At a glance
The Names & Pronunciations Initiative (NPI) fosters inclusivity at UW School of Medicine by creating name pronunciation… Read full summary
- Funding received
- 2023-2024
- Small
- Awarded
- $1,275
- Funding partners
-
- UW Resilience Lab (UWRL)
The Names & Pronunciations Initiative (NPI) fosters inclusivity at UW School of Medicine by creating name pronunciation badges and an online narrative mosaic to share the cultural significance of names. Building on prior work with NameCoach, NPI promotes belonging, reduces exclusion, and sparks dialogue about identity, particularly for marginalized communities.
In Spring 2024, NPI will feature user stories at the Humanities & Arts Pathway Exhibit and host a community event to reflect on experiences and gather feedback. Aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals, NPI enhances mental well-being, inclusivity, and cultural awareness through advocacy and community-building.
Names are an essential part of our identity. They hold cultural, historical, and personal significance. However, their mispronunciations and misspelling are microaggressions with compounding negative effects lasting from adolescence to adulthood. When someone's name is mispronounced or misspelled, it causes feelings of exclusion being othered, which can undermine emotional and psychological development and negatively impact the sense of belonging within a community.
It's important to recognize that names are often a part of heritage for minoritized people. The energy needed to explain their pronunciation and meaning is an unsustainable process that undermines cultural longevity and a cohesive, diverse community. Recent studies and articles (e.g. Harvard Business Review, NPR, the New York Times, UW Medicine News, and on Pubmed) have shown that mispronouncing someone's name can lead to negative effects on work performance, productivity, job satisfaction, and quality of education. It is crucial to acknowledge the importance of correctly pronouncing names and fostering a culture of inclusivity and respect for everyone's names to facilitate more harmonious interpersonal relationships. Concrete action should be taken to improve communication in these circumstances.
I am requesting funding to take concrete action through the Names & Pronunciations Initiative (NPI). NPI will create badges with phonetically correct name pronunciations (including pronouns, like hospital employee badges) initially for UW School of Medicine students, staff, and faculty, inspired by my experience as a medical student when I recognized the utility of such a communication aid when my name was repeatedly mispronounced. NPI will also develop an online narrative mosaic of voluntarily shared anecdotes from badge users about their names’ significance. NPI builds on my prior work integrating NameCoach into the School of Medicine systems across Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. NPI adheres to the goals of Resilience Lab and the Campus Sustainability Fund. By facilitating communication about names’ relationships to our identities, NPI fosters connectedness, belonging, and community while also embracing the commonalities and diversity within the spectrum of our names’ meanings. NPI’s online narrative mosaic creates a platform to intentionally share multilayered reflections about topics ranging from pain to pride in experiences with their names’ symbolism. NPI aims to cultivate kindness, compassion, dignity, and gratitude toward each other through this vulnerability of sharing experiences.
Too often, my peers and I have experienced exclusion and marginalization due to our names in educational and social settings. This is culturally unsustainable and divisive for community building. NPI will spark more respectful dialogue and raise awareness on these social issues that have a disproportionately negative impact on communities of color. Consequently, NPI will highlight connections between personal identities and sustainability in the UW community. NPI will also provide opportunities for project-based and applied learning for the UW community by recruiting 2-3 medical students to implement the project with me.
Furthermore, in Spring 2024, NPI will invite users to showcase their narrative as part of the UWSOM's Humanities & Arts Pathway Exhibit, which will raise awareness about the importance of correct name pronunciations for cultural sustainability and inclusivity at UW. NPI will collaborate with other UW programs to recruit student leaders for badge production and seek funding from UW and external sources for continued activities.
NPI aligns with several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals:
#3: Good Health and Well-being
By creating a sense of belonging and inclusivity, NPI contributes to positive mental health outcomes for UW community members. Feeling valued and respected improves one's self-esteem, sense of purpose, and overall well-being. By sharing on NPI’s website, users may gain a greater understanding of their names’ cultural and historical significance and how they contribute to their identity and well-being.
#4: Quality Education
NPI provides an educational opportunity for project-based learning and dialogue for the UW community. Users can learn about the importance of name pronunciations and cultural inclusivity in a real-world context. By sharing their personal stories, users can educate others about the cultural significance of names and their impact on individual and community identity.
#10: Reduced Inequalities
NPI acknowledges challenges faced by individuals with names that are often mispronounced or misunderstood. By providing a platform for individuals to share stories and have their names pronounced correctly, NPI contributes to reducing these inequalities by highlighting the impact of name mispronunciations on diverse communities. NPI emphasizes the importance of inclusivity and cultural awareness, which can help bridge gaps between different cultural communities.
#16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
NPI promotes cultural understanding and inclusivity, which can contribute to a more peaceful and just UW campus. By highlighting the connections between community/personal identities and cultural sustainability, NPI encourages individuals to consider their actions’ impacts on others and the environment. This is essential for building strong and sustainable institutions that serve everyone in the community.
Team members
Student team members: The members noted in the application would be recruited from the pool of current medical students in the first few months if funding is granted. Examples of student tasks include will: brainstorming ideas for NPI’s website; preparing (e.g., editing, corresponding with writer) NPI badge user’s written anecdotes about their names, which will be put on NPI’s website; creating PowerPoint for end-of-year community event.
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Rashmi Sharma is the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at UW’s Palliative Care Center of Excellence. I have an established working relationship (~5 years) with her already from prior work in end-of-life care research before I started medical school. We work well together, and she is the person whose speech (about name pronunciations in healthcare) at a conference years ago inspired me to pursue more advocacy. Her role in NPI would be to brainstorm ideas about implementation and strategies for maximizing impact during implementation in the project.
End-of-year NPI community event
This additional end of year event (separate from the med school’s Humanities & Art Pathway Exhibit noted in application) will take place in Spring of 2024 with the purpose of bringing together NPI badge users to build community and share experiences. Invitees will also include members of the medical school who did not use NPI badges, to build relationships between different identities. The event's purpose is for intentional reflection about experiences related to NPI badges, whether as a user or someone interfacing with a badge user. This will be an excellent opportunity for meaning-making, both collectively and individually. Overall, this event will also build community and awareness amongst the attendees. A PowerPoint with discussion prompts will be created to facilitate sharing of experiences.
This event also has a practical purpose, as another opportunity for qualitative feedback (in addition to online surveys) about ways NPI can improve on its next round of badge production. Bahn mi sandwiches will be provided for an estimated 40 attendees, and the event will take place in the food friendly Health Sciences Education Building room 101 (space will be rented, see budget for cost details).
Sudiptho Paul
Project lead
- sudiptho@uw.edu
- Affiliation
- Student
- Years
- 2 year(s) remaining at UW
- Affiliated groups
- UW School of Medicine
Morrie Cordero
Team member
- mobills@uw.edu
- Affiliation
- Staff
- Affiliated groups
- Department of Medicine: General Internal Medicine: Finance
Request amount and budget
n/a
Measure the impacts
Evaluating the success of NPI with the following metrics will be essential to ensuring that it achieves its impact:
- Adoption rate: The number of users who use NPI badges will be a key metric to measure the success of the project. This metric will provide an indication of the UW community’s level of interest and engagement.
- Narrative submissions: the number and diversity of submissions will be an important metric to measure the success of the project in sparking dialogue and increasing awareness around the importance of name pronunciations.
- Website traffic: The number of visitors to NPI’s website and engagement metrics will be used to evaluate the reach and impact. This metric will provide insights into the effectiveness of NPI's visibility strategies.
- Feedback and surveys: User feedback and impact assessment will be crucial to understanding how the project is perceived and how it can be improved. Regular surveys and feedback mechanisms will be put in place to gather this data.
- Impact on and integration within UW community: Improvement in cultural sensitivity and inclusivity will be key outcomes that will be assessed through qualitative feedback and survey assessments. Partnerships and collaborations established through NPI with other UW entities will be an important metric to measure its success in promoting community engagement