Recently, The New York Times framed summer as “a blank canvas for aspiration,” and for some, summer is a great time to slow down, reflect, and dig into new and unfolding areas of our pedagogical and research approaches. In the last few years, anti-racist pedagogy has been a popular area of professional development. In the realm of community-engaged teaching and research, anti-racist practices are essential to facilitating equitable partnerships across universities and communities. In August, our co-edited volume on this topic, with Christina Santana, Aldo Garcia-Guevera, Joseph Krupczynski, Cynthia Lynch, John Reiff, and Elaine Ward, Anti-racist Community Engagement: Principles and Practices, will be available to the public. In anticipation of its release, we are kicking off our summer blog series on anti-racist community-engaged pedagogies and practices.
Anti-racist Community Engagement: Principles and Practices centers anti-racist community-engaged traditions that BIPOC academics and community members have created through more than a century of collaboration across university and community. It demonstrates both the progress and the work that still needs to be done to implement anti-racist practices into community engagement. The book is structured around the following four principles, which we developed with others in the New England Equity and Engagement Consortium as part of our shared work and dialogue with colleagues regionally and across the country:
- Principle 1 — Counteracting the Persistence and Impact of Racism on Our Campuses and in Our Community Engagement: Reframing Our Institutional and Pedagogic Practices
- Principle 2 — Critical Reflection on Individual and Systemic/Structural Racism: Understanding Positionality, Bias, and Historic Roots of Systemic Racism
- Principle 3 — Intentional Learning/Course Design: Developing Anti-racist Learning Goals, Course Content, Policies, and Assessment
- Principle 4 — Compassionate/Reflective Classroom: Create a Sense of Belonging in the Classroom by Acknowledging Student Contributions and Meeting Students Where They Are
Each chapter in the book introduces a specific example of anti-racist community engagement, with authors providing unique, situated insights into the nature and complexity of their community collaborations. This is followed by a “Practice” section where authors reflect on their engagement, and the lessons learned through it, thus leaving readers with detailed insights and roadmaps for adapting or replicating the work. Finally, a “Connections” section places the case and its practices into broader contexts of pedagogical, curricular, institutional, and community change.
We consciously position these practices as “anti-racist” to indicate their role in actively combatting racism. However, we recognize that colleagues at public institutions in states passing anti-DEI and anti-critical race theory legislation may not be able to use the term “anti-racist” to describe their work. The chapters still offer valuable practices that those working under such conditions can adapt and adopt, without having to name them as “anti-racist.”
Also, we will be publishing an open-access digital companion to the volume, where authors share materials that will help shed further light on their compelling practices, including syllabi, agendas, handouts, worksheets, and additional resources.
For this blog series, each month, authors will share or reflect on various aspects of their work, including discussions about the “behind the scenes” of projects, recasts of chapters to spark larger conversations, or synopses of initiatives followed by things that have happened and things authors have since learned. Stay tuned to learn more!
To pre-order your copy of Anti-racist Community Engagement today, please visit the Stylus/Campus Compact website.