¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ is committed to becoming an anti-racist institution.
The University develops and promotes initiatives, programs, events, and resources that foster deep personal reflection, dialogue and action on issues of race, racism and anti-racism.
Current Anti-racism Initiatives
University-wide Initiatives
There are three University-wide initiatives that are either newly developing or ongoing and essential to our long-term goals. These are:
During the 2019–20 academic year, the Board of Trustees began to formally consider the physical and social needs of ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ juniors and seniors as part of a review of their residential life experience. The aim was to see how best to provide appropriate residential and social space for all ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ students. In conjunction with this effort, ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ engaged the planning firms RAMSA and WXY — the firms engaged to develop plans for the University’s Middle Campus — as well as the Sasaki Group to consider the current conditions of the housing and social spaces available to ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ juniors and seniors. While these planning efforts necessarily slowed down in the spring as a result of COVID-19, these firms will be charged to continue this work in collaboration with the administration during this academic year. First, they will be asked to consider the numerous studies conducted in past years on residential life at the University, and they will also be charged to consider housing and social options available at peer and national institutions. This review work should be completed within the fall semester, allowing for the development of a long-range plan of the upper-level residential and social experience and the provision of new residential and social opportunities for all ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ students. As previously stated, this planning will be done as part of a comprehensive effort consistent with the goals and objectives of The Third-Century Plan and the DEI Plan. This initiative will help to address inequities in the student social and residential experiences.
We will support plans for new programming and improvements to ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ’s long-standing Harlem Renaissance Center, located in the Bryan Complex on the upper part of the campus. Further, faculty and the Residential Commons directors will work to develop a dedicated Sophomore Residential Seminar associated with Hancock Commons and the Harlem Renaissance Center. This initiative provides a robust living learning community for students interested in race, ethnicity, and the African diaspora.
With the commencement of the new academic year, we will engage ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ faculty and students, as well as national scholars, in a comprehensive review of ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ’s history, with particular emphasis on the histories of non-majority groups at the University. This project will build in important ways on the bicentennial explorations of ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ’s mission and history by acknowledging the history and contributions of people of color to the ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ campus and community.
New Financial Support and New Programs
With the generous support of alumni and trustees, we are pleased to report that ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ has three new sources of funds to allow us to move quickly to further develop and support DEI efforts. These are:
Named after ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ’s first Black graduate, this new endowment fund, valued at $500,000, will be used to support diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and will be managed by the incoming CDO.
The newly established Alumni of Color Third-Century Fund will provide new support for our ongoing and developing DEI initiatives.
Through a remarkable gift from trustee Giovanni Cutaia ’94 and his wife, Maree, we have created the President’s DEI Discretionary Fund to support new diversity efforts and programs. Immediate allocations from this fund will support the following new programs for ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ students.
Internship Funds for Students of Color
New funds will be allocated to ensure students of color have the support needed to pursue summer internships.
Funds to Support Graduate Fellowships and Graduate School Applications
Applications to graduate school or national fellowships have high costs that can discourage students of color and low-income students from applying. New funds will be allocated to defray these applications and related costs, expanding these opportunities to students of color and low-income students.
Peer-to-Peer Program Funding
The ALANA Cultural Center provides programming for all students. New funds will allow ALANA to support student-developed efforts across campus.
National Partnership
¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ has now joined , a national consortium that will help diversify our faculty. The consortium partners the premiere research universities in the nation with a small number of leading liberal arts colleges to appoint scholars of color who have recently completed their doctoral degrees. ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ has now joined this consortium. CFD scholars will come directly to ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ through new post-doctoral fellowships and will immediately teach in the University’s curriculum.
Alumni Programming
Thanks to the work of the Partnership for Racial Progress, a group of alumni of color who seek to enhance life at the University and promote a sense of community and connection among ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ graduates, the University is pleased to announce the following:
New Mosaic Program Funds
Mosaic connects multicultural alumni with current ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ students, providing them with an opportunity to learn from alumni experiences on careers and on navigating life during and after ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ. President’s DEI Discretionary Fund dollars will be provided to enhance this program.
Events & Programs
Liberal Arts Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance
¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ is an inaugural member of the Liberal Arts Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance (LACRELA), a consortium of institutions geared toward finding creative solutions for addressing issues of racial equity and diversity on campus. LACRELA was launched by the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center, whose mission is to illuminate, disrupt, and dismantle racism in all its forms.
Member colleges have access to special campus surveys and data as well as monthly eConvenings, by invitation, for faculty and staff members seeking to learn more about antiracism and diversity efforts. These three-hour learning sessions, each on a different topic, are delivered by highly respected leaders of national higher education associations, tenured professors who study race relations and people of color, chief diversity officers, and other experienced administrators.
Board Strategies to Achieve Racial Equity
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Centering Racial Equity in Your Student Success Agenda
Tuesday, March 22, 2022
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Chief Diversity Officer’s Role in Advancing Racial Equity
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Classroom Incivility and Productive Conversations About Race
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Reducing Implicit Bias in The Search and Hiring Process
Friday, June 10, 2022
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Race Conscious Enrollment Management
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Communicating Institutional Progress on Racial Equity Goals
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Dismantling Persistent Racial Equity Problems in Stem
Friday, September 16, 2022
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Making Racial Equity Data Transparent
Friday, October 21, 2022
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm
Understanding Campus Unrest and Responding to Student Protest
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Using Assessment and Evaluation to Improve Campus Racial Climates
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm
Managing and Resolving Racial Tensions in the Workplace
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Leading Productive Conversations About Racism
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
Teaching the Truth About Slavery and America’s Racial History
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Fostering and Sustaining Inclusive Classrooms for Students of Color
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
Accountability and Incentives for Advancing Racial Equity
Monday, April 5, 2021
Confronting Explicit Acts of Racism and Racial Violence on Campus
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Disaggregating Data to Identify Racial Inequities
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Recovering from COVID-19 Racial Inequities
Thursday, July 15, 2021
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Strategically Hiring Faculty of Color
Thursday, September 16, 2021
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Supporting and Retaining Faculty of Color
Monday, October 4, 2021
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Recruiting and Strategically Diversifying Staff at All Levels
Tuesday, November 9, 2021
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Creating Equitable Pathways to Leadership Roles for Employees of Color
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
Meaningfully Integrating Racial Topics Across the Curriculum
Monday, January 24, 2022
9am-12pm PST/12pm-3pm EST
¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ employees interested in participating can contact Renee Madison, vice president for equity and inclusion, at rmadison@colgate.edu.
Employees can access recordings of the previous sessions and the associated resources. Note that you will need to sign in to your ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ-affiliated Gmail account to access the recordings.
Note: These files are for ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ use only through permission of LACRELA. Please do not circulate them outside of the ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ community.
- How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi
- So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo
- White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo
- Stamped From the Beginning, Ibram X. Kendi
- Racism without Racists: Colorblind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
- A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn
- Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race, Beverly Daniel Tatum
- The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander
- Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Slavery by Another Name, Douglas A.Blackmon
- Me and White Supremacy, Layla Saad
- How to Be Less Stupid About Race, Crystal M. Fleming,
- When They Call You a Terrorist, Patrisse Cullors and asha bandele
- 13th
- I Am Not Your Negro
- When They See Us
- Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise
- TED Talks playlist:
- 1619 from The New York Times
- Floodlines from The Atlantic
- Intersectionality Matters! from The African American Policy Forum
- Throughline from NPR
- Code Switch from NPR
- About Race from Panoply
- Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast from Race Forward
- Pod For The Cause from The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights
- Racial equity tools:
- Action Plan Guidebook: from Holy Cross
- Combating Structural Racism: from the Aspen Institute
- Challenge: from American Bar Association
To recommend anti-racism educational resources, please contact Dorsey Spencer Jr., (dspencer@colgate.edu)