor many events, produce research briefs on new topics, offer research awards, and partner with research centers both inside and outside Purdue. Please come back regularly for news about faculty research and other activities related to diversity and inclusion, and contact us directly at crdi@purdue.edu for more information, feedback or to brainstorm about new ideas.