News
Posted on July 22, 2021 at: 11:40 am
With the support of the University of Delaware’s Anti-Racism Initiative (UDARI), we were able to organize a series of programs in the Department of Art History in the spring of 2021 that centered the goal of developing anti-racist, anti-colonial, and anti-oppressive methods of pedagogy. The award of $2,000.00 allowed us to invite leading scholars, from Art History and beyond, to engage with graduate students and faculty on these issues. This series of programs provided the graduate students in Art History with critical training in new approaches to pedagogy and antiracism practices in both academic spaces and the art museum. We then drew upon the lessons offered by our guest speakers in a pedagogical workshop with Dr. Adam Foley, Associate Director of Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Delaware. These events represented a first step toward addressing an identified need for better pedagogical training for graduate students in Art History, and were the culmination of a year-long, graduate student-led antiracism effort in the Department of Art History at the University of Delaware.
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Posted on at: 11:35 am
Below is a short paragraph/abstract of the project/publication. For reference, among other things, I will touch on the “Chemistry of Dyeing” online workshop, and two other workshops part of a DE Humanities grant. (The First People of the First State: Restoring our Ancestral Knowledge). The publication is going to the Journal of Chemical Education, which is preparing a special issue on Diversity and Inclusion.
I’ll continue working on the white paper on the air. Is white paper because it is so general that you can scribble on the blank/white page? Were they submitted back in the day in the whitest paper? Hypotheses…
Dyed archaeological textiles. Herbal remedies. Improvement of food’s nutritional properties. These are only three examples that were discovered and exploited by Indigenous communities around the globe, many of which still exist today. The scientific method starts with an observation, followed by steps that include a testable hypothesis and experimentation. The three examples provided exemplify that the earliest scientists are of Indigenous origin, as dyed textiles still show their vibrant colors (discovered how chromophores bond); quinone remains used to treat malaria (treated stomach maladies with Cinchona officinalis); and nixtamalized corn continues to feed millions (made readily available niacin, increasing maize’s nutritional value). Indigenous communities tend to live below the poverty threshold and are frequently discriminated and undermined, so this work presents selected discoveries and contributions made by Indigenous peoples as an ally strategy. The work and teaching idea has two main objectives: (1) to showcase “the earliest scientists” by connecting historical background with scientific discovery, and (2) to attract and retain people to STEM fields, using Indigenous knowledge.
Posted on at: 11:30 am
Anti-assimilationist Mentoring Plan
Sub-committee chair: Deconstructing Syllabi
The education system in the United States puts Black, Indigenous, and people of color into what Love names “perpetual survival mode” (2019: 39). The academy and sites of higher education are institutions imbued with power and privilege. The character of success at the university is presented as benign meritocracy, yet in practice, women, and members of the BIPOC community are often excluded. There is a long history of exclusion and lack of support for these groups and those who do have a measure of success in the academy are often forced to adapt or assimilate to a structure that was not built for them. Moreover, for graduate students at predominantly white institutions may be difficult to find a mentor that they see themselves represented in, as the exclusion and underrepresentation of BIPOC faculty remains pervasive. This situation creates a twofold problem: first, graduate students may not establish a strong mentoring relationship that allows them to feel integrated into their program (see: McCallum 2020); and, second, students may end up merely surviving their program, rather than thriving. There are greater structural issues that must be addressed at all levels of the university, and multiple approaches will be necessary. One approach that can be put into practice immediately is considering how we mentor graduate students who are from groups, which have been continuously excluded and are underrepresented in our disciplines. Here, I offer a series of suggestions, including how to better understand student experiences and what steps to take in mentoring practices, which may allow for breaking out of the assimilationist model imposed by the university and considering additional options for mentoring students to be their full selves.
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Posted on at: 11:22 am
Black Racial Literacy Project Update, June 2021
Description of Project:
The racial discrimination Black faculty face in majority white places of work fall into two categories: institutional and personal. Institutional racism is a system of inherent institutional structures, processes, and policies that lead to the disparities between Black faculty and their colleagues. Personal racism stems from direct experiences with racism and discrimination at the individual level (Griffin et al., 2011; Porcher, 2020). Researchers (Cole et al., 2017; Porcher, 2020) argue that to mitigate the institutional and personal racism that Black faculty experience, it is important for us to have interpersonal connections and space within white dominated spaces as well as direct conversations about race and racism (Edwards, 2016; Sealey-Ruiz, 2021). With focus on anti-racism initiatives, Black faculty are expected to process the traumas of racism they experience among their white colleagues, who may have inflicted harm upon them. Or in many instances, Black faculty are expected to support in leading these initiatives without specific emotional, physical, and psychological support for themselves. Additional support is needed for Black faculty due to issues of racism, tokenism, and hostile campus environments (Porcher, 2020).
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Posted on at: 10:21 am
This year’s Callahan fellows research was sponsored by the History Department, in partnership with the UD Anti-Racism Initiative, and was funded by the Ray Callahan Experiential Learning Fund. Fellows were charged with investigating the history and legacy of racial inequality at the University of Delaware and its predecessor institutions. They presented draft versions of their work at the inaugural workshop of the Legacies of Enslavement and Dispossession at UD subcommittee on June 21, 2021. The blog posts are a further public presentation of this work – and part of an ongoing series of examinations of UD’s history.
Collin Willard, “Beyond Its Limits: A Case Study in University Expansion and Gentrification in Newark, DE,” University of Delaware Anti-Racism Initiative (blog), July 13, 2021.
Edward Redmond, “The Presbyterian & The Politician: Uncovering and Comparing the History of Reverend Eliphalet Wheeler and Andrew Gray,” University of Delaware Anti-Racism Initiative (blog), July 13, 2021.
