Anti-Racism, Racial Justice Teaching, and Practice

Anti-racism and racial justice teaching, learning and practice

Offline Donation: Thanks to a generous donor who sent us an additional $1000 through another channel!

Now is the moment to invest in teachers, students and community partners committed to social and racial justice.

“If an institution can be said to have a soul, the American Cultures curriculum is surely bound up in Berkeley’s. If we often wish that our courses will be relevant for our students, that’s not something we need to worry about when it comes to the AC curriculum. These are the issues our students are concerned and conversing about. I hear from them how the courses continue to be revelatory, and essential to their intellectual growth, and their ability to be change-makers in the world beyond our walls. They will follow the path paved over the course of thirty years by students empowered with the skills and tools of the AC curriculum and equipped with the critical thinking necessary to fight for a more just world.” Chancellor Carol Christ, 11/16/2021 (on the occasion of the 30th Anniversary of the AC Requirement)

Each year at UC Berkeley, approximately 18,000 undergraduates per year are taught by 150 faculty members, in the American Cultures (AC) curriculum - the single campus-wide graduation requirement, first instituted in 1991 that introduces students to courses rooted in examining the diversity of American experiences throughout history. Today, this unique national curriculum is at the heart of building the teaching practices, learning opportunities and applied practice necessary for a more socially just and racially equitable society. Several core initiatives in the AC curriculum scaffold the building of new ideas to meet the historical juncture of our complex political times:

The Learning Community for Undergraduate and Graduate Scholar Activism

Students who enter UC Berkeley are often excited for their futures at UC Berkeley because of their sense that UC Berkeley aims to serve its communities. Many students bring with them experience with community organizing, community-based research, and service, and raise questions such as how to integrate their studies with their community-based research and activism? Where can they find a community of scholars with social justice commitments?

The Learning Community on Graduate Scholar-Activism began in 2019 and has already engaged three cohorts serving over 85 students from over 20 disciplines. Students participate in workshops, build community, connect with faculty and community leaders, and develop an artifact that furthers community-engaged scholarship. We would like to build on the success of this program, reaching more graduate students, and building a parallel community of scholars for undergraduate students.

$100 provides seed money for a student to work with community partners
$250 provides a stipend for one student to participate in the program
$1000 provides funding for a returning student to serve as a co-facilitator of the program

AC Course Development Program

Offering an AC course provides a unique teaching opportunity at UC Berkeley, including participating in the nation's first and groundbreaking university-wide 'diversity' curriculum. Students from freshman to senior year are drawn to vital conversations within the AC classroom of our past, present, and future racial and cultural histories. And it is one of the very few teaching experiences on campus, where students from all corners of the campus will be sitting next to each other and learning from one another in the same classroom. As complex, rich and compelling as the country's cultural fabric is, so are the courses which are developed as part of the AC curriculum.

$1500 course development grants

Teaching in Troubled Times

The Teaching in Troubled Times series began in 2017 as a series of timely dialogues elevating some of the most pressing social and political questions that enter our lives and our classrooms. The series has fermented vibrant discussion and delivered ‘on-the-ground’ tools to support our students’ complex lives. The Teaching in Troubled Times workshops will continue to build an arc of learning for the campus, bringing together experts from a cross-section of interests. The Teaching in Troubled Times workshop series presents a unique opportunity to delve into the complications and opportunities our knowledge of student life at Berkeley brings. In this series of workshops, we form a learning community that together considers the meaning of inclusivity, acceptance, and belonging on and off our campus.

$200 provides honoraria for guest speakers

The Creative Discovery Fellows (CDF) Program

The Creative Discovery Fellows (CDF) Program helps instructors incorporate creative assignments into their AC courses, built to respond to a core question of anti-racism and social justice education. "How do we design support for faculty and students in ways that are adaptive, equity-oriented, and foster anti-racism?" This question is fueled by assertions that anti-racism and social justice pedagogy lies along an arc of efforts, which merely begin with considering the "content" of a course. The CDF program is a cross disciplinary faculty cohort model, formed across a series of workshops, and an undergraduate mentoring program.