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The college’s Antiracism Implementation Plan is guiding work in and outside the classroom. This work is our new normal.
The plan offers guidance, goals, and benchmarks connecting college core values to antiracism at CC. It is a living document that will change as members of our community engage with it and implement its initiatives. It will evolve as we welcome more perspectives to CC, transform our campus culture, learn, and grow. These stories illustrate how the AIP is coming to life at CC:
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Goal 7: Make Antiracism Central to CC’s Communication:
Honoring Kelley Dolphus Stroud in New Campus Space
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Kelley Dolphus Stroud ’31 was one of the most prolific scholars and elite athletes to ever emerge from the Pikes Peak region, despite years of assaults, persecutions, and opportunities denied him because of his race. Stroud began at Colorado College in 1926, having been accepted at Harvard University but unable to attend because of funding. He was the sole Black student until his sister, Effie, joined him the following year. He graduated from CC cum laude in 1931 with a degree in political science, receiving As in all his classes but one, and was the first Black CC student ever elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
The Stroud family story, one of tragedy and triumph, is honored in a new space in Ed Robson Arena, the Kelley Dolphus Stroud ’31 Club Level, sponsored in partnership with Saunders Norwood Construction. The space was formally dedicated at a ceremony with the Stroud family on Dec. 14, and the story is a permanent fixture in the space. Members of the CC and broader community are invited to explore the Kelley Dolphus Stroud space during arena events or anytime during regular business hours. This is one illustration of how the AIP is guiding action, making sure the antiracism commitment is a key theme in CC communications.
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Goal 1: Make Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Central to College Leaders:
Women of Color in CC Leadership
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College leadership has changed dramatically throughout the years, and now, in the 2021-22 academic year, the college has never had as many female-identifying, Black, Indigenous, People of Color voices as it does now. Claire Oberon Garcia — professor of English, dean of the faculty, and acting provost — shares her perspective on the discrepancies in leadership representation roles in higher education, and some of the successes CC has experienced, in this piece by Sarah Senese ’23. Concerns lie with the challenges BIPOC women face once they’re in leadership roles, and the treatment, challenges, and biases that follow. From her experience as the dean of faculty and the acting provost, Garcia can see that “effective leadership is contextual, conversational, and collaborative rather than individualistic and hierarchical. Effective leaders need to make themselves vulnerable in ways that some may interpret as not being ‘strong’ or ‘decisive.’”
Garcia says that when these women stray from what others conventionally see as “strong” and “decisive,” it instills doubt about their skills or authority. If you do things differently, do you really know what you’re doing? Garcia says she has noticed that when BIPOC women in these leadership roles aren’t given the confidence, trust, and benefit of the doubt that white individuals in similar roles are given, questions arise about whether a BIPOC person is truly qualified. Supporting women of color in leadership roles is one way the college is building capacity for inclusive excellence, AIP Goal 1.
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Goal 1: Make Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Central to College Leadership:
Establish Antiracism Commitment Committee
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“We continue to seek opportunities to generate meaningful feedback and impact from students, staff, and faculty representing the college community, to build an academic environment that values diversity, promotes an inclusive culture, and establishes a profound sense of belonging for each member of the college,” President L. Song Richardson shared in her announcement in Nov. 2021 of the Antiracism Commitment Committee. The committee will guide the work of the Antiracism Implementation Plan and support and hold each member mutually accountable in building a community that is more diverse, inclusive, and equitable. Within its goal to make diversity, equity, and inclusion central to leadership, CC is committed to creating this campus committee to oversee the work. Learn more and find out who’s serving on the ACC.
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Goal 5: Make Antiracism a Central Value in CC’s Academic and Co-Curricular Programs:
Professor Rollins Develops Groundbreaking Play
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CC is striving to ensure that antiracism efforts are supported in all activities, inside and outside the classroom. Assistant Professor of Acting and Directing Lisa Marie Rollins is bringing challenging discussions around the Black experience in America to life with a play, workshop, and panel discussion. Her new play, “Love is Another Country,” features, “an ensemble of diasporic Black women who bring to life this story about all the forms of violence against these Black women that they must learn how to navigate, and it holds space for the hard work of their collective healing,” says Rollins. The workshop’s goals are many: “We’ll be spending time working on the script itself, to advance the play to the next stage. But more importantly for me and the women joining the process at this moment, having some play and devising time to dig deeper into conversations around Black women and embodied power, intergenerational/ancestral memory, and carving liberatory space around rest, ease, and celebration is the main focus,” Rollins says.
She was awarded a $7,500 grant from the Zellerbach Family Foundation to support the continued development of her play, and a recent panel discussion invited questions about the writing and creating process of the play; creators also shared experiences from their lives as Black women theatre-makers in the current climate. Learn more about “Love is Another Country” and about AIP Goal 5.
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