Our Anti-Racism Consultation Committee (ARCC) has been monitoring and directing our progress on a range of identified goals spurred by a student petition that was presented to the School's administration in the summer of 2016. The petition outlined 11 demands that requested greater visibility within our curriculum for diverse perspectives and greater student voice in shaping their learning experience.
The faculty and administration have been fully engaged in a consideration of the substantive issues that the petition items are speaking to. We are proud of the advocacy of our students and sincere engagement of our resident and part time faculty in the process. The following contains information about our work thus far and plans for upcoming steps.
The ARCC has met three times since November and has a half-day retreat planned for Sunday, June 5, 2016. At the retreat, current ARCC members and other interested students and faculty will meet to continue our work, clarify how SSW community members may join the ARCC, clarify the role and relationship of the Anti-Racism Task Force to the ARCC, and develop an action agenda for 2016-2017. If you plan to join us, please send an email to sswdean@smith.edu so we can order food accordingly!
Over the summer, we look forward to an active agenda and engaging our entire community in this exciting work. We will be instituting a new mechanism called Play Back Sessions, starting immediately, to gather comments and feedback from our community about ideas or preliminary decisions related to our anti-racism work as they develop. Also, we will be hosting a Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday, June 7th at 5:40-6:40 in Weinstein Auditorium, as well as tabling in Seelye and King-Scales where we can discuss this work and other important new developments at the School for Social Work.
More information:
Membership of the ARCC
Agendas, minutes, and executive summaries from the ARCC meetings
Progress on the Petition Items
For more information, visit http://www.smith.edu/ssw/about_antiracism_committee.php