Initiative
AAC&U is partnering with higher education institutions to develop Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation™ (TRHT) Campus Centers to prepare the next generation of leaders to break down systemic racism and dismantle belief in a hierarchy of human value
The goal of AAC&U’s TRHT Campus Centers effort is to partner with higher education institutions to develop at least 150 self-sustaining, community-integrated Centers. AAC&U is currently collaborating with seventy-two institutions that are serving as host locations and are implementing visionary action plans with the shared goal of erasing barriers to equal treatment and opportunity on campuses, in our communities, and for our nation. The effort is centered around the pillars of the TRHT Framework: narrative change, racial healing and relationship building, separation, law, and economy.
More information about the TRHT Framework can be found here.
Launched by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation™ (TRHT) effort seeks to help communities embrace racial healing and eliminate conscious and unconscious beliefs in a hierarchy of human value.
The TRHT effort promotes inclusive and community-based healing activities and policy designs that seek to change community narratives and broaden the understanding of diverse experiences among people.
More information about the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s TRHT effort can be found here.
Guided by a common vision, each of the TRHT Campus Centers is developing and implementing a visionary action plan to engage and empower campus and community stakeholders to uproot biases and to inspire the next generation of leaders and thinkers to advance justice and build more equitable communities. Through a competitive process, these institutions have been selected to host a TRHT Campus Center.
AAC&U looks forward to partnering with additional higher education institutions across the country to prepare the next generation of leaders to dismantle the belief in a hierarchy of human value and confront racism in our society.
If your institution is interested in hosting a TRHT Campus Center, there are a few requirements:
For more information on how to host a TRHT Campus Center, please contact Tia Brown McNair, Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the TRHT Campus Centers
AAC&U News, January/February 2018
On January 19–23, 2018, more than one hundred faculty, staff, and students from the first ten Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers and nineteen visiting institutions attended the inaugural TRHT Institute, a five-day professional development program focused on preparing TRHT Campus Center action plans.
In her opening remarks at the TRHT Institute, Luz Benitez Delgado, program officer with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, reminded the audience of the immediacy and importance of this work. Supported through funding from Newman’s Own Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the TRHT Campus Centers will engage and empower campus and community stakeholders to uproot the conscious and unconscious biases and misbeliefs that have exacerbated racial violence and tension in American society.
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AAC&U News, February 2020
Posters celebrating white supremacy. Politicians costumed in blackface. Institutional legacies of segregation, slavery, and appropriation of Native lands.
Amid a national climate in which violent hate crimes have hit a sixteen-year high, colleges and universities across the country are partnering with their local communities to repair the damage caused by racism.
In January, AAC&U selected twelve of these institutions and one consortium to host Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers, expanding the initial cohort of ten institutions selected in 2017.
AAC&U News, December 2021
What began in 2017 with the inaugural TRHT Campus Centers at 10 AAC&U member institutions has grown into a diverse network of centers at colleges and universities across the country. The launch of the new centers announced on December 9, 2021 brings the total number to 55, marking a key milestone in AAC&U’s effort to establish at least 150 self-sustaining, community integrated TRHT Campus Centers.
Visit the links below to see recent activity at some of our TRHT Campus Centers.
Supported by a grant from the National Collaborative for Health Equity (NCHE), AAC&U worked with eight TRHT Campus Centers to produce a collection of captivating videos that showcase some of the innovative ways in which the TRHT Framework is being translated and implemented into practice at institutions across the nation.
Framed by a personal narrative detailing Dr. Gail C. Christopher's commitment to help our nation to jettison the false belief in a racial hierarchy, Rx Racial Healing: A Guide to Embracing Our Humanity provides individuals an overview of the methodology, tools, and resources to facilitate and engage in the Rx Racial Healing approach for transformational change in colleges, organizations, and communities.
Plenary Discussion: “The Power of Belief,” Gail Christopher, Founder of the Ntianu Center for Healing and Nature, Executive Director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity and Lynn Pasquerella, President of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U)
Embracing our common humanity and permanently eliminating persistent racial inequities
Reflecting on Those We’ve Lost and a Process for Healing and Transformation
The funding from Lumina Foundation, Trellis Foundation, ETS, and Wiley Education Services will support the establishment of fifteen new TRHT Campus Centers.
Calls for racial justice, equity, and historical reckoning are reverberating with new poignancy on campuses. This program spotlights the work of the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ (AAC&U) Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Campus Centers, asking their leaders to reflect on these themes.
This 2015 episode of Amherst Media’s Difficult Dialogues focuses on the Black Lives Matter movement and issues surrounding law enforcement, communities of color, and social and economic justice.
With particular attention to the role of higher education, this special issue provides an overview of the wide-ranging TRHT effort to heal racial divides in communities across the country.
On this episode of the Higher Education Anti-Racist Teaching (H.E.A.R.T.) podcast, Lynn Pasquerella (AAC&U) and Frank Tuitt (University of Connecticut) explore the foundations of the TRHT effort, the vision for implementing the TRHT framework at UConn, and the potential impact it can have for antiracist teaching in higher education.
On this episode of the Higher Education Anti-Racist Teaching (H.E.A.R.T.) podcast, Tia Brown McNair (AAC&U) and Jeffrey Hines (UConn Health) draw on key ideas from the TRHT framework to shed light on how racial equity work is not solely the responsibility of a few, but rather, the responsibility of all community members.
To support AAC&U's TRHT effort in advancing quality and equity in higher education, we invite members of our community to donate to the Truth, Racial Healing, & Transformation fund today.
