WASHINGTON – A framework developed to address a campus racial crisis at the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) can be adapted to traumatic incidents involving gender, sexual identity and other areas where people experience oppression.
And it’s inspiring diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in surrounding communities.
Those were two key takeaways from a gathering of scholars, administrators and policy experts Thursday hosted by the American Council on Education (ACE) at the National Center for Higher Education.
The event called “Lessons for Campus Leaders: Before, During, and After a Racial Crisis,” followed the release earlier this month of a research report titled “Speaking Truth and Acting with Integrity: Confronting Challenges of Campus Racial Climate.”
In a study following a series of racial incidents in 2015-16 academic year on the University of Missouri campus and elsewhere in state, researchers visited the school and worked with the campus community to assess the racial climate there. One result of the research was development of a Collective Trauma Recovery Framework (CTRF) for dealing with racial incidents not just when they occur, but before and after by employing capacity-building strategies.
Project co-lead Dr. Sharon Fries-Britt, one of the study’s authors and a professor of higher education at the University of Maryland College Park, joined MU chancellor Dr. Alexander N. Cartwright and Dr. Kevin McDonald, MU’s vice chancellor for inclusion, diversity and equity and the system’s chief diversity officer, in a panel discussion about lessons learned and best practices moderated by Dr. Lorelle Espinosa, ACE vice president for research.
Espinosa and Fries-Britt praised MU’s vulnerability and courage in allowing the research team to come on campus to conduct a study at a time when emotions were still raw – and for being transparent and genuine in efforts to address the crisis. They said such an attitude is essential for any school attempting to heal from the inevitable racial crisis while building a high capacity of resilience.
