Marywood Named Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Campus Center

Marywood University was recently named by The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) to host Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) campus center.  

According to AAC&U, Marywood University is among thirteen institutions selected through a competitive process as sites for the second cohort of TRHT Campus Centers. Lynn Pasquerella, president of AAC&U said, “AAC&U is thrilled to partner with these outstanding institutions on our way to establish 150 centers across the country to ensure that higher education is playing a leadership role in promoting racial and social justice.”

In partnership with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation effort, AAC&U works with higher education institutions across the country to develop self-sustaining, community-integrated TRHT Campus Centers. Organized around the five pillars of the TRHT framework—narrative change, racial healing and relationship building, separation, law, and economy—the Centers seek to prepare the next generation of leaders to confront racism and to dismantle the belief in a hierarchy of human value.

The Marywood University faculty/staff team includes: Yerodin Lucas, Ph.D., interim director of equity and inclusion and Title IX coordinator; Lia Palmiter, Ph.D., director of student equity and inclusion; Joshua Deckman, Ph.D., assistant professor in the foreign language department; Christopher Smith, director of military and veteran services; and Kaitlin Anderle, director of student disability services. In June 2020, the Marywood team, along with the other 12 selected TRHT Campus Center institutions, will attend AAC&U’s annual Summer Institute on Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Campus Centers to refine their transformative action plans. At the Institute, which is taking place in Atlanta this year, leaders from the first cohort of TRHT Campus Centers will mentor participating teams during topical workshops and consultation sessions. In addition, teams will practice designing and co-facilitating “Rx Racial Healing Circles,” an integral component of the TRHT Framework.