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

About the Institute

Colleges and universities have a unique opportunity to prepare the next generation of leaders to address enduring social challenges. Among the most urgent of these is confronting how racism and bias have shaped our nation’s communities and institutions, leaving deep wounds of distrust, discrimination, and division in their wake. 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 racial hierarchy. As a national, community-based initiative, the TRHT effort launched by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation seeks to address the historical and contemporary impacts of race and racism within our communities. Each TRHT Campus Center prioritizes expansive, community-based healing activities that seek to change collective community narratives and broaden the understanding of our diverse experiences.

The Institute on TRHT Campus Centers is designed to help campus teams identify evidence-based strategies that support their vision of what their communities will look, feel, and be like when the false belief in a hierarchy of human value no longer exists. Campus teams will establish strategic goals that align with both their institution's vision and the TRHT Framework, identify steps for achieving those goals, and develop plans for evaluation, communications, engagement, and sustainability.

Campus teams will participate in and design Rx Racial Healing® Circles, engage in workshops, and collaborate with experienced TRHT Campus Center mentors, workshop facilitators, and evaluation consultants to develop and/or refine their transformative campus action plans.

Campus Team Outcomes

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

Virtual Format

We are excited to offer the opportunity again this year for campus teams to participate virtually in the 2023 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. At the 2022 TRHT Institute, a total of 625 participants engaged 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 enjoyed extended access to Higher Logic, the institute’s virtual platform, for six months after the institute concluded to review institute resources including recordings of all plenary sessions and concurrent workshops.

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. Institutional priorities and goals for advancing social justice and equitable communities should align strategically with the TRHT effort.

Click here to learn more about the Truth, Racial Healing, & Transformation Campus Centers.

The application period for the 2023 TRHT Institute has now closed. Please email Tia McNair at [email protected] with questions or inquiries about AAC&U's TRHT Institute.

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.