Drexel brings back anti-racist mini-grants to advance 'systemic racism' narrative in local communities
Drexel's Lindy Center for Civic Engagement will award as many as five students for their anti-racist work in combatting systemic racism in the local Philadelphia area.
The same mini-grant program was used in 2021-2022 to award some students who taught children about anti-racism through math and the arts.
A Philadelphia-based university has reintroduced a grant program that previously awarded recipients who instructed local children about the dangers of systemic racism and how to be anti-racists.
Drexel University’s Lindy Center for Civic Engagement is bringing back an anti-racism mini-grant program for five grants of up to $1,000 that “advance understanding of and action against systemic racism” in West Philadelphia.
“Our Anti-Racism Mini-Grant directs Lindy Center monetary resources toward student projects and learning focused on racial justice and anti-racism,” the center’s web page states.
The center provides five areas where Drexel student applicants can focus their projects: “Dialogue,” “Education,” “Arts and Culture,” “Economic Mobility,” and “Global Perspectives.”
For a proposal rooted in Arts and Culture, students can apply to use the arts to increase community understanding of racism. They can also collaborate with various organizations “to pursue visual, performing, or language arts as tools for addressing racism within the community or to gain a better understanding of racism within the art community.”
For those interested in Global Perspectives, applicants “can apply for travel support to connect local and global perspectives, experiences, and contexts of racial justice.” Incorporating study abroad coursework and other “global learning experience[s]” should serve as ways to apply anti-racist learning to West Philadelphia.
“[S]tudents can identify and uplift experiences of racism and anti-racism efforts in all parts of the world not only as important, but also as interwoven,” the program guide stipulates.
[RELATED: Stanford Medical ‘diversity mini-grants’ fund events like ‘Black Girl Brunch’]
According to its vision statement, the Lindy Center “exists to fulfill Drexel University’s vision as a comprehensive, progressive university with a deep commitment to civic engagement.”
The center previously offered anti-racism mini-grants for the 2021-2022 academic year, including some projects aimed at teaching children about anti-racism through the arts and math.
One of the past winners, Obadiah Baker, was awarded for his project titled, Arts Workshop for West Philadelphia Youth on Race and Racism, which taught youth about “racial justice through the arts” that involved “one-day anti-racism art workshop.”
This is not the first time Campus Reform has covered college anti-racism grants.
In June, Campus Reform reported that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was offering thousands of dollars for DEI research. Similarly, the University of Rhode Island was providing students and faculty up to $1,000 to bring in social justice speakers in May.
Campus Reform contacted the Lindy Center and Drexel University for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.
