The university will celebrate its continuing path toward inclusion and acceptance with the fourth annual Diversity Days observance, a university-wide series of events highlighting the differences and connections among members of the UGA community.
A kick off celebration for Diversity Days takes place at 3 p.m. Sept. 13 in the Chapel. The free event features speakers, a dance performance and the presentations of the Black Alumni Scholarship, the Office of Institutional Diversity Scholarship and the Embracing Diversity Awards.
“Our theme this year is ‘Embracing Diversity at UGA: Strengthening the Root,’ which continues our metaphor of seeing diversity as a living and breathing part of this campus,” said Cheryl Dozier, associate provost and chief diversity officer at UGA. “The many events of Diversity Days allow us to celebrate the differences in all of us that strengthen the education and sense of community that our university provides.”
Uttiyo Raychauhurdi, associate with youth, health policies and assessment of intervention methods, UGA is in a unique position to join with our state’s communities to develop, implement and evaluate obesity prevention efforts.”
This fall in Athens-Clarke County, Phillip Tomporowski and Bryan McCullick, faculty members in the department of kinesiology in the College of Education, and Catherine Davis, a clinical health psychologist at the Medical College of Georgia, will begin a project to introduce fun and effective exercise games into the Clarke County after-school program curriculum.
In a second project, researchers will work through YMCA after-school programs in Colquitt County and with the Healthy Colquitt Coalition to increase children’s physical activity, healthy eating habits and family involvement-all known strategies for reducing childhood obesity.
The researchers are working with UGA’s Archway Partnership, one of eight programs in the state through which the university lends its expertise to address community-identified problems.
In Statesboro, a third project will use the Internet and social media to encourage physical activity in women during pregnancy and after childbirth. Research has shown a critical link exists between childhood obesity and the prenatal health behaviors and gestational weight gain of the mother, yet only a third of U.S. women gain weight within the recommended range during pregnancy, and less than a quarter meet minimum daily exercise recommendations.
