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Skidmore College
Racial Justice Initiative

2022-23 academic year

The Racial Justice Initiative, now in its fourth year, continues to be a major priority for Skidmore as the College focuses its commitments to racial justice, diversity, and inclusivity throughout our community. 
 
Throughout 2022-23, Skidmore’s efforts included:

  • supporting such key projects as Wyckoff Center programming, including the Natural Hair Festival;
  • offering multiple trainings in such areas as inclusive hiring practices, transgender support, and conflict resolution;
  • continuing national leadership in the LACRELA (Liberal Arts Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance) consortium;
  • furthering Board of Trustees DEI committee work;
  • continuing funding for the Racial Justice Initiative Teaching Challenge;
  • hosting In It 7 programming, including a conversation with University of Maryland, Baltimore County President Emeritus Freeman A. Hrabowski and a program on Confronting Antisemitism;
  • maintaining an ongoing partnership with MLK-Saratoga, especially for the MLK week events;
  • hosting the Speech and Expression on College Campuses Symposium, with speakers including Danielle Allen; James Bryant Conant University Professor and Director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University; Wesleyan University President Michael Roth; and New York Times columnist, author, and commentator David Brooks;
  • welcoming Commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient Mary Schmidt Campbell, Spelman College president emerita;
  • supporting a visit by Aaron Dworkin, renowned arts leader, MacArthur Fellow, and Obama appointee, who shared his personal story of social entrepreneurship in the program “Throwing the Dice: Creativity, Arts Entrepreneurship and Inclusion”;
  • supporting the Department of English in welcoming three-time National Poet Laureate Joy Harjo as the inaugural guest in the Identity, Race, and the Global Imagination reading series;
  • supporting the Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies program in welcoming Ilan Stavans, Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin American, and Latino Culture at Amherst College, in presenting the lecture “Jews and Latinos: Unlikely Partners;
  • supporting a Congress to Campus program that invited former Reps. William Flores (R-TX) and Bill Enyart (D-TX) to Skidmore to share their bipartisan experiences in government and discuss a range of topics with a particular focus on fostering dialogue and reducing polarization.