The University Of The South (Sewanee)

As part of its DEI Racial Equity Progress Report, Sewanee states that it would "redouble our efforts to recruit, retain, and support students from historically underrepresented communities."

The Conversation-Rich Education for Anti-racist Teaching and learning Environments (CREATE) team "seeks to model how to have challenging conversations about race, acknowledging that we cannot confront racism unless we can talk about it."

The university is a member of the Liberal Arts Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance (LACRELA) which provides the "Racial Equity Econvening Series" in partnership with the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center. LACRELA also provides many professional development resources on the topic of racial equity.

"The College passed a new general education requirement last year—Learning Objective 7, Encountering Perspectives: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. A new tenure-track faculty member, Tiffany Momon, was hired this year; her research specialty is the history of African American culture. The School of Theology is working on a grant to support an effort to take the method and approach of the Roberson Project to parishes and dioceses around the Episcopal Church."

To recognize the role that libraries play in the "white racial project of this country," a group of BIPOC librarians and archivists created a list of places to take action.

"...faculty members have received grants to work on new curricular approaches and innovations in pedagogy."

The university encourages website visitors to donate to its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and provides a link in order to do so.

The mission of the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation center at Sewanee is to "foster a movement that empowers the people of Sewanee to dismantle racist hierarchies and build just and equitable communities." This center is part of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s TRHT movement which is a "comprehensive, national and community-based process to address the historic and contemporary sources of racism and bring[s] about transformational and sustainable change."

Sewanee's Office of the Dean announced that 11 faculty members would receive grants for "DEI-informed projects aimed at pedagogical or curricular transformation." These grants are for faculty members who "will design new courses or redesign existing courses with a more inclusive focus, or will offer professional development opportunities with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion broadly considered."

The duPont Library has a collection of resources dedicated to Black Lives Matter.

The university created "The Roberson Project on Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation," "a six-year initiative investigating the university’s historical entanglements with slavery and slavery’s legacies."

The duPont Library has compiled a list of antiracist resources, including readings and ways to take action.

The Office of Inclusive Excellence "provides intellectual and social programs that advance community efforts to positively shift cultural dynamics and proactivity mitigate exclusion on the basis of race...."

The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Sub-Committee at Sewanee "[proposes] innovative ideas to elevate the university’s DEI practices and programming" and "[proposes] indicators to measure progress toward strategic goals that relate to the sub-committee’s work."

The Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Sewanee works "closely with the Vice-Provost to develop, implement, and monitor Sewanee's diversity, equity, and inclusion strategic plan, and to support the University’s efforts to cultivate an inclusive community."

"We will appoint a campus commission to evaluate the names and stories behind buildings, monuments, and places on the Domain to identify naming principles and practices and ensure that, in every instance, there is an appropriate balance between the contributions of the namesakes and the values of our University."

Sewanee issued a statement rejecting its past ties to the Confederacy, while committing itself to further racial justice initiatives.