By Liz Lewis ’22
News Editor
The University of Southern California launched the Liberal Arts Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance, the newest project of their Race and Equity Center, this week. Mount Holyoke College joined LACRELA as an inaugural member.
Mount Holyoke joined 51 other liberal arts colleges across the United States in being named an inaugural member institution. Six colleges, in particular, were named founding institutions, including Macalester College, Depauw University, Oberlin College, Occidental College, Pomona College and Skidmore College. The 51 institutions identified as inaugural members alongside Mount Holyoke include other schools of similar size, structure or endowment, such as Wellesley College, St. Olaf College, Grinnell College and Bard College.
According to an article for Inside Higher Ed, member institutions will receive access to “a range of campus surveys, resources and monthly virtual learning sessions about antiracism, diversity and equity provided by the USC center.”
Among these materials is a virtual resource portal currently in development by the Race and Equity Center. It is set to launch in spring 2021. All employees of LACRELA-member colleges will receive access to the portal, which will include readings, rubrics and other multimedia resources.
The Race and Equity Center will also be launching a monthly live Racial Equity eConvening series in the coming year. Each of the 12 meetings, which will occur synchronously once a month beginning in January 2021, will focus on a different aspect of racial equity.
According to the Mount Holyoke website, these learning sessions will be led by facilitators of color and will focus on practical strategies for facing racial equity problems on liberal arts campuses.
“The learning sessions, each on a different topic, will be delivered by highly-respected leaders of national higher education associations, tenured professors who study race relations, and people of color, chief diversity officers and other experienced administrators and specialists from the Center,” Director of News and Media Relations Christian Feuerstein wrote for the Mount Holyoke College website’s News and Events page.
Mount Holyoke will also participate in three campus climate surveys run by the Equity Center’s National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates. Another survey modeled after the NACCC, which will focus on the workplace climates of LACRELA- member colleges, is also in development.
Presidents of colleges in the alliance will also remain in contact through quarterly standing meetings.