The Racial Justice and Healing Collective, formerly Art of Advising, is a 14-week, facilitated journey for UW staff whose work supports students or staff development and success. Using The Racial Healing Handbook by Dr. Anneliese A. Singh as a guide, we will read, reflect, challenge, and engage ourselves and each other in caucus spaces across race and ethnicity.
"The work book, personal connections, and growth really have empowered me to feel more confident in my language use, my ability to say, 'I don't know, but let me think about it,' and to work with students from a lens of seeking to understand and be anti-racist."
Past Participant
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What is the Racial Justice and Healing Collective?
The Racial Justice and Healing Collective (RJHC) is a 14-week, facilitated journey for UW-Madison staff and faculty interested in investing in their own learning, growth, and healing around anti-racism. Using The Racial Healing Handbook (which will be provided for all participants), by Dr. Anneliese A. Singh as a guide, we will read, reflect, challenge, and engage ourselves and each other in caucus spaces across race and ethnicity.
Through dialogue-based sessions, the group will be encouraged to support each other’s self-work and collective learning, to exchange ideas/resources that apply to the workplace and/or working with students, and to explore our personal journeys as they relate to navigating institutional racism and systems of oppression.
What will we do?
Using a primary lens of race, we will consider how all of our social identities, both privileged and marginalized, inform and impact our communication, behaviors, beliefs, and our relationships with colleagues and students. We will spend time reflecting on the history of racism and colonization in the U.S. and its continued impact on all of us.
What will it look like?
We will spend the majority of our time together engaged in race-based caucus groups. During the weeks that we don’t meet, participants will read and discuss the assigned chapter(s) with each other in pairs or small groups. Learn more about the use of caucusing in racial equity work
When will we meet?
We plan to hold our sessions in October and November in person, December through February virtually, and return to in-person sessions from March to May. As always, we will be prepared to pivot as needed in response to our community’s needs. All of our in-person sessions will include a catered meal, and we encourage participants to bring and eat their lunches during any virtual sessions.
Every other Thursday from 11:30AM – 1:30PM
- October 27 (in person)
- November 10 (in person)
- December 1 (in person)
- December 15 (virtual)
- January 5 (virtual)
- January 19 (virtual)
- February 2 (virtual)
- February 16 (virtual)
- March 2 (in person)
- March 16 (in person)
- April 6 (in person)
- April 20 (in person)
- May 4 (in person)
- May 18 (in person)
We’ll mostly meet every other Thursday, but we do skip a few weeks here and there.
Although our scheduled time will end at 1:00 PM, we encourage participants to block their calendars until 1:30 PM in order to use that time for reflection and to support their transition into whatever follows. This is intended to be a cumulative experience. With this in mind, we ask that participants make every effort to attend as many sessions as possible.
Interested in participating?
2022-2023 applications are now closed.
Applicants will be notified by Monday, August 29, 2022 of their participation.
"While I came into this space feeling pretty confident in having academic conversations about equity and inclusion, this group forced me to look inward and be vulnerable in a way I hadn't before. In that way, I feel more prepared to model vulnerability in these conversations going forward."
Past Participant