Equity and Inclusion

Inclusivity is more than optics. It is not enough to create programs and events that feature Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). Instead, we encourage HCI leaderships to be inclusive in all stages of program and event development: from informal discussion to reporting. Ensuring BIPOC participation in all stages of planning and decision making from the start to the end will likely lead to programming that reflects the intersectionality of BIPOC.

Building Leaders

We encourage HCI leadership to build relationships within their institutions that create a more diverse future. CHCI also recognizes that institutional change is a long-term process and that it is unlikely to change every HCI overnight when the office of director is often a multi-year (in some places, decade-long) position. Still, there are ways of affecting change.

The most important first step is investing in junior indigenous faculty and faculty of color so that they can transition to seniority comfortably, confidently, and on time as their white male peers. As is becoming increasingly clear, efforts to promote diversity and racial equity also create more service demands on indigenous faculty and faculty of color. These elevated service and mentorship demands can delay researching and writing, moving through the tenure process, and becoming senior faculty.

• https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/06/04/whos-doing-heavy-lifting-terms-diversity-and-inclusion-work

As an HCI leader, consider ways to set up junior faculty colleagues for career success. Actively enrolling indigenous faculty and faculty of color in programs that support faculty—publication support, dissertation-to-book seminars, fellowships with course releases, and to advocating to the administration for this kind of support—will contribute to their success as scholars and buttress their careers in higher education. Their success as a humanities scholar first is among the most important steps in their eventual rise to becoming a HCI director.

Reach out to senior faculty of color and encourage them to join your center’s board, to organize, or lead events, or to serve in an advisory capacity. Providing participatory roles will not only shape programming, but also create an on-going relationship that encourages black, indigenous, and people of color to become leaders of an HCI.

C21: Center for 21st Century Studies

Engaging the Community

Community engagement is one of the central activities of many HCIs and the Public Humanities Network is the most active of our member networks. Around CHCI, many organizations have high levels of community engagement. The Calgary Institute for the Humanities at the University of Calgary, as part of their initial mandate, has hosted a Community Forum annually since 1981.

• Community Forum and Events – Calgary Institute for the Humanities – University of Calgary

When organizing events and establishing core programs, consider the many and varied publics in the potential orbit of your center or institute. In a report for Humanities for All, Daniel Fisher notes that nearly all publicly engaged humanities project strive to achieve one of five goals:

• Informing contemporary debates;
• Amplifying community voices and histories;
• Helping individuals and communities navigate difficult experiences;
• Expanding educational access; and
• Preserving culture in times of crisis and change.

The Humanities for All website has detailed information on over 1,800 programs from around the US, from organizations both large and small, and serves an excellent place to start as you begin your project.

• Humanities for All

One issue that underserved communities often encounter when working with higher education institutions is that the relationship is typically short term and researcher focused. This unbalanced dynamic can discourage community organizations from working with campus partners. To build trust and demonstrate humility (crucial factors in publicly engaged projects), listen first and develop programs and projects that emerge from those discussions. Try to track:

• What projects are already in progress in the community?
• Which faculty members are already doing community-based work?
• What resources (financial, time, space, staffing) can your HCI provide to support existing or emerging projects?
• What projects have the community always wanted?

Inviting local and regional communities to be part of the decision making from the start establishes parity and good-will. Even better, consider centering community-oriented programming in off-campus facilities. That is, rather than inviting communities to campus, hold planning meetings and project events in the community themselves.

Projects like the Rural Studio offer an instructive, if largely unrepeatable, model. Although part of Auburn University, the Rural Studio is located in Hale County, two hours west of the Auburn campus. Students in Auburn’s architecture program work on semester and year-long projects that are not only focused on a specific community, but also developed and completed in partnership with the people of Hale County. While not all projects need to reach communities 2 hours away, centering programs in the community in this way can generate buy-in and build affinity.

• The Rural Studio – Auburn University

Using public humanities and community-oriented programs as a learning opportunity is becoming increasingly common around the CHCI. There has been a dramatic rise in the past ten years in the number of graduate and undergraduate courses and certificates, as well as special funding, in public humanities offered at institutions around the world.

For US members unsure where to start with your local or regional community, consider reaching out to your state’s humanities council.

• http://www.statehumanities.org/

More information on successful Public Humanities projects, as well as possible partners, can be found on the Public Humanities Network website.