Carleton aspires to be a truly supportive and inclusive learning and work environment for every student, faculty, and staff member. To help us achieve this goal, each of us, as members of the Carleton community, must be open to learning about what it means to be an antiracist community.
In December 2020, Carleton’s senior administrative leadership mandated antiracism training for all faculty, staff, the Board of Trustees, and key alumni volunteer leaders at the advocacy of the student activist group The Ujamaa Collective. This training and dialogue highlights the important role each of us can play in advancing toward a more inclusive environment.
The next step in Carleton’s ongoing commitment to building an anti-racist institution involves continuing antiracism training to build the capacity of our community to talk about and take action on IDE issues in the workplace.
Spring 2022 represents a moment of transition; our goal is to create a second phase of training that more closely addresses the specific needs of the Carleton community, while at the same time honoring the recommendations of the original CEDI Action Team report.
PHASE II: Spring 2022 – CURRENT
Phase II will focus on Carleton-specific contexts and how individual employees might take action within their own work settings. This includes addressing bystander intervention, individual responsibility to act, and creating a welcoming environment.
PHASE I: January through May 2021 – COMPLETED
Phase I of training focused on the language and concerns of anti-racist work, to help each of us understand how racism is manifested at Carleton, and to develop common vocabulary to understand the experiences of our community members. A series of community-wide and affinity group sessions covered such questions as:
- What is racism?
- What is implicit bias?
- What does it mean for Carleton to commit to antiracism?
- How does racial identity affect how people experience life at Carleton?
- What are racial microaggressions?
- How can individuals become allies and intervene as bystanders?