Tufts offers three dialogue series programs, Radical Healing, Unpacking Whiteness, and Intercultural Learning Communities (ILC). By design, these voluntary sessions bring together participants university-wide for dialogue to interrogate their understandings of whiteness as a social construct that works in sometimes hidden ways to give rise to racial injustice in the United States. All program sessions are led by facilitator-participants with unique subject matter expertise and training.
While the series are focused to address issues understood to be applicable to specific audiences (see below), each program is open to all full-time Tufts staff and faculty, regardless of how they self-identify racially or ethnically.
Registration for Radical Healing and Unpacking Whiteness for Spring 2023 is open until February 7, 2023. Please stay tuned for updates about when the Intercultural Learning Communities program will be offered.
For questions or more information about the dialogue series, please contact diversity@tufts.edu.
Registration Deadline: February 7, 2023
The content of Radical Healing is focused to address issues understood to be applicable to populations who historically have faced racial discrimination and marginalization. At the heart of Radical Healing is knowing that everyone wants to feel included, accepted, and like they belong at work, and that marginalized people deserve to live free of discrimination, racism, and oppression.
If interested, register here for Radical Healing (Note: if you have not logged into the Learning Center before, please go to http://learncenter.tufts.edu first).
Registration Deadline: February 7, 2023
The content of Unpacking Whiteness addresses the experience of those who have racial privilege and who would like to find support in understanding how to practice anti-racism in their daily lives. Anti-racism is an active and ongoing process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies, practices, and attitudes in a way that redistributes power and creates more equitable policies and structures while centering on the lived experiences of those who are on the margins and least likely to have the power and influence to change systemic racism and oppression.
If interested, register here for Unpacking Whiteness (Note: if you have not logged into the Learning Center before, please go to http://learncenter.tufts.edu first).
The Intercultural Learning Community program will not be offered this semester. Please check back in next semester for information on what sessions will be offered.
The content of Intercultural Learning Communities provides an opportunity for members of our various communities to come together to further their learning and equip themselves with the skills needed to dismantle the systemic barriers that uphold racism and oppression.
Participants will be in cohorts comprised of two facilitators and fellow participants. These cohorts provide the opportunity to connect colleagues across academic disciplines, departments, divisions, schools, professional roles, social identities, and other aspects of their background. Participants will meet with their cohort for fourteen 90-minute sessions.
Throughout Part One, participants will review readings and engage in dialogue/activities around topics examining social equity, systemic oppression, and cultural competency. The goal of this work will be to cultivate and challenge epistemological foundations among participants. Readings and activities are designed to challenge myths/tropes/narratives that inform oppressive mentalities, increase awareness of conscious and unconscious bias, increase understanding of the structural inequality, and explore the ways in which individuals and systems reinforce or disrupt these narratives, attitudes, inequitable practices, etc.
Key foundations include, but are not limited to:
During Part Two, participants will engage in discussions that examine the everyday experiences of marginalized populations within higher education, explore the factors that influence campus climate, and prepare participants to engage in change agency from their respective locations within the institution. Readings will serve as tools to engage in deeper discussions of the experiences and perspectives among colleagues in each cohort. Participants will be encouraged to share personal experiences, observations, challenges, and histories that illustrate their experiences navigating interpersonal marginalization, privilege, and structural oppression. Participant-facilitators will guide this process and prompt continual self-reflection, critical thinking, and structural analysis that strengthen participant’s overall commitment and capacity to create an equitable and inclusive campus environment.