By Ben Shaffer, Contributing Writer
Susquehanna recently became an inaugural member of the newly established Liberal Arts Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance, a conglomerate of more than 50 colleges and universities nationwide focused on advancing racial equity within higher education.
Membership to the alliance will provide Susquehanna leaders and faculty with important resources and tools. The alliance is led by the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center who will host a monthly, online series on topics like fostering inclusive classrooms and addressing implicit bias starting in January 2021.
In late-spring 2021, an online database of equity-related resources such as case studies, readings, videos and slideshows will be made accessible to all faculty. Additionally, surveys will be sent to the university from the National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates so students, faculty and staff members can voice their honest opinions regarding equity on campus.
Presidents of member institutions will also form a council of their own where they will participate in meetings once every three months to discuss strategies, provide and gain extra resources and create visibility for the alliance. This council of presidents will also be available to assist one another in navigating and addressing racial crises on their campuses and nationwide.
Leading Susquehanna’s involvement in the alliance is Michael Dixon, chief inclusion and diversity officer. University President Jonathan Green will also be heavily involved along with more than 60 other faculty members from the universities involved.
“Susquehanna is continuing to move in an upward and onward direction regarding inclusion, diversity and equity initiatives on our campus,” Dixon said in a Susquehanna Newsroom article, “Active participation in this alliance will allow the focus for this type of work to be centered in the small, private, liberal arts context.”
The alliance is a creation based around supplying college and university employees with the necessary assets to be leaders on topics like racial equality and equity. Lori White, of DePauw University, a small private institution in rural Indiana, was instrumental in forming this program, according to an article on Insider Higher Ed. Dedicated to promoting and teaching antiracism, White has spent 40 years in higher education watching conversations about race and racial equity catch steam momentarily, then fizzle away. White was also the first Black woman to be named president at DePauw.
Additionally, she found that of all the organizations and alliances around the nation made up of a collection of college presidents, there wasn’t one solely focused on promoting antiracism. White wanted to change that. She contacted her friend and longtime colleague, Shaun Harper, the executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center, with the goal of creating a space for important leaders in liberal arts education to engage in honest and meaningful discussion. More than that though, White wanted consistency, proactivity and an ongoing initiative to assist in addressing and combating racism in higher education and subsequently – in the nation and in the world.
The new alliance is based on USC’s preexisting leadership program with California Community Colleges, a collection of 68 members, more than half of the community colleges statewide.
According to the president of alliance member Macalester College, Suzanne Rivera, it is the responsibility of liberal arts colleges to better address racism and inequality both on their campuses and in the country because of the colleges’ mission to educate future leaders, as stated in the Insider Higher Ed article. Rivera also stated that because most liberal arts colleges are populated by primarily white and wealthy students, it puts the burden of teaching them about racism and inequality onto students of color.
By creating an alliance, leaders and faculty from these institutions will now act directly with antiracism and work to tackle racism by coming together and by connecting people who are willing and ready to confront racism in their institutions and advance racial equity.
