Institute on Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation™ (TRHT) Campus Centers

About the Institute

How do we dismantle the false belief in a hierarchy of human value to promote unity and racial healing? The Institute on Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation™ (TRHT) Campus Centers is designed to provide comprehensive strategies for helping higher education institutions identify evidence-based strategies that support the vision of what their communities will look, feel, and be like when the false belief in a hierarchy of human value no longer exists, believing instead in our interconnectedness and common humanity. For a community to function at its optimal level, it is important for members to engage in deep listening and reflection with one another to form a solid foundation of transformation.

Campus teams will engage in dynamic workshops, collaborate with experienced TRHT Campus Center mentors and workshop facilitators, and participate in the reflective Rx Racial Healing® Circles. These activities will help you to develop and refine transformative campus action plans that will drive sustainable change within your institution and communities.

The action plan development process includes establishing strategic goals that align with both the institution's strategic vision, including student success outcomes and campus climate goals, and the TRHT Framework to identify steps for achieving defined goals, and to develop plans for evaluation, communications, engagement, and sustainability. Campus teams will consider the broader impact of scaling community-based work to achieve campus change. When an institution addresses contemporary impacts of difference and bias and strives for an environment of civility, trust, and safety for people to share their differing viewpoints, students develop a sense of belonging and stronger connection to the campus, leading to increased persistence to degree completion and overall student success.

The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is partnering with higher education institutions to develop TRHT Campus Centers to prepare the next generation of strategic leaders and critical thinkers to promote racial healing and to catalyze efforts to address current inequities grounded in notions of a false belief in a hierarchy of human value. As a national, community-based initiative, the TRHT effort, launched by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, seeks to prioritize expansive healing and deep learning activities that seek to change collective community narratives and broaden the understanding of our diverse experiences.

Join us in an immersive atmosphere of innovation, collaboration, empowerment, and agency. The 2024 Institute on TRHT Campus Centers is a catalyst for change that will resonate far beyond your institution. Together, we will create a future centered on what unites us and not what divides us.

Campus Team Outcomes

• Develop a comprehensive action plan
• Design and participate in Rx Racial Healing® Circles
• Become a part of the growing, national network of TRHT Campus Centers
• Become eligible to host a TRHT Campus Center

Virtual Format

AAC&U is excited to offer campus teams the opportunity to participate virtually in the 2024 TRHT Institute. The virtual format provides an excellent opportunity to invite members of your campus community to experience the curriculum of the TRHT Institute at a more accessible cost, and to engage with peers from across the country from the comfort of your home institution. Participants will be able to engage together in a virtual learning community during the week of the institute for Rx Racial Healing® Circles, plenary sessions, concurrent workshops, team meetings, and consultations with mentors. As an added benefit, all registered participants from campus teams will enjoy extended access to Higher Logic, the institute's virtual platform, for six months after the institute concludes. This extended access will allow participants to review institute resources, including recordings of all plenary sessions and concurrent workshops. By providing this benefit, participants will have the opportunity to further enhance their learning experience and gain valuable insights even after the institute has ended.

Who Should Apply?

Teams from any regionally accredited two- or four-year institution that are interested in learning more about the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Framework, have an interest in hosting a TRHT Campus Center at their institution, or are currently serving as a host institution, are invited to apply. Teams should take into consideration the alignment of their institutional priorities and goals for advancing equitable student success outcomes, as well as scaling community-based work to achieve transformation, in relation to the TRHT goals.

Visit the Truth, Racial Healing, & Transformation Campus Centers page to learn more.

Rx Racial Healing® Circles

What are Rx Racial Healing® Circles?

As the centerpiece of the TRHT Framework, Rx Racial Healing® Circles, are meant to ground the various elements of the TRHT methodology in a compassionate and expansive forum for sharing personal truth to help begin the process of transforming hearts and minds. The Rx Racial Healing® Circle methodology stresses active listening, being open to the perspectives and experiences of others, and is based on “building a national organizational network and activating local action to promote racial healing and racial equity.” ¹

Rx Racial Healing® Circles are co-facilitated by two experienced racial healing practitioners. Circles begin with an introductory exercise and are followed by a deep discussion prompt in which participants share stories in response to the prompt within an assigned dyad pair. Following the deep discussion prompt, the circle reconvenes, and participants are invited to share their stories with the whole group. The composition of circles and dyad pairs are planned in advance, to be as diverse as possible, including racial, age, gender, and geographic diversity for maximum healing.

After participating in an Rx Racial Healing® Circle co-facilitated by experienced practitioners, institute participants will review the core elements of the racial healing process and gain experience designing and co-facilitating a simulated Rx Racial Healing® Circle.

¹ Dr. Gail C. Christopher at July 18, 2018 Helsinki Commission Briefing.