Resources for the Classroom and Beyond
The resources below are divided into categories to help faculty and educators explore articles, lesson plans, and writings. Topics touch on issues of diversity, inclusion, and equity in art schools, as well as a broader educational landscape. Check back for frequently updated content. To suggest a resource, email diversity@meca.edu.
- Teaching Hard History - Southern Poverty Law Center
- Racial Equity Tools
- Courageous Conversations
- Learning for Justice
- Hispanic Heritage Month
- Maine Wabanaki Alliance
- Maine Trans Net
- International Women's Day
Curriculum
Diversity Learning Objective Prompt Presentation
The Diversity Committee’s Curriculum Group created a learning objective prompt for faculty. The goal of the prompt was for faculty to identify ideas and artists who position diversity as a core value in their work. Faculty from each area of the BFA program, MFA, MAT and SALT shared specific insight connected to their area of expertise at the staff and faculty meeting in May. Faculty discussed how these artists fit within existing objectives and course goals. The exercise generated conversation and provides shared resources for curriculum and 2018/2019 syllabi planning.
Association for Critical Race Art History
The Association for Critical Race Art History (ACRAH) is a professional organization that promotes art historical scholarship from a critical race perspective.
There Is No Apolitical Classroom: Resources for Teaching in These Times
This list compiled by the National Council of Teachers of English offers resources to continue the daily work of antiracism.
Why is it not Just a Joke? Analysis of Internet Memes Associated with Racism and Hidden Ideology of Colorblindness
This article discusses how Internet memes associated with racism can be analyzed and pedagogically utilized through the theoretical frame of Critical Race Theory.
He. She. Zhe.
Nyasha Junior changed how she welcomes students to her class this fall, to try to make it more inclusive – with unexpected results.
#firstdayfirstimage
This is a curricular initiative designed to set expectations on diversity in class from the very first day with the very first image shared. Faculty are encouraged to both participate and document their first images with a shared hashtag, and you can see from the Instagram feed that many people have started using it. It can be an easy, simple, and elegant way to start to shift the curriculum while working toward bigger goals.
Vision & Justice: A Civic Curriculum
This volume is published to coincide with Vision & Justice: A Convening, April 25 and 26, 2019, conceived by Sarah Lewis and generously hosted by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, with generous support from the Ford Foundation, and cosponsored by the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, the Harvard Art Museums, and the American Repertory Theater.
Debating Cultural Appropriation in the Art History Classroom
This post includes a definition of cultural appropriation and a classroom lesson plan with additional suggested resources.
How Can We Bring a More Inclusive History to Design Education?
Led By Example was born of frustrations with the gender imbalance amongst professors and design history education.
An Ally’s Guide to Terminology
The words we use to talk about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and issues can have a powerful impact on our conversations. The right words can help open people’s hearts and minds, while others can create distance or confusion.
Higher Education
The Plan to Decolonize Design
“OCAD University’s design faculty is putting Indigenous knowledge first, but changing culture will require more than a new curriculum.”
Diversity in Academe: Who Sets a College’s Diversity Agenda?
(Please request access from above link)
“True diversity remains a struggle for many colleges. This special report looks at who actually sets a college’s diversity agenda, and what makes that agenda flourish or flop.”
Erasure by Exclusion: How Art Schools and Institutions Uphold White Supremacy
This panel discussion addresses cultural erasure with the intention of identifying solutions to the problem.
Rewriting Art History
The College Board is changing the AP course to reverse the cultural and racial bias found in the art world—a prejudice that museums are struggling to overcome, too.
The Confidence Gap: Why #BlackLivesMatter In The Classroom
“The same stereotyping and racial profiling that leads some unarmed black men to be killed in the streets is also killing their minds and, consequently, their potential to excel in an academic environment.”
Shifting the Onus from Racial/Ethnic Minority Students to Faculty: Accountability for Culturally Inclusive Pedagogy and Curricula
Accountability for culturally inclusive curricula and pedagogy is necessary in order to shift the onus from students to faculty.
How the Art World, and Art Schools, Are Ripe for Sexual Abuse
The art world is structured in a way that enables abuses, and the problem is especially acute at art schools.
Civic Institutional Matrix: Assessing Assets and Gaps in a Civic-Minded Institution
This Civic Institutional Matrix is designed to help you map your institution’s overall commitment to civic learning and democratic engagement, on and off campus, whether locally or globally situated.
Harvard University Toolkits and Readings
Articles on diversity and inclusion in higher education/current events
Hitting the Wall
Expecting graduate students to engage in diversity work that benefits the university — without compensation or accountability — is inherently exploitative, argues Prabhdeep Kehal.
Beyond the Numbers Game: Diversity in Theory and Practice
At the annual meeting of the College Art Association in Los Angeles in 2012, the sponsored panel of the Committee on Diversity Practices, “Beyond the Numbers Game: Diversity in Theory and Practice,” was organized around one essential theme: how we move from the compliance model of diversity to a methodologically driven one in our own practices inside and outside the classroom.
Beyond Sombreros, Tequila, and ‘Gangster’ Parties
(Please request access from above link)
Campuses across the country frequently wrestle with instances of cultural appropriation, or the act of adopting elements of another culture.
The Room of Silence
“The Room of Silence,” is a short documentary about race, identity and marginalization at the Rhode Island School of Design.
When Affirmative Action Isn’t Enough
“Despite the continued debate and legal wrangling over whether college affirmative action efforts are too aggressive, black and Hispanic freshmen were more underrepresented at the nation’s top schools in 2015 than they were in 1980, the Times analysis found.”
Making Diversity Happen
Boston College and UC Riverside share how they quickly hired more faculty members from underrepresented minority groups, without relying on hard numerical targets or costly initiatives.
Epistemic Exploitation
Epistemic exploitation occurs when privileged persons compel marginalized persons to educate them about the nature of their oppression.
Who Counts as a Black Student?
Cornell protest revives debate on whether first-generation immigrants from Africa and Caribbean make up disproportionate share of black students at top colleges, and what — if anything — should be done as a result.
A Scholar of the Black Experience Shapes Giving at Mellon
“The new public face of that foundation is a youthful-looking 58-year-old with a thin mustache, a fondness for basketball, and a plate in his ankle to thank for it.”
Colleges Straining to Restore Diversity
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With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to rule on race-conscious college-admissions policies, University of California officials say they still struggle to meet diversity goals for their university system 18 years after state voters banned affirmative action.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Background / Best Practices
Contains links curated by University of Southern California Libraries for learning more about diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Our Questionable Support of Diversity in Higher Ed
Despite all our professed support of the concept, Clara M. Lovett asks, how much do we truly value it?
Schools
Three Miles
In This American Life podcast, we learn about a group of public school students in the Bronx who visit an elite private school three miles away.
A Look in the Mirror
Racism hurts students throughout the college admissions process, leading scholar tells meeting of admissions counselors.
Divided No More: A Movement Approach to Educational Reform
“The genius of movements is paradoxical: They abandon the logic of organizations in order to gather the power necessary to rewrite the logic of organizations.”
When the Rules Are Fair, but the Game Isn’t
This article discusses the inequality in public education. The core issues of educational inequality are related to matters of race, social justice, democratic equality, and the diversity curriculum.