Community Reacts to Winter Anti-Racist Courses

By: Alia Bonanno, Ella Brady, Anna Kim, Emilia Kniestedt, Gamze Toksoz

This winter, The Academy changed the anti-racism work format from heavily criticized webinars to community-led anti-racist mini-courses, the first set of which concluded this Wednesday.

From January 6 to 20, the students and faculty members led mini-courses every Wednesday during one of two allocated blocks: one at 8:10 a.m. EST, and another at 1:55 p.m. EST. A second round of mini-courses are planned to be held after January 20. The curricula were created by student and faculty led design teams starting from November. 

Lower Alexa Murat, who facilitated the “Immigration and Racism” mini-course, believed that “the webinars [made] it really easy for students not to attend the anti-racist blocks,” Murat said. “I think that the [discussions are] accessible and welcoming… This environment allows for us to make mistakes and to learn from them.”

Reflecting on the first two sessions, senior and “The Racialization of Scientific Thought” facilitator Anna Rose Marion noted that time was needed to adjust to the discussion format. “It is hard to jump right in to talk on the first time… I think that it took a little bit to get going, but towards the end, there was more exchange.” 

“It always takes time for people to warm up and feel comfortable speaking about sensitive subjects with each other,” design team member, “A Vision of Justice” facilitator and upper Anne Chen said.

Murat reflected on the value of student leadership. “[Our] role is to make sure that the conversations we are having are hitting the points we need to become anti-racist [and] that everyone in our classes feels welcomed and safe to talk about these topics,” Murat said.

Marion believes that by facilitating conversation on underdiscussed topics, the workshops can encourage anti-racist efforts within the community. “These topics are so important and they're not always brought into the light [to] their fullest extent… by naming the issues and naming the problems and forcing us to discuss them, it'll force us to not be so performative and to act,” she said.

“We hope that students can come away feeling like they've learned something new… about themselves. The impact is going to vary from student to student, but the gesture in of itself matters,” Chen said.

As a student in “Queer History,” prep Jay Flanagan hoped to bring attention to underrepresented narratives. “I want to look more into the history and see if we can uncover more information about these people. It's been so lost because no one spoke up about it. No one listened to them. We should use this place to celebrate those people,” he said.

Senior Isabel Carden was eager for learning opportunities that would not disregard the prolonged history of racism and injustice. “I don't want my knowledge and my understanding of history to be only of white people, because that's not very representative of this entire country and the entire history of people,” senior Isabel Carden said.

Although prep Sophie Zhu cited engagement in the “A Vision of Justice: How Art Opens Eyes, Touches Hearts & Transforms Society” mini-course, Zhu believed that the timing and group size limited its ability to foster dialogue. “Firstly, it is difficult to remember discussions from an entire week before. Secondly, the time at which my current program is at, 8 a.m., causes almost all if not most of the students to still be half-asleep,” Zhu said. “Discussion based learning is much more engaging, but I don’t think it is as engaging as it could be. The groups are really big to begin with… and when placed in breakout rooms to talk, it feels as though we were foreign to each other.”

As absences are given for missed mini-courses, upper Stella Shattuck was concerned about reception to the programming. “I’m worried that people might just treat it like a requirement that needs to be cleared,” Shattuck said.

The mini-courses were only a beginning towards promoting an anti-racist community, Zhu emphasized. “The impact of racism is not something that we can fix in a 3 week course, meeting once a week. I think providing this course is one crucial step, but it is really up to the student to apply what is taught, and to pay attention during the class,” she said. “I think we can confront racism by these courses, but creating a true anti-racist school will take much more.”

Director of Athletic Training Adam Hernandez, facilitator of “Constructing/Creating Competitive Cultures,” noted that creating an anti-racist school will require community investment. “Anti-racist work is surely the beginning of an important cultural shift here at PEA that must be done in tandem with dismantling century old racist policies and practices. Finding the balance between moving deliberately and also taking enough time to create lasting change is difficult,” he said. 

“Some of us in this community are more ready than others to engage in this work and others are just beginning in their anti-racist journey,” Hernandez continued. “I am eager to see how this work will continue to develop and, importantly, how this work will continue to be baked into our classroom spaces, advisories, dorms, clubs, affinity groups, and co-curricular spaces”