Anti-Racism Working Group Update

Over the summer of 2020 the CCV faculty union formed an Anti-Racism Working Group that has been holding regular meetings to examine the ways in which racism and white supremacy exist in our college and the changes that are needed to address this. We recognized the need to address the lack of diversity in our college, the need for policies and procedures to address racism in the classroom and in the administration, and the need for deep and widespread curriculum changes.

Given that the curriculum committees would be meeting in early September, we prioritized the drafting of a proposal for curriculum changes. On September 11, 2020 we sent a letter to the Academic Council with detailed recommendations for course offerings, degree requirements, and essential objectives to ensure courses offer a variety of perspectives and address the reality of racism, sexism, and social injustice in our history as well as today.

We are pleased that our recommendations were received enthusiastically from the Academic Dean, Debby Stewart, and the Academic Council, and many have been adopted in the 2021-22 Potential Curriculum Changes announced on October 5 (available at Teach @ CCV).

In the 2021-22 academic year, the group has worked with the Academic Council to organize a series of webinars for faculty on tools for teaching to DEI objectives.

In addition to the new course offerings for the 20210202, and the EOs that address equity and the history of inequity, we would still like to see CCV adopt a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion General Requirement, such as many other colleges and universities require. All degree students would be required to take two three-credit classes that qualify for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion credits. These courses may include classes already offered at CCV, such as Native American History. Courses that have been archived due of low enrollments (such as African American History) would more likely fill if they fulfilled a graduation requirement.

We welcome all faculty members to review our letter to the Academic Council, and to provide the Working Group with feedback, and we welcome new members to join the group. We hope that all faculty members will be thinking about how their courses can address these issues, how we as faculty can better facilitate conversations about race, gender, and class, and how we can be better attuned to our own implicit biases.