The Association of American Colleges and Universities has announced the selection of Adelphi University as one of 13 institutions to host Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Campus Centers.
Marsha J. Tyson Darling, PhD
The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has announced the selection of Adelphi University as one of 13 institutions to host Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers, joining an initial group of 10 institutions designated in 2017. Adelphi is the only New York college or university among the 23 total. (See the AAC&U announcement.)
“At Adelphi, the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Campus Center will envision, plan, create, collaborate and implement an array of interactive activities that will engage and empower the campus community to work internally with key stakeholders,” said Marsha J. Tyson Darling, PhD, professor of history and interdisciplinary studies as well as director of the University’s Center for African, Black and Caribbean Studies.
Those stakeholders include Adelphi’s student mentoring program, athletics program, Greek organizations, faculty leadership, student organizations, staff and administrators who have expressed a commitment to racial education and healing.
“Along with campus partners, our center will foster closer collaboration with community organizations in ways that promote education about racial hierarchies and systems of inequality that establish and maintain a false narrative of a hierarchy of human value,” Dr. Darling said, noting that those partnerships were a primary criterion for selection. Community partners include the Sewanhaka School District, The INN (Interfaith Nutrition Network) and P.E.A.C.E. Afterschool Program Inc. (Partnerships in Education to Avoid Criminal Justice System Entry), among several others.
Representatives from Adelphi will also participate in the 2020 TRHT Campus Centers Institute this June in Atlanta.
Adelphi’s proposal was created by a campus team, led by Dr. Darling, that included Perry Greene, PhD, now-retired vice president for diversity and inclusion; Carol Ann Daniel, PhD, professor of social work and co-chair of Adelphi’s Diversity Committee; Jacqueline Johnson, PhD, associate professor and chair, Department of Sociology; John Drew, assistant professor of digital media; and Kevin Dougherty, principal of Elmont Memorial High School.
“As a site of knowledge creation and intellectual growth, our core mission is educational development and intellectual growth,” Dr. Darling said. “Also, the TRHT center will focus on enabling participating youth to become future leaders who will take the TRHT framework into their futures.”