Pre-work

The Advancement Anti-Racism Training (AART) is a grassroots Advancement initiative to begin the challenging (and often uncomfortable) conversations about anti-Black racism, systemic oppression, white supremacy culture in the United States.

The goal for this program is to normalize these conversations at all levels of awareness and to improve the culture at Brown Advancement. AART is for those who have a lived experience, or deep understanding of anti-Black racism, those who rarely, if ever, thought about structural racism before the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, and everyone in between. We understand that the knowledge of our staff will vary and our goal is that everyone will benefit from this training regardless of their starting point.

This pre-work component contains four content modules (plus a glossary and resources), which are intended to give a foundation so everyone starts the facilitated conversations with a common foundation. This is both an historical and emotional underpinning to discuss vulnerability, internal accountability, empathy, and awareness of historical misconceptions. These sections are self-paced. We encourage you to spend as much time as you need with each section and to use it as additional resources throughout the program.

Please approach this pre-work with an open and engaged mind. If you have any questions or technical difficulties, please contact AdvancementART@Brown.edu.

The training will consist of eight monthly, facilitated discussion sessions. Each member of Advancement will be assigned a cohort (based on scheduling and division) with the goal of creating a diverse group from various teams. All information for the sessions will be accessed via a website portal. Session topics are as follows:

Session 1: Introduction/Overview

Sessions 2-7: Education, Wealth, Criminal Justice, Healthcare, Media, and Housing

Session 8: Conclusion

Each month the topic will change to one listed above (sessions 2-7). Individuals will review the materials in the portal (articles, podcasts, videos, etc.) independently BEFORE your discussion session. You will find a variety of formats with content on the specific topic to suit your learning style. Please be sure to explore at least one of the selections but feel free to review as many of the offerings as you want in order to be prepared to discuss the topic of the month. You will then gather via Zoom and have a facilitated discussion around the materials reviewed in the portal. Each individual is responsible for reviewing the material before the discussion. We strongly encourage you to leave adequate time to prepare for each session. You will be notified of discussion topics before each session and the topic will be listed in your calendar invite. There will be grounding activities at the beginning and end of each session as well as an outlet for questions/general feedback.

Brief assessment surveys will be distributed throughout the training. These help to determine the success of the training, areas where additional work is needed, and to help create a rubric for managers to address Advancement’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) metrics. These surveys are entirely anonymous unless it is stated otherwise. They only serve to evaluate the training, not the participants. Your honest feedback is greatly appreciated.

This training is mandatory for all Advancement staff. Team members are expected to attend each session.

You will discuss this program with your manager during your annual performance review.

As you will learn through this training, anti-racism work requires one to be active, not passive. Journaling is an effective way to keep in active contact with your own thoughts. Journals can also serve as records of experiences and observations that can lead to new ideas or deeper understanding. Most importantly, it can help you organize your thoughts and formulate a record of your opinion at a specific point in time that can be revisited later.

It can also be a good problem-solving tool; oftentimes, one can hash out an issue and come up with solutions more easily on paper. Journaling about intense or traumatic events helps one process them by fully exploring and releasing the emotions involved and by engaging both hemispheres of the brain in the process, allowing the experience to become fully integrated within one’s mind.

Writing in a journal is a way to record the raw thoughts and observations you have during this work. At the end of each pre-work section, there will be a set of self-reflection questions. We encourage you to answer these questions in a journal. Not only will this help with the intensity of the subject matter, it can also provide an outlet for you to organize your thoughts before participating in the training. This can elevate the anxiety of feeling “on the spot” with your ideas during discussions.

Although journaling can be done digitally, writing with pen and paper can give both your brain and eyes a much-needed break from screens. We recommend keeping your thoughts in a physical notebook, if possible, but please do what works best for you!

To begin, please reflect on the following:

1. Name one item that you hope to take away from this program.

2. What does being an ally mean to you?

3. What do you think of when you hear the term racism?

Note whether you agree or disagree with the following statements and why:

4. My understanding of racism will improve with this training.

5. Through this training, I will develop skills and acquire tools to help combat racism.

6. I regularly practice self-care techniques to help deal with intense emotions and/or stressful situations.

Please complete all six sections below. Once you have successfully reviewed the information from each section, log into Workday and sign the AART Pre-work assessment form. Please complete ALL pre-work sections no later than Friday, February 19, 2021. The Workday forms are now available on Workday > Your Home Landing Page > Learning > My Learning Transcript > Workday Advancement Anti-Racism Program. Detailed instructions on how to complete this course in Workday can be found here.

If there is a term or concept that you need clarification on, please consult the glossary. (You may want to open it in a new tab so you have it handy while you review the other sections.)

If you have questions during this pre-work, please contact AdvancementART@Brown.edu.

This program would not be possible without the tireless effort and collaboration of several individuals and departments. We extend our sincere gratitude and appreciation to the following for their part in creating this program:

• Sergio M. Gonzalez, Senior Vice President for Advancement

• Allison Jno-Baptiste, former Executive Director of Talent & Resource Management

• The Office of the Brown University Provost

• Christina Z. W. Chang & Christina Chang Equity Consulting LLC

• The Brown University Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity (OIED)

• The AART Working Group: Adrienne Morris, Alyssia Coates, Amanda Lazarus, Donna Lisker, Ellen Schatz, Feven Teklu, Imanah Mahmoud, Jeanne Pecha, Jennifer Bastin, Joe Hefta, Joseph Zappala, Meghan Admirand, Marlo Green, Mary Ward, Polly Talbott, Teal Butterworth.