About the Initiative

In 2020, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Connecticut issued a call for proposals for a “NEW CLAS GRANTS INITIATIVE: Anti-Racist Scholarship, Pedagogy, and Workplace Climate.” A faculty/graduate student team in the German Studies Section (Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages), Anke Finger, Isabell Sluka and Manuela Wagner, received funding to work collaboratively, and based on 3 phases, towards curricular changes in language and culture learning contexts.

Phase I: Awareness Building

The goal of the first phase is to raise awareness of colonial continuities in area studies. It consists of a series of lectures with scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds centered around decolonization theory and practice, culminating in a symposium at the end of the academic year.

Accompanying the lecture series, and in preparation of the symposium, a graduate student working group will be formed for graduate students interested in the topic of anti-racist education, and in particular decolonization and language education. In addition, the participants will organize and participate in small workshops with scholars and practicioners from UConn and beyond on topics such as material development, or how to start conversations on topics such as racism.

Phase II: Curriculum & Course Development

The goal of the second phase is to move towards practice and think of ways to translate theories into learning materials and curricula. A 1-day symposium in May 2021 brings together (online) experts from outside and faculty and graduate students from within UConn to explore, examine and disseminate practices from within university language departments, sharing ideas about existing practices of attempts to de-center whiteness in languages curricula.

Phase III: Implementation & Multiplication

The third and final phase (2021-2022) consists of piloting the implementation of a curriculum that integrates lessons learned throughout the professional learning community work and during the symposium. All participants serve as multipliers, but graduate students in particular are encouraged to share their learning and experiences, as well as their ideas for the further development of the different language programs in TA meetings with their respective sections and with interested graduate students from other units.

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