THRIVE Initiative: Truth, Healing, Resiliency, Inclusion, and Equity

Friends,

I'm pleased to tell you about a new, campus-wide antiracism initiative here at Haverford that we are calling THRIVE: Truth, Healing, Resiliency, Inclusion, and Equity. As President Wendy Raymond noted in a recent message to students, faculty, and Haverford staff, the effort is made possible through a $250,000 gift from a member of Haverford's Class of 1966, and is a multi-year undertaking that will invest in sustainable change through constructive and adaptable engagement. Initial elements of the initiative include:

Understanding Race and Racism toward Creating an Inclusive Community. We will provide opportunities to examine the nature of systemic racism in America and the impacts of structural racism on the lives of those of us who have been racialized, including BIPOC community members at Haverford and beyond, with on campus and virtual programming. 

Race-Based Education for White People. Many white students, staff, and faculty have expressed varying degrees of uncertainty about how to be an ally or collaborator, and about their role and responsibility in racial equity work. We will offer workshops for white people about race and racism. 

Racial Trauma and Healing. We need to name and acknowledge where race-related conflict comes from. We need to build the resiliency and capacity to work constructively for change we all need. Plans thus far include (but are not limited to) workshops around mindfulness, race-based trauma, and healing, all with dedicated spaces for BIPOC students.

Haverford will also be applying to the Association of American Colleges & Universities to become a Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center. This work by AAC&U with 28 colleges and universities originated with the W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s 2016 launch of a comprehensive, national and community-based process to plan for and bring about transformational change, and to address the historic and contemporary effects of racism. The work has some connection to truth and reconciliation commissions that have happened in many parts of the world, including in South Africa after the dismantling of apartheid.

I invite you to save the following dates for webinars designed for alumni, families, and friends to learn more about THRIVE, our new Board of Managers Antiracism Accountability and Advancement Group, and our Advisory Committee on the Future CDO Structure.

• Wednesday, March 10, at 7:00 p.m. (ET): Dean Joyce Bylander on THRIVE 
• Thursday, April 15, at 7:00 p.m. (ET): President Wendy Raymond and Co-interim Chief Diversity Officer and Provost Linda Strong-Leek on Antiracism Efforts 

As President Raymond said, "We cannot afford to take shortcuts, and we cannot delegate this work to others. To enact changes to broaden and sustain racial equity at Haverford, uncomfortable learning and growth is required... All of this work will allow us to engage our hearts and minds to take action to build Haverford now, leaving no room for racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, transphobia, or marginalization."

We look forward to undertaking this work both as individuals and as an institution. 

Sincerely, 

Deb Strecker

Acting Vice President, Institutional Advancement 

Dear Parents and Families,
 
I know that some of you have been anxious to hear from me since the student strike last November. I recognize that those intense weeks have created confusion and pain for many students, both strikers and non-strikers, and that much inquiry and soul-searching has ensued since that time. I, too, have been working to understand what happened last fall so that in my role as Dean of the College, I can help our community move forward this semester with the tools we will need to heal, learn, and grow together. The pain I witnessed in this community made me extremely sad, as I know it did for all of my faculty and staff colleagues who care so deeply for our students, and who found ourselves in unfamiliar and unsettling territory this fall, but especially during the strike. I write today with optimism and hope for what I believe is encouraging information about our shared path forward, which we are calling our THRIVE Initiative: Truth, Healing, Resiliency, Inclusion, and Equity.
 
As you read, please set aside for the moment the idea of what it means to be "Haverfordian", as in, doing this or that, in such-and-such a way, relative to one's perception of one institutional identity and value. I'd like to encourage us all to first do the hard work of engaging around underlying issues. In my view and experience, beginning with "the thing", rather than "the thing about the thing", is the best way to open doors of understanding. 
 
And one of the bedrock realities, a “thing” of this experience is that while some believe that the strike caused fissures in the community, the reality is that fissures were already present. They were revealed in the Clearness Committee Report that was delivered to the College in summer of 2019. That report was unequivocal in its conclusion that multiple groups of students feel marginalized and alienated by and from the Haverford College community. When I look at the history of student life at Haverford, I find the same concerns about inclusion and feelings of alienation from BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students from 1972, the late 70s, and again in subsequent decades. Despite its best intentions, Haverford, like America, has not always made good on its promises of equity and inclusion for its students. The strike, then, can be seen as the culmination of many messages the College has received over many years; I subscribe to this point of view. 
 
As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted everything that we experience as familiar, feelings of alienation and anxiety grew ever more intense among many members of our community. Meanwhile, a pandemic of racial injustice continued to play out in the videotaped killings of Black citizens over and over again; members of the BIPOC community were becoming more and more disappointed and despondent in a country where Black lives seemed not to matter. 
 
For so many, the killing of George Floyd was the culminating catalyst in a world gone wrong on so many levels. Thousands of Americans of all races took to the streets all over this country to protest this senseless killing at the hands of police. This movement galvanized many Haverford students as well. Some began to more clearly articulate the feelings of marginalization that were revealed by the Clearness Committee Report. Through the letter from the Athletes of Color Coalition (AOCC) to the athletic director, and the June 2020 Bi-Co letter to Haverford and Bryn Mawr presidents Wendy Raymond and Kim Cassidy, many BIPOC students told us, in no uncertain terms, that they were weary of feeling like second-class citizens in this country and at Haverford, a place that is often associated with community, social justice, and integrity. It was clear from their strong words and demands that the struggles they felt in creating a Haverford education that worked for them left them in a place where they too “could not breathe.” 
 
Upon hearing these concerns, many colleagues began to immediately engage with groups of students to ameliorate some of the problems they identified. Students partnered with us on activities that will (but perhaps not immediately) make a difference in this community. Various members of the community were working behind the scenes to understand and address many of the concerns they raised. But I was reminded in November that “working behind the scenes” was not what this moment called for. Rather, we needed transparency. We have learned that lesson and are trying to be more visible and explicit in our engagement with, and feedback to, students.
 
We moved through the fall trying to keep the pandemic at bay while also trying to create some semblance of normalcy for our students. The national issues around racism in America were never far away. They were made more intense and polarizing by the fact that we were in the midst of a national election cycle that was trying to downplay both the COVID-19 pandemic and the rising racial polarization of our nation. Our students were absorbing these messages on a daily basis as they went about their lives filled with study, engagement, and precaution.
 
Fast forward to the week before the national election. Walter Wallace, Jr., a Black man in West Philadelphia, was shot seven times by the police while in the midst of a mental health crisis. His mother had called for help, fearing for her son and her family. This was not the outcome she expected. This killing, so close to “home” for Haverford, and literally so close to home for some of our students, faculty, and staff, was the final straw that broke this community. My words of outrage about this latest killing and concern for our students, which landed poorly, were a precipitant, but not the reason, for what happened next.
 
All of the ways that many students had been feeling marginalized, unsafe, unheard, and expendable came together. Some students believed, and felt, that we hadn’t heard their cries. Some students believed we were not working on the issues they had articulated clearly in July. This is when “working behind the scenes” did not serve us well. Some students believed and felt that we just didn’t get it. They went on strike!
 
This is when things got really hard. I watched as this community splintered and suffered. I heard from students; I heard from some of you. I know it seems to some of you that we allowed “bullying and intimidation” to go unchecked. There were behaviors that we did not condone, and my colleagues on the Deans’ staff have been working with students on all sides of the strike to support, guide, and redirect the anger and pain on display—and our upcoming THRIVE Initiative is central to this effort. Suffice it to say that many students supported the goals of the strikers. Many students, white and BIPOC, understood the disappointment and the rage that broke through. Feelings of solidarity and alienation abounded in the community.
 
As I’ve tried to understand that intense time, I have been reminded that individuals who have experienced hurt over and over again may respond in ways that create discomfort for others. This may be particularly true in this current moment. These young people (and I remind you that we are talking about 18-21-year-old adults in the making, but who are not yet adults) have learned particular ways of engaging with each other. I am reading We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice, by Adrienne Maree Brown. This work is helping me to understand the complexities of the modern day “abolitionist” movements. She invites her readers to “get excellent at being in conflict which is a healthy, natural part of being human and biodiverse,” while at the same time, cautioning us all to be concerned about the ways our conflict resolution can also be the cause of harm to others within our movements.
 
I came of age in a different activist wave. Consider that you may have too. Those times had different icons and different rules of engagement. We were not perfect either. I am learning about these new ways so that I can help our students get what we all want from our best activist intentions: a better and more just world.
 
This brings us to the road before us, and the concrete steps the College is taking to learn from this experience as we work toward a better Haverford. Racial Trauma and Healing work is one of the many ways we will move forward. We need to name and acknowledge where the anger came from. We need to work, to do the healing that will build the resiliency and capacity to work constructively for the change we all need. We have a number of speakers and workshops being planned that we will offer to our community  as we provide opportunities for reflection and growth.
 
Over and over again in the last seven months since I’ve arrived, I’ve had White students and staff share that they just don’t know what to do or what to say in the face of this current racial reckoning in America. So, another way forward will be to offer Race-Based Education on Whiteness. We will be working with the Center for the Study of White American Culture and other experts to develop a series of workshops and resources that will allow people to learn and grow. As I work with students and staff around the nature of race in America and the impact of race on the lives of those of us who have been ‘raced’, these same students and staff have recognized the ways they have not been attuned to some of these complicated issues. Many have come to understand the privileges they possess. Many have embarked upon their own learning about these issues. We will provide new resources to help them move forward.
 
Some of you also know that a lot of negative energy flowed within and across athletic teams. Working with Athletics around issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion had already been a major focus for me since coming to Haverford. As part of our THRIVE Initiative, we have engaged a nationally recognized diversity trainer to work with Athletics to “help student-athletes and staff explore strategies to prioritize healing, embrace difference through an anti-racist lens, and create a culture of belonging.” Climate Assessment and DEI Training for Athletics will have racial healing and race-based education embedded in the work.
 
That brings me to the final piece of the work we will do. Haverford is applying to become a Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center. This work has some connection to Truth and Reconciliation Commissions that have happened in many parts of the world. Many of us may have become familiar with this work after the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa. Though this work has happened in other places, it has not happened in the United States. Rather than rewrite our history as some have suggested, these commissions have the power to “right” our shared history.
 
The Kellogg Foundation launched this comprehensive, national, and community-based process to plan for, and bring about, transformational and sustainable change, and to address the historical and contemporary effects of racism. It was launched in January 2016. 
 

“TRHT’s purpose is to improve our ability as communities and as a country to see ourselves in each other, so that we can share a more equitable future for all children to thrive,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of the Kellogg Foundation. “This work is essential because we must bridge the divides in our country. Now more than ever, we must all act in big and small ways to help people heal from the effects of racism.”

  
In 2021, the impact of the divisions in our country couldn’t be clearer. The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) adopted the Kellogg model in 2018. To date, 28 colleges and universities have become part of this network. We will apply to join in the application cycle that begins in March.
           
Together, all of these components are part of our THRIVE Initiative. We are committed to doing the work that is needed to move our community closer to racial equity and healing. This does not mean that we are moving the community back to some imagined “peaceful” state where conflict does not exist. In order to truly prepare our students to lead in the complex, tumultuous, environment where they will be called upon to solve problems that we don’t yet know exist, we must prepare them to work in and through conflict. In doing this work, I want to call them into “community in the making,” where we might tap into some other Quaker teachings that call us to:
 

“Work actively for the just and peaceful transformation of conflict, and for the removal of causes of violence and injustice.” 

 
And we will answer the call of Rufus Jones, a Quaker philosopher who saw Quaker education as “fearless education,” where students are challenged to develop an “unflinching” quality in approaching not only academic challenges, but also the broader challenges of life. Community members are encouraged to grow in understanding of multicultural issues, and in confronting the implications of various kinds of privilege.
 
The president, provost, and I will go on listening tours to find out how the fall impacted various constituencies. We will do the hard work of listening and “hearing” each other. We will learn from our mistakes; we may all make more. But we will commit to working toward the development of a culture that calls us in to this journey toward thriving. This will mean embracing a future in which hate has no home at Haverford, where we eagerly do the hard work of human exchange and dialogue. Ultimately, we commit to the unending challenge of eradicating every vestige of racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, and gender bias that plagues our campus and the world.
 
Students are coming back to campus. Despite the occasional snow they are out and about. They may not always be comfortable, but they will be safe. Since I arrived and began working with groups of students, I have invited them into what some call "Brave Spaces.” I look forward to joining them in those spaces again as we unflinchingly find our way back to each other and build an even better Haverford. I look forward to talking with you if you join me on Wednesday, March 10, at 7:00 p.m. (ET), for a live webinar with families and alumni. I hope to have updates to report by then. Keep an eye on your inbox for the official invitation.
 
Thank you for holding us in your best thoughts.
 
With appreciation and faith,
 
Joyce A. Bylander

Interim Dean of the College

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff:

With our extended winter break coming to a close and students returning to campus, I am pleased and eager to welcome everyone to our second semester of learning, growing, and working toward the best Haverford we can become. It has been wonderful to see students walking familiar campus paths, layering up to connect outdoors, and heading into Founders for COVID testing. 

COVID-19 remains a challenge. The national surge we expected after the winter holidays did indeed occur, and many institutions that have already started their semesters have experienced on-campus spread of COVID due to students’ small social gatherings indoors, unmasked and non-distanced. I remain confident that we will be able to keep infection rates low if we maintain our energetic commitment to the safety measures that worked well for us in the fall: masking, distancing, and all the precautions each of us has been taking in our daily lives. Our friends and colleagues in Health Services will continue to be in touch throughout the semester.

Our community went through a lot last semester, aligned and with difference, learning and teaching, through COVID and the student-led strike for racial equity. Many BIPOC and FGLI friends, peers, and colleagues did this on top of harm endured far more intensely, for far longer. I saw so much support and education offered and received, as well as antagonisms aired and fueled. It was exhausting even as it energized. It was difficult and generative. Much was said; much was learned; much was gained and appreciated; some words hurt; some healing and work have begun; much work lies ahead. Haverford is ready to engage in that challenging but necessary work—in antiracism systems and policy change, and in healing—in new ways. 

I know the road to wholeness and healing as we make sustainable antiracist change is long and arduous, even as the work is urgent. I also know how committed so many of us are to reaching across fissures and fractures so recently in evidence. I am committed to working through this journey with each of you. Even through a mix of pain and healing, and building upon fragile first steps and missteps, I have already witnessed generous attempts to establish or build trust where trust had been lost or eroded. We cannot afford to take shortcuts, and we cannot delegate this work to others. To enact changes to broaden and sustain racial equity at Haverford, uncomfortable learning and growth is required. 

One way through the discomfort and towards an antiracist Haverford is through a new, campus-wide initiative we are calling THRIVE: Truth, Healing, Resiliency, Inclusion, and Equity. Designed to build off progress made last semester, developed under the leadership of Dean Bylander working with students and fellow deans, and made possible through a $250,000 gift from a member of Haverford's Class of 1966, THRIVE will invest long-term in sustainable change that includes workshops and webinars as a means for us to better understand one another, and ourselves. I envision THRIVE, modeled on the W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Program, as a multi-year project that is firm in its commitment to change through constructive engagement. It will adapt responsively as we move forward. Its initial elements include:

Understanding Race and Racism toward Creating an Inclusive Community. We will provide opportunities to examine the nature of systemic racism in America and the impacts of structural racism on the lives of those of us who have been racialized, including BIPOC community members at Haverford and beyond, with programs including:

• Why Color Matters
• How to Become an Antiracist, with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
• Issues of Privilege and Oppression

 

Race-Based Education for White People. Many white students, staff, and faculty have expressed varying degrees of uncertainty about how to be an ally or collaborator, and about their role and responsibility in racial equity work. We will offer workshops for white people about race and racism that will emphasize the work that white people must do to make real strides for all of us, with topics including:

• White Racial Identity Development and Antiracist Work
• Decentering Whiteness and Building a Multicultural Community
• How White People Can Talk to Other White People About Race

 

Racial Trauma and Healing. We need to name and acknowledge where race-related conflict comes from. We need to build the resiliency and capacity to work constructively for change we all need. Plans thus far include:

• Workshops around mindfulness, race-based trauma and healing, including dedicated spaces for BIPOC students
• Dr. Loretta Ross will virtually visit Haverford  for a keynote and workshop on how to engage in the work of change that calls people into the work.

Haverford will apply in March to the Association of American Colleges & Universities to become a Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center. This work by AAC&U with 28 colleges and universities originated with the W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s 2016 launch of a comprehensive, national and community-based process to plan for and bring about transformational and sustainable change, and to address the historic and contemporary effects of racism. The work has some connection to truth and reconciliation commissions that have happened in many parts of the world, including in South Africa after the dismantling of apartheid. Rather than rewrite our history as some have suggested, these commissions have the power to “right” our shared history.

“TRHT’s purpose is to improve our ability as communities and as a country to see ourselves in each other, so that we can share a more equitable future for all children to thrive,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of the Kellogg Foundation. “This work is essential because we must bridge the divides in our country. Now more than ever, we must all act in big and small ways to help people heal from the effects of racism.”

By the end of this month, our co-interim Chief Diversity Officers Linda Strong-Leek and Raquel Esteves-Joyce will update our community about their ongoing work, and the Board of Managers will let us know the composition of its Antiracism Accountability and Advancement Group. Also this month, I will begin working with the Advisory Committee on the Future CDO Structure about antiracism and DEI leadership design for Haverford. 

I am hopeful that the work we are intentionally immersed in, including the THRIVE initiative, will allow us to engage our hearts and minds to take action to build Haverford now, leaving no room for racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, transphobia, or marginalization. The work is urgent. Your leadership matters.

Sincerely,

Wendy