Membership in an ARC group is open to all employees at Champlain College who have fulfilled the prerequisites and are willing to commit to the ARC principles.
Joining an ARC group is a one-year commitment that can be renewed indefinitely. (Those who will be going on sabbatical or on parental or FMLA leave may join for part of a year.) However, the hope is that participants will regard membership as a longer-term commitment. The intention is for ARC groups to stay together for multiple academic years whenever possible, with members coming in and out as circumstances change while a core remains consistent.
Trust and genuine, open dialogue is essential in an ARC group. Thus, attention will be paid to creating positive, supportive group dynamics. This means trying to minimize unproductive personality conflicts in the initial creation of groups and in the addition of new members to the groups as old members leave. Groups should also periodically be given prompts that ask them to reflect on their own group dynamics and whether those dynamics are supporting or undermining the purpose of ARC.
To enable participants to understand the anti-racist principles to which they need to hold themselves and their group accountable, all participants in ARC groups must fulfill certain training prerequisites.
These prerequisites will be determined and regularly assessed and updated by the ARC Coordinating Committee. They should provide an appropriate grounding upon which the work of the groups will build, but should not represent a significant barrier to entry.
For the 2021-2022 academic year, the prerequisite for participating in an ARC group is the completion of the DEI Training Module in Canvas. Members who have not yet read Robin D’Angelo’s White Fragility and Kendi’s How to Be an Anti-Racist must commit to doing so over the course of the academic year. For AY 2022-23, reading both these books will be among the prerequisites for participation.
Members must commit to attending meetings regularly - i.e. at least every two weeks.
Members must commit to being available outside of regular meeting times to help group-mates with urgent questions. The ways in which members agree to be available to one another will be negotiated by each group according to members’ individual needs and boundaries.
Members must commit to practicing unconditional positive regard (see "Calling In"). Critical and loving reflection is required and essential, and may sometimes lead to the emergence of feelings of shame and guilt as members re-evaluate past behaviors and attitudes, but deliberate or intentional shaming of others is not allowed in ARC groups.
Members must commit to confidentiality. The purpose of ARC is to enable members to engage authentically in anti-racist work, which means asking difficult questions and processing complicated issues. This work can only happen when members know that what they say is safe.
These are closely based on the guidelines developed by Dave Mills for the first “Anti-Racism Reading Group”. Thanks to him for allowing them to be repurposed here!
We each promise to:
Speak from our own experiences and perspectives
Listen generously to the experiences and perspectives of others, creating supportive space for each person to learn
Actively resist making assumptions about one another
Refrain from fixing, saving, [...] or correcting each other
Be mindful of “taking space and making space” to ensure everyone has opportunities to speak and to listen
Expect and accept non-closure, because the work of disrupting racism is ongoing
Be willing to be challenged to disrupt racist patterns, by the readings, by discussions and by others
Respect the confidentiality of personal information and stories shared