The Association of American Colleges and Universities has announced the establishment of 10 Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Centers on college and university campuses across the country. The 10 educational institutions chosen were selected based on their proposals’ ability to create positive narratives about race, identify and examine current realities of race relations in their communities, envision communities without entrenched racial hierarchies, and pinpoint levers for change and key individuals to engage. The institutions will receive an initial award of $30,000 to develop and implement visionary plans that engage and empower campus and community stakeholders to uproot the conscious and unconscious biases and misbeliefs that have exacerbated racial violence and tension in American society.
The 10 educational institutions selected for the grants are:
- Austin Community College in Texas
- Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island
- Duke University in Durham, North Carolina
- Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota
- Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi
- Rutger University-Newark in New Jersey
- Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia
- The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina
- University of Hawaii at Manoa
- University of Maryland Baltimore County
Lynn Pasquerella, the former president of Mount Holyoke College and current president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, stated that “AACU is thrilled to partner with these first 10 outstanding institutions on our way to establishing 150 centers across the country to ensure that higher education is playing a leadership role in promoting racial and social justice. In the aftermath of the horrific, heartbreaking events in Charlottesville, we must not be silent. Instead, we must harness our collective intellectual, social, and financial resources to transform words into action.”
