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Get the most interesting and important stories from the University of Pittsburgh.On a summer night in 2020, Susan Graff (A&S ’08, SHRS ’12G) sat awake in the intensive care unit at 3 a.m., teaching herself about systemic racism after the murder of George Floyd. She was working as a critical care physician assistant and contemplating her next endeavor, certain that it would focus on unifying people and increasing diversity in the health sciences.
“I was doing some soul searching,” said Graff, who is now a School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (SHRS) assistant professor and director of the Department of Physician Assistant Studies’ residential program. She found inspiration in an online Cornell University course taught by Melina Ivanchikova and Mathew L. Ouellett, Teaching and Learning in the Diverse Classroom, which explores identity through interviews with students and faculty. “I was moved by how connected I felt to these people. It was like sitting across from them having a cup of coffee.”
Having been an adjunct professor at Pitt since 2019, Graff decided to focus her efforts on bringing a similar course to the University.
“We started with a belief that if we pause to listen to one another, we can dismantle the systems that strip away our humanity or tell us our authentic selves are not enough,” said Graff.
The result: the Community, Partnership, Identity and Dialogue (CuPID) project — a free, self-paced asynchronous course on people’s lived experiences. It’s really designed for flexibility, Graff explained, “to capture those who aren’t currently being engaged by other DEI spaces.”
Without lectures or regular assignments to turn in, Graff said CuPID “doesn’t feel like a class so much as a piecemeal documentary,” that invites learners to foster an inclusive campus environment. In total, it takes about 20 hours to complete over the course of a semester.
Documentary-style video interviews of Pitt faculty, staff and students are supplemented with academic literature and media to explore concepts such as social identity and intersectionality. The course opens on May 13. While the content is designed for faculty, staff and students in the health sciences, enrollment is now open to anyone, and closes on May 20.
While the course was originally six weeks, it will now be a semesterlong offering. Graff said she hopes this change will increase engagement from the broader Pittsburgh community because the course is free to the public and available on Pitt Professional, the noncredit professional and continuing education platform at the University Center for Teaching and Learning, for all roles.
To create the course, Graff collaborated with a core team from the health sciences: Kathryn Reed, vice chair of equity, inclusion and community engagement for the Department of Physician Assistant Studies; Lilcelia Williams, post-doctoral associate in the Department of Occupational Therapy; Karthik Hariharan, director of anatomy for SHRS; and Adriana Modesto Gomes Da Silva, assistant dean for diversity, inclusion and social justice in the School of Dental Medicine, as well as individuals from the Center for Teaching and Learning and undergraduate film and media studies students.
In 2022, the project was one of 10 Plan for Pitt-aligned initiatives to receive a $75,000 Pitt Seed grant to develop a pilot throughout the 2022-23 academic year. It ran from June to November and won an additional $500,000 to expand the curriculum over three years.
New funding will support the development of a curriculum beyond health sciences, a website, rebranding and a podcast as well as copyrighting the materials for the self-paced course. Pitt-Greensburg, the Swanson School of Engineering, the Office of Inclusion and Belonging, the School of Law and Pitt IT signed up to engage the curriculum following the pilot’s success. National organizations, like the American Dental Association, have also expressed interest in leveraging the content for internal training.
Putting people first
Thirty-three SHRS faculty and students were selected for the pilot interviews to ensure the representation of different identities and perspectives. With just under 100 hours of footage, the CuPID team began building the course into three modules based on themes that emerged from the interviews.
“We let Pitt people tell us what they wanted us to learn, as opposed to coming in and dictating what people needed to learn,” Graff said.
Module one considers individual identity and one’s position in society. Module two explores how bias and microaggression appear in professional and educational spheres. Module three focuses on using one’s social identity, positionality and knowledge of existing problems to create a solution.
“The interviews bridge abstract concepts like oppression, discrimination and various ‘isms’ to concrete human experience,” added Graff. “And not just any human concrete experience, but the experiences of people at Pitt.”
John Guinane is a media producer at the Center for Teaching and Learning and leads the filming for CuPID. He said the project has attracted broad interest due to the impact and relatability of participants’ narratives, which tangibly spotlight diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) issues.
The course has touched on issues that aren’t typically covered in traditional DEI programs, said Guinane. “Maybe there’s discussion around race, gender identity and sexual orientation, but with CuPID, you find out so much more about people’s internal struggles.” He recalled interviewees discussing being introverted versus extroverted or left-handed in fields, like dentistry, often set up for right-handed people. One wheelchair user talked about being asked whether they can have sex.
Graff added that the course explores identities other than those that are hypervisible, which, though important, don’t offer a complete picture.
“Internally, our folks have had a lot of comments about how this was one of the most rewarding projects we’ve worked on,” said Chris Gates, communication and outreach manager in the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Like the Cornell course that inspired it, the CuPID course serves to set plot in motion, focused on encouraging a sense of belonging.
“CuPID’s mission is to cultivate connection among individuals and communities within and around the University of Pittsburgh by engaging in what matters to us,” said Graff. “Community, connection and authenticity.
“CuPID is a course on humanizing one another so we can begin breaking down the barriers we’ve erected around ourselves,” Graff continued. “They don’t serve the person who has prejudice or is the object of that prejudice. If we can be human together, imagine what we could do and what this world would be like.”
— Kara Henderson and Micaela Corn, photography courtesy of CuPID