.Dyne (center back) and students in the updated Behind Bars class visit the Allegheny County Jail
Congratulations to Dr. Thomas Dyne, who won a 2024 Provost’s Award for Diversity in the Curriculum for updates to the course Behind Bars: Cross-Cultural Representations of Prison in the 20th Century. Dr. Dyne serves as Teaching Assistant Professor and Russian Major Advisor in the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, University of Pittsburgh.
Behind Bars: Cross-Cultural Representations of Prison in the 20th Century is a modified course that invites students to consider the experience of 5.5 million incarcerated people of color, arrested, or jailed Americans, factoring in socioeconomic, personal, and historical impact. The change has impacted 102 students across all three spring terms (2022, 2023, 2024).
The Provost’s Award for Diversity in the Curriculum recognizes faculty who have taught a modified course or revised curricula to strengthen diversity and inclusion, resulting in changes of impact. These modifications may include such approaches as employing more inclusive and interactive teaching methods, instituting classroom changes to expand students’ cultural awareness and cross-cultural development, communicating equity-minded practices throughout a discipline, or creating more welcoming and inclusive learning environments.