Race and Social Justice Institute Highlight

The goal of the antiracism colloquium is to support the building of critical literacies of race and settler colonialism to support research and teaching centered on educational justice.

This year, Dr. Leigh Patel, Associate Dean of Equity and Justice and Professor of Educational Foundations, Organizations, and Policy in the University of Pittsburgh Marsal Family School of Education, will do a 1-week virtual residency that will include a keynote, sessions with students, sessions with faculty, and will culminate with presentations from student recipients of our Antiracist Mini-grants.

The Antiracist Mini-grants were created for students who wished to continue working or putting into practice their experiences. The mini-grant program welcomed students who are dissertating to first-year students who wish to work on a project and encouraged students to apply for funding through the Antiracist Research Mini-Grant Program sponsored by the dije Office. The Antiracist Research Program supports education research projects and scholarship that will contribute to the improvement of education through an antiracist lens. This mini-grant seeks to fund research that advances the SOE community’s understanding of anti-racist praxis and its ability to help reimagine an antiracist community and environment in the SOE. Direct grants were made to students totaling $10,000 in amounts ranging from $500–$2500. Eligibility is contingent on participation in Institute and sponsored events.

Congratulations to the winners of the Anti-Racist mini-grant: 

• Cassandra Arroyo, Doctoral Student, CSHPE
• Jarell Skinner-Roy, Doctoral Student, CSHPE
• Emanuele Bardelli, Doctoral Candidate, Educational Studies
• Matthew Truwit, Doctoral Student, Educational Studies

The Race and Justice institute has three goals: (1) community, (2) critical literacies of race and settler colonialism, and (3) self-authorship. The institute strives to build an internal community centered on educational justice, build literacies to support research and teaching centered on educational justice, and provide space for self-authorship in the field of education. The institute grounds itself on four dimensions of working towards Race and Social Justice that are intellectual, emotional, ethical, and actionable.

The Institute believes that “Justice IS THE ALL”. The institute takes after the idea that “with or without formally institutionalizing social justice education, it is not a countercultural movement within the broader field of education. Social justice education—whether or not we continue to use those words to define it—is the crux of the future of our field. Social justice is not the other of the field of education, it is the field. There is no future of the field of education if it cannot meaningfully attend to social contexts, historical and contemporary structures of settler colonialism, white supremacy, and anti-blackness” Social justice is not a catchall; it is the all: it REMEMBERS, it IS THE LAND, it IS NOT A FEELING BUT MATERIAL, and it HAS NO FINAL DESTINATION.

To register, please go to https://sessions.studentlife.umich.edu/track/event/8367 or contact Institute Leaders (Allies) Maisie Gholson (mgholson@umich.edu) or David Humphrey, Jr. (davidhjr@umich.edu).