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CAMPUS & COMMUNITY INITIATIVES

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Campus Leadership & Initiatives

Associate Dean for Climate & Inclusion, College of Liberal Arts, 2014-2017

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Facilitated efforts to enhance the college’s climate and diversity, oversaw diversity-related initiatives, advised the Dean on all matters relating to climate & inclusion, served as a resource to 12 department heads and 5 program directors, chaired the College’s 25 member Climate & Inclusion committee, participated in college level strategic planning, drafted the College’s annual diversity accountability report, and served on the Diversity Operations Committee. Key initiatives include Faculty Success Program Awards for women and faculty of color, Staff Certificate Program, Lunch N Learn Series, Know Your Rights workshop, IIDEA diversity grants, inclusive classroom workshops, and coordinated trainings (on Title IX, Green Dot, Aggie Allies, and Ability Awareness).

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Difficult Dialogues Project

Founding Director, 2016-present

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Interactive facilitated small group conversations format; Real-world case studies to discuss various topics such as racial micro-aggressions and strategies to combat them. Conducted several times a semester. Offered over 29 times to 900+ participants with 70+ co-facilitators. Open to the campus community. The research team includes faculty, staff, graduate students, and undergrads.

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Inclusive Pedagogy Workshop Series

Convener, Center for Teaching Excellence, TAMU, 2017-2018 (campus wide) and 2016-2017 (College of Liberal Arts)

 

Organized 8-10 workshops each semester for faculty, grad students, and postdocs on campus on topics such as hot topics in the classroom, pedagogically inclusive curriculum design, enhancing learning experiences for first-generation students, LGBTQ+ student engagement, (dis)ability awareness, and universal design

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First-Gen Freshman Cohort-Based Mentoring (FIGs Program),

College of Liberal Arts, Co-Founder & Co-Director, 2017-2019

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Co-designed (with Dr. Leroy Dorsey) and taught a year-long cohort-based learning community for Liberal Arts first-generation freshmen. Students are enrolled in small freshman courses capped at 25 students apart from enrolling in a one-credit bridging course that provides mentoring support through resources on effective writing, honors program, career development, money management, campus safety, Study Abroad opportunities and so on. In the second semester, students create a social media campaign aimed at first-generation students.

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Communicating Diversity Student Conference

Founder and Organizer, Texas A&M University, 2012 and 2013

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For undergraduate and graduate students to showcase their scholarship on diversity and communication]; Established in 2012, this conference that I founded attracts undergrad and grad students from around the nation to showcase their scholarship on diversity and communication. It is now fully student-led, has become a national event, and is an important recruitment and retention tool for our college and department.

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Communication Writing Group

Convener & Founder, 2018-present

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Weekly write-on-site sessions open to faculty, grad students, and honors students. We use the Pomodoro method (25 minutes of writing silently followed by 5-minute breaks – two such rounds within the hour). We especially welcome international scholars, first-gen scholars, scholars of color, LGBTQ+ scholars, and others who are committed to making this group an inclusive and supportive writing community. We also have a closed Facebook group where we share resources about writing, call for papers, conference information, and other announcements.

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Community-Based Projects & Initiatives

Media Rise (Global Nonprofit Initiative to Promote Meaningful Media)

Co-Founder & Executive Director, 2013-present

 

Media Rise is a global nonprofit initiative with about 3000 members that brings together media scholars with policymakers, journalists, industry professionals, social entrepreneurs, artists, K-12 educators, and community leaders to promote meaningful media for social good. This 100% volunteer-driven initiative supports small alternative community-based media initiatives, encourages mainstream media to be more inclusive and civic-minded, and shapes policy by engaging policymakers, government bodies, and community leaders to work together for meaningful media.

 

We have convened 3,000+ socially-conscious media professionals, cause-driven creatives, non-profit leaders, and educators through 65+ events in four countries (U.S., U.K., India & Singapore) through media festivals, film screenings, networking lounges, competitions, panel discussions, blog series, and other community-driven workshops and events including:

 

  • Media Rise Festival, a week-long annual festival that is held in Washington D.C. with about 10 events across 10 venues with ~50 speakers and ~700 attendees in 2013, 2014, and 2015. The festival includes:

    • Pitch Night to support innovative media projects for social good

    • 48-hour video challenge connecting causes with filmmakers

    • The Forum for cross-sector panel discussions on best practices

    • Film screenings and discussions

    • Networking lounges, and

    • Interactive community-led workshops

  • Youth Media Rise: A festival-within-a-festival for youth (ages 13 to 18), media educators, and engaged parents. The youth track includes interactive youth-led workshops on using meaningful media for social good. The educator track includes panel sessions focused using critical media literacy education to amplify individual youth voices for social and environmental causes. Participants continue working with their small-group collaborative teams to apply the skills from these workshops on real-world socially-relevant meaningful media projects.

  • Early Rise events: Half-day symposiums with 2-3 inspiring keynote speakers and ~40 participants organized in Austin, D.C., London, Singapore, Chennai (India), and Chicago.

  • Meet & Greet events: Live networking events in Washington D.C., New York, Singapore, and Los Angeles to encourage focused conversations and collaborations amongst scholars, activists, artists, and community members

  • The Media Rise Online Community: We have 1600+ Facebook fans, +1500 Twitter followers, and 3,000 email subscribers. Additionally, we host a virtual networking site with 650+ members in the Media Rise Community group to share announcements, upcoming events, workshops, and resources.

  • Quarantined Across Borders Collection (www.mediarisenow.org/qab)

    • Blog series hosted in June 2020 (80+ stories from 30+ countries); curated by Srividya Ramasubramanian

    • E-Book edited by Srividya Ramasubramanian

    • Special issue for the Journal of Applied Communication (co-edited by Srividya Ramasubramanian, Joelle Cruz, and Aisha Durham)

  • Other Events: Other community-based events such as film screenings, media literacy workshops, panel discussions, and symposia in various cities.

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We have supported youth-led creation of digital storytelling projects, artwork, social media campaigns for social justice. We have raised over $30,000 through donations to support meaningful media and awarded $8000 in cash prizes to support community media initiatives. Through Pitch Night event, 30 small community projects received feedback and consulting from esteemed judges and from audiences who attended about how to improve their work for greater impact. We have given cash awards to film-makers to create 13 short videos for nonprofits through our 48-Hour Video Challenge. We have supported pro-bono design and consulting for community initiatives, including a full-page ad in Newsweek.

 

Muslims & Media Project

Workshop facilitator and applied research, 2013-present

 

Media and Positive Human Values (Community Workshop), Muslim Family Awareness Forum, Bow Mosque, London, U.K., December 2013. Several research studies on Muslim-Americans and media in collaboration with Dr. Muniba Saleem of U of Michigan. About 60 Black African British Muslims of various age groups from young kids to older adults attended this media literacy workshop focused on meaningfulness, peace, and social justice. The Saleem & Ramasubramanian (2019; online first in 2017) piece from Media Psychology was cited in amicus briefs in Ninth Circuit and Supreme Court in Trump versus State of Hawaii case and also in the 2019 American Muslim Poll survey. It was also featured in National Public Radio (Hidden Brain with Shankar Vedantam and “All Sides with Ann Fisher”), Dallas Morning News, among others; Altmetric attention score = 325

 

South Asian Diaspora Project

Workshop facilitator and community organizer, 2008-present

 

  • India: A changing world, Office of International Outreach, Texas A&M University, 2008, symposium for K-12 teachers from all over Texas.

  • Common myths and misconceptions about India. “India: A Changing World,” Office of International Outreach, Texas A&M University, K-12 teachers from around Texas, 2008

  • India Days Festival, Co-Organizer, Texas A&M University, 2010

  • Three-day festival including panel discussions, keynote speakers, lecture-demonstrations, and cultural presentations that brought community members together with students and faculty.

  • Brazos Valley Shanti Choir, 2019-2020

  • Indian-American community choir to build community in the Bryan-College Station area by spreading the message of peace and interconnectedness through music.

 

Afrooz Online Media Literacy Program for High School Educators

Lead designer for online curriculum for Iranian youth educators, 2015

 

Designed an innovative six-week online media literacy curriculum in Farsi for Iranian high school teachers and youth educators as part of an online collaborative citizenship education initiative for the Afrooz School (www.afroozschool.org) funded by the Eurasia Foundation and the U.S. State Department in 2015.

 

Media Literacy & Civic Engagement in the Digital Age

Lead organizer with Michelle Lipkin from NAMLE, Texas A&M University, 2018

 

Day-long symposium with interactive workshops for media scholars, K-12 educators, students, and community members. Publicity and visibility for Texas-based media literacy initiatives through our main collaborator and co-host, National Association for Media Literacy Education, who selected Texas A&M as one of five locations in the nation to host this symposium series. The initiative brought together presenters from Newseum, Civic Imagination Project, USC Annenberg, Poynter Institute, Austin-based Latinitas Magazine, a student showcase panel (including local student journalists and high school journalists from College Station, Houston, and Austin) and media scholars from UT-Dallas and Univ. of North Texas. The high school students and educators were then invited back to another similar two-day event on journalism targeted at underrepresented minorities in Texas.

 

Catalyst: Media & Art for Social Change

Lead organizer, community outreach on media activism, 2014

 

Panel discussion, interactive workshops, and live networking with about 50 community members, creative media-makers, faculty, and students. This symposium led to the Chasing Ice event at TAMU in 2015 and an effort to create a heritage center in Navasota, TX.

 

Chasing Ice Project

Lead organizer, community outreach about environment & media, 2015

 

Film screening, panel discussion, coffee hour, reception with informational exhibits, and visit to local high school by Jeff Orlowski, director of award-winning documentary film, Chasing Ice on climate change.  About 500 students, faculty, staff, and community members attended the film screening and panel discussion. It lead to a workshop for Texas science teachers on climate change conducted by climate scientists from campus, a social media campaign by local high-school kids on climate change, faculty partnership with the Office of Sustainability at Texas A&M University to increase awareness about environmental sustainability on campus,  breakout session on climate change at the Zooming Out conference focused on high school outreach, and the formation of the Aggie Sustainability Education & Outreach Network, an informal network of faculty and staff committed to education and outreach about sustainability and climate change on campus, in the community, and the state of Texas.

 

Workshops & Programs for Youth, K-12 Educators, and other Community Groups

Lead organizer and workshop organizer

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  • Texas Outreach Coordinator, National Media Literacy Week in 2017 and 2018.

  • Collaboration with Journalism Educators’ Association and the National Association for Media Literacy Educators for NAMLE Media Literacy & Civic Engagement in the Digital Age symposium, which was attended by several high school students and teachers from all over Texas including Houston, Bryan, College Station, and Austin.

  • Youth Media Rise Festival, Day-long festival on critical media literacy training for high school teachers, Washington D.C., 2015

  • Chasing Ice: Screening & Community Outreach, Lead Organizer, Texas A&M University, 2015; Film screening, panel discussion, coffee hour, reception with informational exhibits, and visit to local high school by Jeff Orlowski, director of award-winning documentary film, Chasing Ice on climate change.

  • Youth Media Rise Festival, Day-long festival on critical media literacy training for high school teachers, Washington D.C., 2014

  • Youth Media Rise Festival, Day-long festival on critical media literacy training for high school teachers, Washington D.C., 2013

  • India: A changing world, Office of International Outreach, Texas A&M University, May 2008, symposium for K-12 teachers from all over Texas.

  • A label that sticks: Stereotyping in the workplace, classroom and other social settings. “A Community of Respect” workshop for K-12 teachers and counselors from all over Texas, International Outreach, Texas A&M University, Jan 2008

  • Common myths and misconceptions about India. “India: A Changing World,” Office of International Outreach, Texas A&M University, K-12 teachers from around Texas, May 2008

  • Media literacy: Focusing the lens on Latin America. Workshop for K-12 teachers from all over Texas, International Outreach, Texas A&M University, October 2007

  • Faith and environmental sustainability. Community Conversations. Friends’ Congregational Church, April 2017

  • Problematic perceptions: Role of media in racial/ethnic stereotypes. Media Rise Festival. Washington D.C., Oct 2015

  • Media and positive human values. Muslim Family Awareness Forum, Bow Mosque, London, U.K., December 2013

  • Participant, “Alice,” Leadership Network for Women Committed to Social and Environmental Change, London, U.K., November 2013

  • Yoga as a healing practice. Brazos County Health Dept., Bryan, TX, March 2009

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