Featured Race on Campus: Using Rx Racial Healing Circle to Cultivate Racial Healing and Transformation on a College Campus

Workshop Presentation
Felicia Wiltz,  Joyya Smith  

Live Zoom Session June 2 at 1 PM CST - Link: https://suffolk.zoom.us/j/98858183201 This workshop will demonstrate a shortened version of a Rx Racial Healing Circle used within a Faculty and Professional Learning Community (FPLC) on our campus. Participants will learn the basic principles of establishing a racial healing circle and participate in several aspects of an initial circle. Through the Office of Diversity, Access and Inclusion, a group of faculty and staff from our university attended the June 2020 Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Institute sponsored by the American Association of Colleges and Universities. TRHT, established by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, uses Rx Racial Healing Circles, which were adapted from indigenous communities. The practice focuses on community building and narrative change in an inclusive manner to bring about transformative and sustainable change. Our TRHT goals included developing an FPLC for the 2020-2021 academic year, consisting of faculty, staff and administrators from various departments across campus. The FPLC is funded through our campus Center for Teaching and Scholarly Excellence. Entitled “Race on Campus”, the FPLC has explored strategies that can be used by faculty and staff to effectively engage students and colleagues in discussions about race and developing antiracist frameworks. We participated in several racial healing circles to engage in our own education of racism and antiracism, uproot unconscious biases, and address misbeliefs learned during our own socialization. FPLC has sponsored three campus-wide book discussions on race and are working on a campaign of racial awareness and change on campus.