About Diversity in the Department of Psychology

The Department of Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln affirms its commitment to diversity in all its forms.  We strive to be a department where all feel safe and welcome in all of our research, teaching, and service endeavors. As the history of psychology and science broadly teaches us, diversity improves our science and our science confirms the indispensability of diversity. Fitting these philosophies, we have established a growing list of initiatives that are aimed at enhancing diversity and inclusion among Department members, and promoting diversity-focused research. Many of these efforts are highlighted below and more information can be found in tabs above.

Inclusive Excellence Work Group

The Department’s diversity and inclusive excellent efforts are led by the Inclusive Excellence Work Group made up of faculty, graduate students, and staff. The Work Group consists of Coordinators for the following areas: Graduate Education, Undergraduate Education, Awards, Colloquia, Social Media, and Research and Scholarly Activity. Tierney Lorenz coordinates the Work Group in her role as the Department’s Inclusive Excellence Chair. Other Work Group faculty members include Trey Andrews, Lisa Crockett (Colloquium Coordinator), Jenna Finch (Graduate Training Coordinator), Katy Holland (Research and Scholarly Activity Coordinator), Jamie Longwell, Dennis McChargue (Diversity Web Page and Social Media Coordinator), Ken Wakabayashi (Awards Coordinator), Manda Williamson, and Chelsea Witt (Undergraduate Teaching Coordinator). Allison Cipriano and Brenna Lash are graduate student members.

Diversity Brownbag

The Department hosts a diversity brownbag approximately once every two weeks.  The brownbag features research projects in various stages of development.  This is intended to help the presenter with advancing their research while providing the audience with exposure to the various areas of diversity research and its many associated methodological approaches. Dates and topics are listed under the brownbag tab above.

Diversity Research 

The Department has several labs that focus explicitly on diversity-related fields.  These include research on race/ethnicity, discrimination, health disparities, gender, gender identity, and others. The full list of researchers and their topics of focus are listed under the "Research" tab above.

Graduate Diversity Concentration

Across each of the graduate programs, we offer a diversity concentration, providing students with an opportunity to develop expertise in the various ways they may focus their teaching, research, and service on diversity-related fields. Students take courses both within and outside of the department.  Additional criteria are listed under the Graduate Diversity Minor tab.