Frequently Asked Questions

Carleton aspires to be a truly supportive and inclusive learning and work environment for every student, faculty, and staff member. Yet students and alumni are telling us they weren’t able to achieve a true sense of inclusion and belonging at Carleton. This should be a concern for all of us.  We should all understand the challenges and hurdles of students who want to feel a sense of belonging here.  We need to understand the blind spots and prejudices we all have that may impact our community. 

To help us achieve these goals, each of us, as members of the Carleton community, must be open to learning about what it means to be an antiracist community.  The dialogue and training this winter and spring will highlight the important role each of us can play in advancing toward a more inclusive environment. 

Between January and May, 2021, all faculty and staff are expected to attend monthly community-wide webinars.

Between February and May, 2021, all faculty and staff are expected to attend one affinity group (of the 12 offered) each month to discuss the topic introduced at the community-wide event.

Contact Kathy Evertz, project manager, at kevertz@carleton.edu. She will route your question or suggestion to the appropriate individual(s) or committee.

Human Resources will follow up with you by e-mail, to give you advance notice that you will receive an e-mail from noreply-hr@carleton.edu, which will contain the link to the video recording. Please see the screenshot below for an example of the e-mail. If you do not see the email, please check your junk/spam folder.

A link will be posted on the Tentative Schedule by the end of the day on the Monday after the event.

• To make a comment, open the Q&A window, which allows you to pose questions to the host and panelists.
• Check Send Anonymously if you do not want your name attached to your question in the Q&A.To ask a question, type it into the Q&A box. Click Send.
• The host or a panelist may reply to you privately via text in the Q&A window, or they may answer your question in the large group. We cannot guarantee that there will be time to address all questions or comments.

These instructions will help you navigate selecting a group, signing up, and adding the appointment to your calendar.  You may access the groups through this website.

There are 12 groups held at multiple times during each month: one biracial/multiracial group (led by Dr. French), three BIPOC affinity groups (all led by Dr. French), one “open to all racial identities group” (led by both Dr. French & Dr. Brookfield), and seven White affinity groups (all led by Dr. Brookfield).

The trainers want everyone to attend an affinity group meeting each month as a way to process and more deeply engage with the material presented. Self-disclosure is under your control, and thus you choose how much to participate in any given discussion.

There is one group each month specifically for those who identify as biracial or multiracial. We anticipate that people may switch groups from month to month based on schedules, commitments, and interests. We will also discuss the complexity of racial identity within the affinity groups.

The trainers suggest you choose the biracial/multiracial group (led by Dr. French) scheduled each month, or the “open to all identities” group. But if those times don’t work for you, please select the group you think would be most beneficial to your antiracism journey.

Participants will sign up for affinity groups on a month-by-month basis. We anticipate that people may switch groups from month to month based on schedules, commitments, and interests.

Dr. French will lead all the BIPOC groups. Dr. Brookfield will lead all the White affinity groups. Additionally, there will be a biracial group led by Dr. French each month and Drs French & Brookfield will together facilitate one “open to all racial identities” group each month.

The trainers will be using tools such as sli.do, backchannelchat.com or tweedback.de to share anonymous feedback during and after the sessions.

The trainers hope to get to that point. But in the initial stages of a multi-year antiracism effort, they have strongly advised that racial affinity groups be held first. As the Carleton antiracism initiative develops, conversations across racial difference will become more frequent. However, of the 12 affinity group meetings held each month, one will be open to all racial identities.

This is one of the reasons we are starting off with BIPOC-only groups and White-only groups. Those who identify as biracial/multiracial also have a group available each month, as do those who wish to join an “open to all racial identities” group.  The small breakout groups within each affinity group will allow everyone who wishes to express themselves to have an opportunity to do so.

The trainers want to give you as much choice as possible. You could try a White affinity group one month, a BIPOC affinity group the next, or the ‘open to all racial identities’ group. If you are uncomfortable with this approach, they would advise beginning with a BIPOC group – many BIPOC individuals have similar experiences of passing as White and/or being raised in predominantly White spaces.  This is part of the complexity of living as a racially minoritized person that the trainers hope to begin to unpack with us.

The trainers agree. Whether or not you talk, what you say, and how often you contribute are entirely under your control. Silence is an extremely complex phenomenon and can signify multiple realities. They will not assume that silence means disengagement or lack of commitment, nor that verbosity signals agreement and endorsement.

The circle of voices can be found in The Discussion Book (Brookfield & Preskill, 2016) and also on Dr. Brookfield’s website: http://www.stephenbrookfield.com/powerpoints-pdfs. The protocol is as follows:

1. Begin with everyone silently thinking about a question & spending 1-2 minutes quietly making notes on their responses to the question.
2. Each person then takes a turn to speak about the mental or written notes they have made in response to the question – no interruptions are allowed.
3. We move into open conversation with the ground rule that people can only talk about what someone else said in the opening round – this can be a disagreement, critique, extension, example, question or any other response to someone else’s opening comment.

You can find them at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/your-stories/conversations-on-race. You can sign up for Carleton’s free-access group pass here: https://nytimesineducation.com/access-nyt/carleton-college-northfield-mn/

A partial list of their literature base is available at this link and the Radical Healing Syllabus that offers a glimpse of some of the scholarship Dr. French draws from.

The trainers assume that people’s prior knowledge, understanding, and experiences are widely varied. Some will have a great deal of experience wrestling with these topics, and others will be considering these issues for the first time.

The trainers do not believe competence is synonymous with Whiteness. However, White Supremacy Culture often leads people to presume that Black, Indigenous, and People of Color lack competence and thus need to prove themselves in ways that White professionals often are not expected to.  BIPOC might also internalize this negative stereotype of their racial group and thus devalue their knowledge and skills.