For the Fall 2024 semester, the Center for Antiracist Scholarship, Advocacy, and Action (CASAA) launched a new initiative aimed at promoting experiential learning and opportunities for course and/or program enrichment connected to race, racism, and social justice. According to the call for proposals, this new endeavor was “aimed at addressing a core component of the “Framework for CABR Curricular Infusion and Pedagogy,” specifically the need to “identify ways to connect anti-racist work in the classroom to the world outside of the classroom.” Through this Program, we intend to reinforce the idea that antiracism should always be more than just a topic of study; rather, “it should be a way of being, a way of doing, and a way of understanding the surrounding world.” In support of the ongoing work at the University that embraces this core philosophy, the CASAA Leadership Team is pleased to announce the Fall 2024 recipients of CASAA Experiential Learning and Enrichment Microgrants.

Dr. Marty Eastlack and Prof. Sophie M. Farley were awarded a $1200.00 microgrant to support program enrichment initiatives in the College of Health Sciences. Specifically, funds will be used to support their Interprofessional Education event, featuring guest speaker Dr. Sabrina Heman- Ackah, who will address her personal journey as a Black woman in the medical field while also engaging critical topics such as diversity and inclusion in healthcare and healthcare education, implicit bias and impacts in the field, microaggressions in healthcare and academia, and more. Funds will also be used to purchase copies of Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine by Dr. Uché Blackstock, founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, for a book club open to faculty and staff in the College. To read more about this microgrant project, click here.

Dr. Logan Fields was awarded a $500.00 microgrant to support experiential learning and course enrichment for his PY245: Drugs and Behavior course this semester. Recognizing the interplay of factors that have contributed to the rise in Substance Abuse Disorders (SUDS) since 2016, Fields aims to not only combat the “stigmatization of drug users as immoral or inferior” but also to help connect his students to community members in Camden, NJ, who either provide education about substance use or are part of the underserved and minority population experiencing SUDs and the accompanying stigmatization. Funds will be used to purchase supplies, such as hygiene products, for care packages that students will distribute at a community outreach event. To read more about this microgrant project, click here. 

Prof. Allyson McCreery and Dr. Stephen Tyson, Jr. were awarded a $1000.00 microgrant for the second consecutive year to support continued course enrichment for their respective first-year seminars aptly titled, Making Moves–Strategic Nonviolence and Civil Disobedience in American Culture and Reading Between the Rhymes. Experiential learning within first-year seminars helps students “to foster their intellectual curiosity and critical inquiry” while also enabling students to develop more expansive “understandings of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.” Funds will be used in part to provide transportation for both classes to Washington, D.C., where they will visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in addition to the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) later this semester. To read more about this microgrant project, click here. 

Dr. Jonathan Shandell was awarded an $800.00 microgrant to support program enrichment for the Theater Arts Program related to “the theater’s potential for combating anti-Black racism, for exposing and challenging white supremacy, for examining historical and contemporary society through a socially critical lens, and for promoting social justice.” Funds will be used to bring to Arcadia University a performance of Illuminating Bayard Rustin by nationally acclaimed director and playwright Steven Broadnax III. The performance, which will take place on Tuesday, October 8, 2024, will shed light on the enduring legacy of Rustin as an openly gay civil rights activist who worked to affect change during the Civil Rights Movement. In addition to the performance, the event will include a discussion and extended workshop on racial, sexual, and gender biases led by the teaching artists of People’s Light. To read more about this microgrant project, click here.

To reflect on the outcomes of the project and provide the Arcadia University community insight into the overarching importance of antiracist and social justice experiential learning, microgrant recipients will submit a final report or deliver a presentation as part of the CASAA Race Matters Forum that will be made available on the CASAA website. Stay tuned for additional updates on these projects-in-progress and the important antiracist work taking place inside and outside of the academic classroom. In addition, keep a lookout for the Spring 2025 call for proposals for experiential learning and course/program enrichment microgrants, pending availability of funds.

To learn more about the Center for Antiracist Scholarship, Advocacy, and Action (CASAA) and the ongoing work in which we are engaged, please visit us online at www.arcadia.edu/CASAA and/or stop by the Center at 2035 Church Road (across the street from Taylor Hall). Additional information is also available through the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Mentoring (CTLM) on our joint venture, the Praxis for Teaching Race Program (PTR).