By Gabriela Flores
Reporting Assistance By Shlomie Katash and Radwan Farraj
In an effort to support racial and ethnic studies across the university, CUNY’s Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies program awarded 17 Brooklyn College professors grants for their proposed research. A total of $1.8 million was awarded by the Mellon Foundation university-wide, with BC faculty garnering nearly $300,000 for their projects. Those selected will collaborate with students and colleagues in their proposed research, determine how to broaden or change the curricula of racial and ethnic studies, and overall highlight different social and racial issues pertinent to the college community.
“CUNY is an incredibly diverse institution, in terms of its community members and intellectual interests, and BRESI brings those interests into focus in a deliberate and coordinated way,” wrote Prudence Cumberbatch, the Chair of BC’s Africana Studies Department, to the Vanguard. Cumberbatch is a BRESI recipient who will conduct a case study on the origins of her own department, which was established through student activism.
BRESI was implemented in February 2022, and backed by the Mellon Foundation that previously gifted CUNY $10 million to expand initiatives related to COVID-19, and social and racial justice. With one of its aims being to “reimagine and further develop CUNY programs in Black, race and ethnic studies,” the proposed research selected from Brooklyn College represents an array of communities and their concerns. From the implementation of a Native American and Indigenous curricula at CUNY, to understanding the alternatives of policing, BC professors are preparing to take on different academic and social queries. For many of them, advancing the knowledge of their students is central to their research.
“We want our students to be able to engage the world as more than people who seek employment, but as active participants in transforming society where labor and the type of lives people desire and need comes under serious scrutiny,” wrote Dr. Lawrence Johnson, Chair of BC’s Black Faculty and Staff, to the Vanguard. Lawrence was one of the BRESI recipients, whose research titled, “A Mixed Methods Investigation of Decolonizing Sociology,” intends to allow students to implement their own lived experiences within their studies, while comparing them to sociological theories.
With Native American and Indigenous Studies remaining absent in CUNY’s curricula, several professors and American Indian Community House members are collaborating on events that would lead to a curriculum review that’s representative of the Native American communities’ needs, way of life, care, and the harms of colonization.
“If we want to change the world we live in––the way people think about each other, the political divides, the profit over people motive,” wrote Professor Beth Cooper, “then changing the curriculum at Brooklyn College to teach and fully-fund ethnic studies and a more holistic vision of this country’s history, especially in a global perspective, is imperative.”
Cooper, alongside Dr. Yung-Yi Diana Pan, Professor Joseph Entin, Joceyln Wills, and others, will work to highlight Native American and Indigenous experiences. As Indigenous Heritage Month approaches this November, they are working to have their events and efforts lead to curricula for CUNY.
“I’m motivated by educating the students of BC and CUNY on a topic that should be absolutely central to our curriculum. How can we not honor, appreciate, and learn the original stewards of our home?,” wrote Pan to the Vanguard.
Other projects extend beyond academia, allowing students to directly engage with the communities impacted by social injustices, including how public safety affects communities of color.
“We work internationally to develop public safety programs independent of the criminal legal system such as mental health crisis response teams and community based anti-violence projects,” wrote Dr. Alex Vitale. “These projects can both help reduce crime and police violence.”
As the professors work on their research alongside their colleagues and students, many believe it is important for institutions like Brooklyn College and CUNY to back different projects and departments that aim to challenge the current ways of teaching and learning for the better.
“[…] We should be critically advancing all disciplines, not just Black and Ethnic Studies, that seek a world that is not divided and overdetermined by appearances and ideas that seek to reduce human capacity,” wrote Dr. Johnson.