Bard College Selected to Host a Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Campus Center

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—Bard College is partnering with the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) to develop and host a new Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center. Bard College is one of four institutions to be selected through a competitive process to host new TRHT Campus Centers. Guided by a common vision, each of the TRHT Campus Centers is developing and implementing a visionary action plan that engages and empowers campus and community stakeholders to uproot biases and to inspire the next generation of leaders and thinkers to advance justice and build more equitable communities.

“Inclusive Excellence at Bard aims to empower students, faculty, and staff to explore their intersectional identities to holistically develop their own inclusive practice,” said Dean of Inclusive Excellence at Bard College, Claudette S. Aldebot. “Establishing a Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center at Bard will provide us the perfect opportunity to foster and enhance our commitment to inclusive excellence and racial justice while also expanding our efforts beyond Annandale. We are excited to work with Bard Network partners through the TRHT framework. The work of inclusion belongs to us all and we are eager to move forward.”

Through its TRHT Campus Center, Bard will continue to expand this work by providing, for example, Rx Racial Healing Circles in which participants share personal stories to open dialogue in action and connect to our shared humanity. Rx Racial Healing Circles will include not just the undergraduate College but also the Bard Master of Arts in Teaching Program and the Bard Early Colleges in the Mid-Hudson region.

“We’re thrilled to partner with these four new host institutions,” said AAC&U President Lynn Pasquerella, “and we look forward to supporting their efforts to promote racial equity and healing on their campuses and in their communities.”

Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers play a vital role in the national TRHT effort to address historical and contemporary effects of racial inequities by building sustainable capacity to promote deep, transformational change. With the shared goal of preparing the next generation of leaders and thinkers to build equitable and just communities by dismantling the false belief in a hierarchy of human value, each campus center uses the TRHT framework to implement its own visionary action plan for creating new narratives about race, bias, and difference in their communities and promoting racial healing and relationship building through campus-community engagement.

Beginning in 2017 with an inaugural cohort of centers at 10 AAC&U member institutions, the TRHT Campus Centers effort has grown into a dynamic and diverse network of host institutions, including community colleges, liberal arts colleges, HBCUs, minority-serving institutions, faith-based institutions, and large research universities. The goal of AAC&U’s TRHT Campus Centers effort is to partner with higher education institutions to develop at least 150 self-sustaining, community-integrated centers. The four newest centers—Bard College, Antioch University, Cuyahoga Community College, and Elizabethtown College—bring the total number of TRHT partner institutions to 71.

Launched by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) effort seeks to help communities embrace racial healing and eliminate conscious and unconscious beliefs in a hierarchy of human value. The TRHT effort promotes inclusive and community-based healing activities and policy designs that seek to change community narratives and broaden the understanding of diverse experiences among people. More information about the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s TRHT effort can be found here.
About AAC&U
The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is a global membership organization dedicated to advancing the democratic purposes of higher education by promoting equity, innovation, and excellence in liberal education. Through our programs and events, publications and research, public advocacy, and campus-based projects, AAC&U serves as a catalyst and facilitator for innovations that improve educational quality and equity and that support the success of all students. In addition to accredited public and private, two-year, and four-year colleges and universities and state higher education systems and agencies throughout the United States, our membership includes degree-granting higher education institutions in more than twenty-five countries as well as other organizations and individuals. To learn more, visit www.aacu.org.

About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year, residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in more than 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 13 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 163-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.

This event was last updated on 02-12-2024

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