Continuous Learning for Antiracist Culture Change (CLARCC) Fellowship

Overview

The Fellowship in Continuous Learning for Antiracist Culture Change (CLARCC Fellowship) seeks to create lasting antiracist change through bringing together faculty and staff in a process of facilitated self-reflection, peer learning, and individual and structural action.

Application deadline: December 20, 2024

Fellows notified: January 6, 2025

What is antiracist culture change?

In the field of higher education, antiracist culture change (ARCC) seeks to widen the circle of power and opportunity, increasing students’ sense of belonging and providing them with pathways to counteract injustice in their lives (Greene 2020, Garneau & Browne, 2017). ARCC entails deliberate action to center racial equity in both what we impart to students and how we impart it, recognizing that without such action, our courses and classrooms will naturally reflect the implicit biases and racial hierarchies of the society in which they exist. As such, ARCC seeks to counteract the effects of structural racism in education through deliberate changes to the social culture of schools and universities. Evidence shows that antiracist change can also have positive effects on other dimensions of diversity, such as gender and class, if it adopts an intersectional and integrative approach.

Like any process of antiracist change, ARCC is designed for educators—defined as all personnel in a university who work with students—who recognize the need for diversity, equity and inclusion but find it difficult to truly integrate these concepts into how they operate and work. The core of ARCC is a critical examination of power, privilege, rank, and culture in a school, including in both the subjects we impart and the spaces in which we impart them. This examination centers the racialized and Indigenous people who are historically most affected by racism, while also recognizing the parallels and intersections between all forms of oppression. It encompasses all relationships that exist in the classroom, including those between students and faculty or staff, students and other students, and students and the material and experts they are exposed to. By its nature, ARCC is a gradual, uncomfortable, and emergent exercise, meaning that its end result is not predictable, and the expectations of those participating will change along the way.