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"This quilt commemorates an interactive art installation that occured in the summer of 2001, at the Smith College School for Social Work. Based on an invitation to respond to this event, participants expressed their sentiments on cotton strips, now woven into the quilt, representing a range of voices. The Class of 2002, the Anti-Racism Task Force, and the Kahn Liberal Arts Institute co-operated to complete the quilt project." Text from the plaque accompanying the quilt.
The Anti-Racism Task Force exists to take action on anti-racism initiatives raised within the School community. This includes, but is not limited to campus-wide activities, exhibits, awareness-raising, and coalition building. The Task Force will also facilitate the referral of concerns around racialized incidents. The group is open to all members of the Smith community and works with other organizations on campus to coordinate anti-racism initiatives.
Founded in the summer of 1994, the Anti-Racism Task Force (an ad-hoc committee of students, staff and faculty) was formed in direct response to a major demonstration by second year students concerned about the isolation students of color were experiencing in the Racism in the U.S. course. All sections at that time were identical and no section had a critical mass of students of color.
Sub-committees were formed to examine and make recommendations in all three of the following areas.
1. The anti-racism course
2. Racism throughout the curriculum
3. Racism at the institutional level of the school
At the end of the summer, the Task Force decided to meet during the entire year. That winter the Task Force recommended to the faculty that we make a commitment to work towards becoming an anti-racist (redefined later as anti-racism) institution. This proposal was adopted by the faculty.
This was the first of many changes initiated by and accomplished through the work of the Anti-Racism Task Force from 1994 to present. Highlights of some of the task force projects follow:
- Revision of the Racism in the U.S. course structure: The student / faculty discussions that were precipitated by a major student demonstration led to constructive work to improve the way that course is structured.
- Improvement of the Anti-Racism Symposium feedback survey: Improved feedback from this annual event enables the school to refine and enhance the symposium.
- Anti-racism installation: The installation depicted a representation of the most overt forms of this country’s history of racism. It invited viewers’ comments on slips of fabric hung from a clothes line surrounding the installation, and those scraps of fabric were stitched together to form a quilt – now on display in the second floor Lilly Hall conference room.
The Task Force meets one evening a week during the summer and once a month during field placement.
Faculty Liasons: Fred Newdom and Jim Drisko
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