Welcome to IDEA
Diversity is a Prerequisite of Excellence
The mission of the IDEA Institute is to support scholarship, innovation, collaboration, and leadership in the areas of inclusion, diversity, equity, and access at all levels: faculty, staff, students, and K-12 outreach/public engagement.
Town Hall Meeting
On February 13, 2020, Professor Lynford Goddard presented at the town hall meeting. Topics covered include the IDEA Institute's core values, its goals, and trends in diversity at The Grainger College of Engineering.
Seven projects selected for funding by the Grassroots Initiatives to Address Needs Together project
The Grassroots Initiatives to Address Needs Together (GIANT) program seeks to enable teams of students, postdocs, staff, and faculty to propose and implement research-based initiatives in the areas of inclusion, diversity, equity, and access. Fourteen high quality proposals were submitted to the 2020 GIANT program. The IDEA Institute is excited to announce that seven projects were selected for funding.
Lynford L. Goddard (Photo by L. Brian Stauffer)
Lynford Goddard
The Institute’s inaugural director, Professor Goddard has been involved in and spearheaded numerous diversity efforts. Since 2010, hundreds of K-12 students have attended on-campus summer camps he helped to develop, including Girls Learning Electrical Engineering, Brain Fitness Fridays, Illinois Summer Academy, Illinois-ChiS&E Alliance for Nurturing Excellence in STEM Education Leadership (ICANEXSEL), and I-STEM/Urbana High School Student Athletes in Research.