How We Work

The Race & Pedagogy Community Partners Forum is a coalition of individuals and organizations representing a broad spectrum of Puget Sound who has forged ways to partner with the university to discuss, plan. It executes strategic action on a range of issues. The Forum has met regularly in working sessions modeled on the participatory pedagogical process of adult and popular education. We think-through, learn more about, chart, and hone program priorities who live at the intersections of race, education, and social justice. Together we have built, worked to sustain, and learned from critical partnerships across students, staff, faculty in higher education; teachers, administrators, students, families, school district personnel in K-12 education; and differential community-based, civic, and state constituencies.

The Race & Pedagogy Leadership Team engages in strategic planning, coordination, and oversight of RPI activities. It includes Director Grace Livingston, LaToya Brackett, Nancy Bristow, Renee Simms, Jonathan Stockdale, Carolyn Weisz, and RPI Program Coordinator Aldrin Villahermosa II '21, MPH '23.

The Race & Pedagogy Institute provides opportunities for students to work as Program Assistants to support the operations and communications work of the Institute. In addition, Student Scholars have the opportunity to engage in research and scholarship through AFAM 399: Public Scholarship and through independent study projects such as providing assessment for the conference. Students also engage with RPI through planning and presenting at the conference, participating in other RPI events, and contributing as volunteers.

In past conference years, The Race & Pedagogy Campus Advisory Council meets 1-2 times per semester to engage in short- and long-term planning and assessment of activities of RPI. Members include 15-20 faculty and staff members. Council members participate in Race & Pedagogy program and conference working committees and serve as official liaisons to academic departments and/or other organizations.

Students have always been strong supporters and partners in RPI's work. For example, the Student Association of the Race & Pedagogy Institute (SARPI) launched in spring 2018 as an ASUPS club and was active through 2021, playing a key role in promoting RPI's programs and mission. They were an essential partner in planning and facilitating the 2018 Youth Summit. 

 

Conference Planning

The Conference Steering Committee regularly convenes in the two years leading up to the quadrennial National Conference. The Steering Committee includes campus and community members who are chairs of the Conference Working Subcommittees and representatives of the University and community who are keys to conference planning.

Conference Planning Subcommittees include individuals from the community and campus who engage in reviewing conference proposals, planning for arts, spotlight, and other conference events, logistical planning, promoting and fundraising, and preparing campus and community constituents for the conference.

RPIs Contributions to the Puget Sound Campus

The Race & Pedagogy Institute (RPI) envisions a society where the systemic causes of racism have been uprooted and in which we are energized to re-imagine a world oriented toward the shared experience of liberation. Our mission for almost two decades has been to educate students and teachers at all levels to think critically about race, cultivate terms and practices for societal transformation, and eliminate racism. We are guided by principles of responsiveness, reciprocity, coherence, synergy, sustainability, and flexibility in how we respond both proactively and reactively to systemic racism on our campus and community.

In addition to the strength of our VISION, MISSION, and PRINCIPLES, one of the most important strengths of RPI is its intellectual grounding in the traditions of AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES. This interconnected and reciprocal relationship allows RPI to connect with this rigorous academic field, and African American Studies students to connect their coursework to civic engagement through the assets of the RPI and its Community Partners Forum. Other strengths of RPI arise from its practices of COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP, INTERDISCIPLINARY FOCUS, and COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT.

The COMMUNITY PARTNERS FORUM, another strength of RPI, is a coalition of individuals and organizations representing a broad spectrum of the Puget Sound community who have forged ways to come together in partnership with members of the university to discuss, plan, and execute strategic action on a range of issues since the beginning of the Race & Pedagogy Initiative. The Forum has met regularly in working sessions modeled on the participatory pedagogical processes of adult and popular education, developed by and used across different social movements. Together we have built, worked to sustain, and learned from critical partnerships across students, staff, faculty in higher education; teachers, administrators, students, families, school district personnel in K-12 education; and differential community-based, civic, and state constituencies. 

Other strengths emerge from PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICE AND INTEGRATION ACROSS CAMPUS. RPI initiatives have demonstrated that the work of re-imagining pedagogy and curricular content can happen across campus through partnership and collaborative, collective work. Many of RPI’s past and current projects reach across disciplines and departments to build partnerships and deepen our understanding of justice in education. 

  • The RPJ provides a forum to cultivate a critical discussion around issues of teaching and race to mitigate the effects of discrimination and structural racism, and thereby improve education for all students. RPJ is managed and edited by the University of Puget Sound under the Race and Pedagogy Institute's auspices. The journal was established in 2015 and has published two issues a year. It is the only campus publication to regularly engage faculty, community members, alumni, and current students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The editorial board seeks diverse content in voice and content, including scholarly articles, creative writing, personal narratives, and artwork by faculty members, student scholars, practitioners, and the general public. All journal volumes are available on the library's archive database, Sound Ideas.
  • RPI, the African American Studies Program, and the School of Education,  work together to prepare students for careers in teaching grounded in social justice. The Education Studies minor, built in collaboration between AFAM, RPI, and SOE, teaches students to recognize and confront bias and inequities that shape institutions, interpersonal interactions, and individuals in order to acknowledge the full humanity of students, families, educational personnel, and other stakeholders. This has contributed to deepening RPI’s existing partnerships with Tacoma Public Schools and other community partners through work on the Washington State Equity Grant.
  • RPI Leadership Team members have been CWL faculty members and contributors since 2003, and the pedagogic site of the CWL became an early place of programming and engagement for what later became the RPI Leadership Team. Throughout its history, partnerships between RPI, AFAM, and the CWL have generated curriculum development programming, models for recruiting and training peer advisors, and cross-disciplinary collaborations related to race, equity, and education.
  • This work began originally in a committee co-chaired by representatives from RPI and the CWLT prior to the 2006 Race and Pedagogy National Conference (RPNC). Following the 2006 conference, the standing Wed@4 planning committee asked this group to coordinate 2-4 Wed@4 sessions per year on issues of race and teaching on an ongoing basis, even outside of conference cycles. Subsequently, RPI has continued to provide coordination of Wed@4 programming on race and teaching on a cyclical basis as part of the RPNC campus development committee work, and also by having a representative of RPI serving regularly as a standing member of the Wed@4 planning committee.
  • The work in which RPI and its Community Partners’ Forum has engaged for the last 18 years includes the quadrennial Race & Pedagogy National Conference that welcomes local, regional, national, and international participants to engage issues of race and to discuss the impact of race on education. Each conference builds on the success of the last and contributes new perspectives to the conversation. For Puget Sound students, the Friday of the conference has become the “classroom for the day,” expanding students’ access to ideas and dialogue on past and contemporary issues regarding race, equity, and justice. Additionally, many students present their scholarship and creative work as part of the conference program. The conference, as well as its planning process and pre-conference campus development work, also serve as a professional development platform for faculty and staff.