ARPAC Institute

Upon completion of the Virtual ARPAC Institute, participants will:

• Identify, articulate, and analyze how race, racism, and privilege are manifested in our classrooms;
• Adapt various approaches for developing antiracist pedagogy within our classrooms; and
• Apply strategies to transform how race, racism, and privilege are manifested in our institutions.

The Virtual ARPAC Institute will be offered online through Zoom. Day one includes a full day of synchronous content and activities, with built-in break times. Days two through six include half-day synchronous sessions with reading, reflection, and application assignments to be completed outside of those scheduled hours. Participants are expected to arrange their schedules so they can fully participate in all sessions.

Day One: Introduction to Systemic Racism

Topics include an introductory analysis of systemic racism and ways the analysis shapes our work in higher education. Participants will: 

• Engage with a framework for understanding what systemic racism is and its relationship to white dominant culture in the United States,
• Begin to explore how the values of white dominant culture operating through US institutions replicate patterns of intersectional oppression that advantage white people disproportionately and that harm people of color regardless of intent,
• Consider how they are upholding via institutional practices and norms – often in unintentional ways – systemic racism, and
• Begin to unpack what the long-term strategic work of dismantling institutional practices upholding systemic racism will require of higher education and its stakeholders.

Days Two through Six: Application of Antiracist Pedagogy in the Higher Education Classroom

Topics focus particularly on incorporating antiracist pedagogy across the curriculum. Participants will:

• Deepen their understanding of inclusion, racial equity and antiracism in the context of higher education, distinguishing between multicultural teaching and antiracist pedagogy;
• Engage in self-reflection of one's social positionality;
• Analyze the role of racism in shaping higher education (broadly), your discipline/field, and teaching;
• Engage in a syllabus audit, paying attention to essential elements for antiracist education;
• Write/edit course learning objectives to include antiracism;
• Expand their repertoire of inclusive and antiracist classroom practices; and
• Connect their classroom work with larger antiracist organizing efforts to transform higher education.

2023 Virtual ARPAC Organizing Team

• Mary Clifford, Professor, Department of Criminal Justice and C.A.R.E. Interim Lead Organizer, St. Cloud State University
• Kyoko Kishimoto, Professor, Department of Ethnic, Gender, and Women's Studies, St. Cloud State University
• Melissa Prescott, Professor, University Library and Multicultural Resource Center Associate Director, St. Cloud State University
• Iyekiyapiwin Darlene St. Clair, Associate Professor and Multicultural Resource Center Director, St. Cloud State University

The 2023 Virtual ARPAC Institute is sponsored by St. Cloud State University and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities.