Mellon Foundation grant supports Africana studies, humanities 在火博体育

A $1.185 million grant from 安德鲁·W. Mellon Foundation will support Skidmore’s Black Studies Program 和 Racial Justice Teaching Challenge, advancing Africana studies 和 social 正义 at the College through innovative course creation 和 teaching, undergraduate research, 和 interdisciplinary collaboration. 

The three-year grant comes as part of the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities for All Times Initiative, which supports curricular projects in the liberal arts that help students to see 和 experience the applicability of humanities in their real-world social 正义 目标. 

Funding for Skidmore’s project, Africana Studies 和 the Humanities: Transnational Explorations in Social Justice, will support the development of new courses for the 学院的 Black Studies Program through the launch of “learning communities” that will help faculty to refine their own underst和ing of new teaching methods, schools of thought, 和 areas of study that will diversify curriculum 和 illuminate social 正义 issues within 和 across 学科. 

This effort will directly reinforce the 学院的 Racial Justice Teaching Challenge (RJTC), launched in spring 2021 to increase Skidmore’s curricular focus on racial 正义. Coordinated by the American Studies Department 和 Black Studies Program 和 supported by the Office of the President 和 the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the RJTC encouraged faculty to develop content on racial 正义 和/or Black studies for their spring 2021 和 fall 2021 courses, in consultation with Associate Professor of American Studies 贝克Krefting 和 Professor 和 Director of the Black Studies Program Winston Grady-Willis, co-principal investigators of the 梅隆格兰特. 

In spring 2021, the Racial Justice Teaching Challenge sparked participation from 63 faculty members who offered 96 courses, constituting approximately 12% of courses delivered that semester. In fall 2021, 81 faculty members took part 和 offered 110 courses, constituting approximately 14% of courses. Most of the 学院的 academic departments engaged with the challenge, from the humanities to the sciences.

There is a deep-seated desire among many Skidmore faculty 和 staff to be proactively anti-racist 和 avoid complicity, whether in the classroom or in their day-to-day 生活. With faculty 和 staff eager to support racial 正义 initiatives, we can focus on creating pathways to do what we know we must." 

贝克Krefting

Associate professor of American studies

In addition to Grady-Willis 和 Krefting, the seven-person Africana Studies 和 the Humanities project team includes Wendy Anthony, head of Special Collections in Scribner Library; Susan Blake, visiting assistant professor of philosophy; Lisa Grady-Willis, associate director 和 visiting assistant professor of intergroup relations; Lucia Hulsether, assistant professor of religious studies; 和 Jamie Parra, assistant professor 的英语. 

The learning communities, three of which were launched this January, are a combined effort of the project team 和 other Skidmore faculty 和 staff across a variety of 学科. Also taking part are the Tang Teaching Museum, Scribner Library, 和 中心, a 5,000-square-foot facility that promotes principles of equity, inclusion, 和 正义 in multidisciplinary programming for students, staff, 和 faculty. 所有的 these resources 和 spaces will support research, discussion, 和 creation of new course content. 

The project team’s work is informed by the Racial Justice Initiative announced by Skidmore President Marc C. Conner on his first day in office on July 1, 2020, as well as the collaborative anti-racist statement “Healing Through Action” that was signed by faculty 和 staff across the New York Six Liberal Arts Consortium 高校.  

In launching Skidmore’s Racial Justice Initiative, President Conner, whose own academic research is grounded in literary studies 和 Africana studies, outlined specific action steps to deepen Skidmore’s institutional commitment to racial 正义 和 to catalyze substantive community conversations about the individual 和 collective work that remains to be done. 

One incredibly important concern that drove our entire team was the need to do whatever we could intellectually to honor the significance of this moment — not only the 生活 lost to racial violence, but the 生活 transformed through study 和 struggle — substantively. The 梅隆格兰特 gives us the opportunity to do just that, to collaboratively help move the institution forward.” 

Winston Grady-Willis

Professor 和 Director of the Black Studies Program

In addition to supporting course development, the grant will seed undergraduate research that centers on racial 正义 和 engages with colonization/decolonization 和 power systems 和 structures. It will also fund the creation of two two-year postdoctoral positions in Black Studies with explicit grounding in the humanities. 这个项目 launched a national search for those positions in mid-January. 

“An education in the liberal arts — emphasizing critical thinking, creativity, 和 creation — matters now more than ever,” said Krefting. “Intentional work devoted to broadening institutional support for already existing social 正义 curricula 和 seeding new initiatives in this vein throughout the curriculum 和 in faculty 和 student research will profoundly alter the culture 和 climate 在火博体育, creating positive changes with long-lasting impacts.”