History, Funding & Core Team

In 2009, faculty and staff from the iSchools at the University of Pittsburgh, the Pennsylvania State University, and Drexel University collaborated to design and develop the iSchool Inclusion Institute (i3) in order to address the lack of diversity among students and faculty in the information sciences. The i3 initiative is based on the premise that a diverse faculty will draw students from underrepresented groups into the information professions. After 10 years at the University of Pittsburgh, i3 moved to the University of Texas at Austin in late 2021.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has supported i3 with a series of generous grants: a one-year planning grant of $100,000, awarded in 2009; a three-year pilot grant of $600,000, awarded in 2010; a three-year renewal grant of $819,000, awarded in 2013; a three-year renewal grant of $850,000 awarded in 2016; and a three-year renewal grant of $850,000 awarded in 2019. Additional support has come from our Academic Partners and the iSchools Caucus (www.ischools.org), a consortium of information schools dedicated to advancing the information sciences as a broad, interdisciplinary field. The iSchools actively recruit i3 Scholars for graduate study as well as provide faculty and staff to serve as guest speakers and lecturers during the summer institutes.

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Core Team

i3 is managed by Dr. Kayla Booth (Director) and Dr. Elizabeth Eikey (Assistant Director) alongside their core team: Dr. Joe Sanchez and Aderin Falana.