Contribute your story to the Legacy Project
Help write ODEI history
To commemorate the rich, far-reaching history of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, starting with its founding in 1981 by Ms. Cora Ingrum, ODEIAB is launching the ODEIAB Legacy Project. The Legacy Project will take the form of a website as well as a periodically-updated booklet, which we hope to release before the end of 2022. The project will present a broad overview of ODEI over the years, featuring all of what makes ODEI the place we know and love: a timeline of the history of ODEI and its presence within Penn Engineering; interviews with the original pathfinders of the office, Ms. Cora Ingrum and Ms. Donna Hampton, as well as its current directors, Dr. Laura Stubbs and Ms. Yulanda Essoka; pictures of treasured moments made in and out of ODEI over the years; in addition to alumni stories and perspectives on their time with ODEI.
Above all else, we hope the Legacy Project will serve as a symbol of the ODEI community’s resiliency, persistence, and kinship, exemplifying that with the right people in your corner, anything is possible.
Find your way to participate
Submit a video
Have a funny ODEI memory you want to recount? Want to talk about the impact Ms. Ingrum and Ms. Hampton had on your life? Share your story by submitting a video through the Tribute.co (link here) application, where you will be able to view your video in addition to others that are submitted. Feel free to share whatever is on your mind, or respond to one of the five provided prompts. Videos will ultimately be displayed on the Legacy Project website.
Submit a written response
If words come more easily to you than being in front of the camera, you can also submit a written response to our Response Submission Form (link here). There, you can respond to our five provided prompts, or respond in your own way to the “Free prompt” space. Responses can be as short or as long as you’d like, spanning whatever testimony is on your mind or heart. Written responses will ultimately be displayed on both the website and the printed booklet.
Share your network, give a gift
Sharing the Legacy Project with your network helps us ensure that this project is as multifaceted as the community it aims to reflect, serving as a repository for ODEI’s history within Penn SEAS as well as a monument to the individuals who make ODEI the community we’ve known and cherished for forty years. In addition to sharing your network, you can help the effort by giving a gift to fund the creation of this project (link here), covering costs such as printing.
