Community Reflects on Anti-Racist Workshops

By: Selim Kim, Emi Levine, Clark Wu

Students and faculty gave praise and raised concerns in a schoolwide survey on the anti-racist mini-courses. After receiving feedback, workshop facilitators met on Jan. 27 to revise the program before the second session’s launch on Feb. 17.

In a Jan. 22 email to course facilitators, Director of Equity and Inclusion Stephanie Bramlett disseminated student feedback from a Jan. 14 schoolwide reflection survey. According to Bramlett, the 245 students who responded rated their mini-courses on average eight out of ten points. Overall, students “love[d] the facilitators, mixed grade sections and topics, [and] showed interest in the materials and remained engaged,” Bramlett wrote.

“The facilitators are being asked to do a job that people base their entire livelihood off of for free, and expected to do an excellent job of it,” upper Charles Falivena said. “The design in itself I find to be a bit flawed—I believe that the best anti-racist work is done by the self, but I suppose the trick there is getting people to actually do that work themselves.”

“People need to realize that the Academy cannot be anti-racist for them, they have to put that work in themselves,” Falivena added. “The workshops should not be seen as the end all be all of solutions to the chronic illness known as racism that's plagued this school for its entire existence; rather, they should be seen as a springboard to other anti-racist resources.”

Lower Anish Mudide expressed concern for the varying levels of participation among student participants. “[After joining,] no one is courageous enough to be the first one to turn on their camera, so we end up keeping them off,” Mudide said. 

“This turns the course into something ‘second-class,’ less important than, say, their German class where they are being graded,” Mudide continued. “This pits anti-racism as something of less importance than their typical subject, when, in fact, the reality is the opposite.”

Prep facilitator Finn Tronnes also noted how students tended to be more active in activities outside of Zoom, rather than in discussions. “We found that the students and faculty… were much more engaged and shared a lot more writing their thoughts down rather than sharing in a big group… We cut down on the group discussion time and just had people put all of their ideas or questions in a shared Google doc, anonymously,” he said. “We just communicated more that way because it just seemed like people could articulate better.” 

Upper student facilitator Kaylee Bennett recommended organizing students into smaller groups. Smaller spaces, she believed, would be more conducive to productive conversation. “If we have 10 or fewer people in a ‘mini-course,’ it’ll be a closer, more tight-knit community where you feel like you can actually share,” she said.

English instructor and faculty facilitator Becky Moore hoped for longer sessions. “I’ve already learned a lot— be more aware of setting up team introductions to include racial and ethnic identities, for understanding the multi-dimensionality of the community to build greater sensitivity to microaggressions,” Moore said. “Just 15 more minutes per session would spark more conversation.”

“My group had just hit a break-through point in the third session,” History Instructor and facilitator Alexa Caldwell said. “While I get the intention behind making the schedule the way it is, the students were just beginning to feel more comfortable engaging and discussing with each other, and now it is over.”

Senior facilitator Ana Marion had similar thoughts. “I just don't think that there's enough time during three 45 minute courses to really examine our role in these systems from everyone's different positionality and our role as a campus community in these systems,” she said. 

Bennett advised future courses to find a balance in their conversations about race. “Sometimes it might be a little overload for people of color,” she added. “The school is drilling race into every single subject that there's nowhere I can escape to. Yes, you can tell the white kids: don't be racist, don't use microaggressions, don't be ignorant… But for the Black kids or the Asian kids or Hispanic kids, we don’t need to be taught every single five days, when it’s already in our face.”

Prep Colin Maloney appreciated the students and faculty who organized and led anti-racist programming. “I think the facilitators were very well prepared,” Maloney said. “They have interesting content that is often thought provoking and helpful in creating a narrative of anti- racism”

As a facilitator, Lumala noted that he is still learning to navigate conversations of race. “There are some ‘growing pains.’ I’ve definitely made a lot of mistakes when planning the classes and in the way that I’ve led individual classes.”

In conversation with the feedback from the survey, Bramlett, the design team and the facilitators have begun to plan the second mini-course sessions. According to Bramlett, facilitators will likely stay with their original teams and courses. Anti-Racist Work Group 1, which normally takes place at 8:10 a.m. EST, will also be adjusted to a “friendlier” time starting in spring term. The courses themselves will also aim to increase the use of Breakout Rooms until the possibility of an in-person environment is available. 

Yet, Marion expressed that the journey to being an anti-racist institution is still far from over. “...we have to take off the rose colored glasses and see ourselves for who we are and see that we need something more than this and that we needed something more than this decades upon decades ago...These courses are not the answer. They're like the first micro baby step.”