Symposium – Anti-Racist

Becoming Anti-Racist and Catalysts for Change

Virtual Symposium Using Mobilization Pedagogy

Leadership

Melanie Harris, Ph.D., Texas Christian University
Jennifer Harvey, Ph.D., Drake University
Paul Myhre, The Wabash Center

Participants

Anthony Bateza, St. Olaf College
Michelle Clifton-Soderstrom, North Park Theological Seminary
María Teresa Dávila, Merrimack College
Teresa Delgado, Iona College
Michal Beth Dinkler, Yale Divinity School
Holly Hillgardner, Bethany College
Michael S. Hogue, Meadville Lombard Theological School
Deborah M. Jackson, Sewanee: The University of the South
Beatrice Marovich, Hanover College
Michael Brandon McCormack, University of Louisville
Angela Nicole Parker, Mercer University – Atlanta
Heike Peckruhn, Daemen College
Justin Michael Reed, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Nathaniel Samuel, Loyola University Chicago
Tyler Schwaller, Wesleyan College
Katherine A. Shaner, Wake Forest University Divinity School
Deanna Ferree Womack, Candler School of Theology – Emory University
Yvonne Zimmerman, Methodist Theological School in Ohio

Description 0f Cohort

The most recent protest activities of the Black Lives Matter coalitions have rekindled the national consciousness and served to nurture moral courage across our society.  The pervasiveness of white supremacy in higher education contexts adversely affects the formation of all students as well as the vocational trajectory of faculty and administrators.  In this moment, there is a desperate need for professors and administrators of religion and theology to discuss issues of race and racism, and these conversations have to then mobilize actions of equity, reparation and healing.  Talking about race means naming the reality of white privilege, hierarchy, and the pain of the oppressed and the oppressor; it is a risky conversation, but worthwhile if change is to occur. 

This virtual symposium will gather colleagues, representatives of schools, for six sessions (November to June), while, at the same time, those representatives also meet regularly with colleagues at their respective schools. The meetings with colleagues at each school will be to metabolize, disseminate, and design based upon the discussions with Harris and Harvey. In so doing, the gathered conversations with Harris and Harvey will seed and inspire embedded projects in multiple locations about the nature and workings of race, racism, and white supremacy. The two layers of discussions along with the embedded project will be catalysts for institutional change toward health and wholeness of many campus climates and institutional ecologies.

Embedded Project

In additional to participation with the cohort group, which will meet regularly with Dr. Harris and Dr. Harvey, each applicant is asked to create a conversation group at their own institution.  The applicant, as the leader of the institutional conversation group, will recruit 2 to 5 members of your institution (staff, faculty, administration) who will meet from November to June to: (a) hear your report and continue the discussion on racism as sparked by the conversation with the cohort group and Drs. Harris and Harvey and, (b) design an embedded project which will mobilize your school on an issue of race, racism and healing. The embedded project is eligible for a non-competitive small grant from Wabash Center. See guidelines for Small Grants Proposal on the Wabash Center website. The small grant deadline is May 12, 2021.

Goals

This cohort experience, coupled with the embedded project, is meant to:

• Equip faculty to be active and able participants in classrooms and institutions that are, or are becoming, racially diverse.
• Grapple with the ramifications and realities of working in a school that remains racially unjust.
• Create space to conceive strategies to help facilities learn to function well in racial diversity.
• Mobilize faculties toward projects of equity, reparation, and healing.
• Model being and feeling equipped to talk about race, anti-racism in classrooms of religion and theology.

Dates and Times

Cohort will convene via Zoom with Harris and Harvey on the following Wednesdays, 2:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern Time:

Wednesday, November 11        2:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern
Wednesday, December 9           2:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern
Wednesday, February 10           2:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern
Wednesday, March 24              2:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern
Wednesday, April 14                 2:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern
Wednesday, May 12                  2:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern
Wednesday, June 9                   2:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern