Anti-Racism at Middlebury
Welcome to Middlebury’s Anti-Racism Hub. Here you will find a calendar of upcoming events, opportunities to learn through reading, listening, watching, and workshops, ways to connect with campus and community groups who are doing anti-racist work, leading anti-racist voices to add to your social media feeds, funding sources to support your anti-racist projects, and news and updates on the many ways both large and small that Middlebury is changing to become an anti-racist community.
The Anti-Racism Hub is a community resource that needs you to contribute to it. Send us your events, your suggestions for learning resources, connect your group to the hub, tell us about an anti-racist voice that we need to include, and share news large and small of your efforts to transform Middlebury.
- Anti-Racist Resources for Early Childhood Education
Let's Grow Kids commits their organization, movement, and themselves to be anti-racist in all aspects of their work. Using their platform to raise Black voices, and to create an equitable early childhood education system that advances racial justice for the next generation of Vermonters.
- Middlebury Libraries Anti-Racism Reading Guide
This reading guide holds works addressing topics of race, identity, and experience, and supports learning and thinking deeply about these ideas. All of these works explore our differences and commonalities. What is it like to live in a community where you sometimes feel as if you’re on the outside looking in? How does an individual and a community benefit from diversity and inclusion? How can we understand these issues and navigate them together?
- How to be an Antiracist
"Ibram X. Kendi's concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America--but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. Instead of working with the policies and system we have in place, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it."
- Hip-Hop Symposium Sizzle
From its humble beginnings in the Bronx, Hip Hop has grown into a global culture. Its sounds, styles, and fashions are now in play around the world. DJs spin turntables in Sao Paulo, Brazil. MCs rap Arabic in the clubs of Qatar. B-boys and b-girls bust baby freezes in Finland. Graffiti rises on the Great Wall of China.
- Optimistic and Depressed
"Trevor and guest host Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom talk about why radical honesty around mental health can be liberating. Plus, they talk about Trevor's feelings of being an outsider growing up in apartheid South Africa, about why he believes another black man will be elected president of the United States before a woman, and about how he got so good at doing hair."
- Decolonizing Theatre
Theater Professors Olga Sanchez Saltviet and Claudio Mederios describe decolonization strategies implemented using CDEI funding to support course materials, workshops, and pedagogical praxis aimed at decreasing systemic whiteness in the theater-making practice.
- Leaning Into Discomfort
Leaning Into Discomfort with Middlebury Athletics is sponsored by the athletics Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and aims to have uncomfortable conversations surrounding topics such as race, inclusion, equity and inclusion. The hope is that with this series we will normalize discussing some of these taboo topics as well as learn and grow stronger together as a community.
- Code Switch
The Code Switch team of multiracial, multigenerational journalists explore how race affects every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, food and everything in between.
- The Ethical Rainmaker
The Ethical Rainmaker hosts authentic conversations grappling with tough questions in the nonprofit and philanthropy space, including where we can step into our power and where we should step out of the way!
Do Something!
The work of confronting personal and systemic racism is hard. It takes intellectual, emotional, and at times physical labor. And sometimes it requires money!
Middlebury has established various programs for providing financial support for projects that will advance our efforts to transform ourselves and our institution. Through these programs you can get funding for activities such as:
- bringing a speaker to campus
- organizing a book club
- screening a film
- launching a research project
- holding a retreat
- organizing a workshop
- revising a curriculum
- and more!
These are just a few ideas of ways to organize conversations and interventions. Each group is receptive to your own novel approaches to doing this work.
Fire Creates Outdoor Recreation Opportunities for BIPOC Students
The Campus has a story about an effort to provide more outdoor recreation opportunies for BIPOC students. [...]
The Athletics Department’s Anti-Racist Journey: An interview with Ali Paquette
Director of Athletics Erin Quinn, Nate Stewart ‘22, Ellie Thompson ‘22 and Men’s Basketball Coach Jeff Brown hang a Black Lives Matter sign at a ceremony in the spring of [...]
Education for Equity and Inclusion is launching a new program this Fall
Education for Equity and Inclusion is launching a new program this Fall Fostering Socially Just Communities is a cohort style program that invites students to critically reflect on structural and [...]
Reading List for Black History Month Features Middlebury Authors
There’s a good post that features ten Middlebury-afiliated authors in honor of Black History Month. [...]