This year I work as a Graduate Assistant for the College of Architecture Diversity Council. We just got the news that we as a team won the Diversity Service Team Award, as part of Texas A&M’s Accountability, Climate, and Equity (ACE) Awards. These awards, coordinated by the Department of Multicultural Services, recognize individual, team, and collaborative efforts that address the issues related to diversity and inclusion at our campus community, based on the three goals outlined in our university’s Diversity Plan: accountability, climate, and equity.
 
There are a lot of events, initiatives, academic and outreach activities going on in our campus community. Whether you have been in involved in some of them, or you know there are good experience that you think should be recognized, you can submit a nomination for those people or team. Many of the work that we do at the College of Architecture Diversity Council has the goal to create a safe and welcoming environment for people from all backgrounds. We’ve been hosting lots of cultural events, diversity-related trainings, and also cross-disciplinary collaborative design that encouraged teamwork and communication. I’m sure many of you graduate students, whether working as Graduate Assistant or participating in some of the campus events, know some people and university teams that deserve this recognition as well. From our own experience, the key is to describe the impact on student body, and how the programming and efforts changed our campus climate in a positive direction.
 
If you’re interested in nominating someone, or your own work, you should check out the ACE Awards guidelines. They will accept nominations every spring semester. We are honored to be recognized this year, and we also hope to get to know more people across campus that are working on improving our campus diversity and inclusion.

---Mingqian Liu
Mingqian is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Department of Architecture