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Educational research should pinpoint anti-Black aggressions to build better policy, scholar writes
LAWRENCE — In 1974, Harvard psychiatrist Chester Pierce coined the term “microaggressions” to examine how African Americans experienced subtle and everyday acts of discrimination. Several decades later, the term “racial microaggressions” became the more common term for how all people of color experienced such acts. University of Kansas faculty member Dorothy Hines writes in a new article that researchers should instead focus on anti-Black aggressions, as it does not dilute the different experiences people of color have in their education. “What was at the heart of what Dr. Pierce was trying to get at?” she said. “What it means to be Black in America is different than what it means to be Black in France, which is different than what it means to be Latino in America.”
Spencer Museum announces 2024 Brosseau Creativity Award recipients
LAWRENCE — The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas has announced the 2024 recipients of the Jack & Lavon Brosseau Creativity Awards, which honor innovative and risk-taking creative work in the categories of writing and diverse media from KU undergraduates. Honorees include students from Lawrence and Lenexa.
KU Libraries honor student employees at Dean’s Award luncheon
LAWRENCE — Leaders at the University of Kansas Libraries hosted the annual Dean’s Award for Student Employee Excellence award luncheon May 2, recognizing the essential contributions of student workers and highlighting outstanding student employees and ambassadors. Honorees include students from Olathe, Phillipsburg, Scott City and Wichita.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings
Educational research should pinpoint anti-Black aggressions to build better policy, scholar writes
LAWRENCE — For more than a decade, educational research has lumped all people of color together when examining microaggressions perpetrated against them. A University of Kansas scholar has published an article that argues educational research should instead study anti-Black aggressions as scholars originally intended and use the approach to build more equitable policy at the individual and institutional levels.
In 1974, Harvard psychiatrist Chester Pierce coined the term “microaggressions” to examine how African Americans experienced subtle and everyday acts of discrimination. Several decades later, the term “racial microaggressions” became the more common term for how all people of color experienced such acts. Dorothy Hines, associate professor of curriculum & teaching and associate professor of African & African-American studies at KU, wrote in a new article that researchers should instead focus on anti-Black aggressions, as it is both true to Pierce’s original intent and does not dilute the very different experiences people of color have in their education.
Published in Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, the article proposes examining anti-Black aggressions on three levels: micro, institutional and macro.
The micro level includes experiences individuals commonly experience, such as a Black student being told they are inherently incapable of learning, which comes from societal beliefs about race and culture. Institutional level aggressions include policies and programs based on racism, such as school discipline policies that routinely result in disproportionate action taken against Black students. Macro level aggressions include ideologies and beliefs that result in policy such as state-level bans on teaching Black history.
In arguing for studying anti-Black aggressions instead of racial microaggressions against all people of color, Hines said the approach both is truer to the original idea of microaggressions and more fully delves into the experiences different groups have.
“We cannot dilute the unique experiences African Americans have had. The article discusses what happens when we take an idea and expand it beyond what was originally intended,” Hines said. “What was at the heart of what Dr. Pierce was trying to get at? What it means to be Black in America is different than what it means to be Black in France, which is different than what it means to be Latino in America.”
Hines further wrote that including all racial microaggressions in one research frame moves away from the history of the theory and changes how and why researchers examine such questions. She therefore calls for a Black epistemological future in educational research. Scholar Patricia Hill Collins described epistemology as “the way in which power relations shape who is believed and why.” To that end, research centered in Black epistemology would more adequately understand the Black experience in American education and better empower more just policies and approaches on all levels, according to Hines.
“Overall, I argue it’s not just thinking about racial microaggressions. We need to look at how certain people experience things in education and in life every day, and we need to be intersectional,” Hines said. “We have a responsibility to do morally right things. For me, it’s having a welcoming experience for Black students, staff, faculty and being supportive and doing research that addresses their lived experiences.”
That research would allow scholars to honor the original spirit of microaggression theory and ask more direct questions about the Black experience in American education, Hines said.
“Like Pierce’s work on anti-Black aggressions, Black epistemological futures are a call to researchers to see African Americans rather than disregard them in theory,” Hines wrote in the article’s conclusion. “Moreover, this model explores the impact of knowledge construction with the Black body while reshaping the types of questions that are asked, avoided, and necessary to hearing the African American narrative, wherever it may be.”
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Contact: Elizabeth Kanost, Spencer Museum of Art, 785-864-0142, [email protected], @SpencerMuseum
Spencer Museum announces 2024 Brosseau Creativity Award recipients
LAWRENCE — The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas has announced the 2024 recipients of the Jack & Lavon Brosseau Creativity Awards. Established by benefactor Lavon Brosseau in 2011, the awards honor innovative and risk-taking creative work in the categories of writing and diverse media from KU undergraduate students in any area of study.
Submissions included film, collage, music, photography, textiles and sculpture. Students represented a range of disciplines, including visual art, art education, film and media studies, music, English and Spanish. Both of this year’s award recipients are first-year students.
In the writing category, Laryn Anne Elliott-Langford of Lenexa was recognized for her poetic quilt “I AM SPECIAL, NO YOU’RE NOT.” Elliott-Langford is a first-year student in visual art with a minor in fibers. Elliott-Langford’s quilt responded to the unexpected loss of her father in January 2024, and she sewed words and imagery that remind her of him over the fabric. She writes, “The thread is my grief and its evolution. These sewn words can be removed and will unravel someday, as his voice will be forgotten and muffled through time. This is his living headstone.”
In the diverse media category, Matthew Kurniawan of Jakarta, Indonesia, was recognized for his symphonic poem “Gambaran Nusantara (Sketches of Indonesia).” Kurniawan, a first-year music composition major and classical guitarist, was inspired to compose this piece after a trip to Bali, where he watched a traditional performance of an energetic Kecak fire dance. The form of the piece was inspired by Indonesia’s national motto, which translates to “Unity in Diversity.” He writes, “The piece contains three contrasting sections, each with its own differing motifs, moods, and melodies, yet they are unified by a single recurring theme: a metallic, gamelan-like sonority emulated through xylophones, tubular bells, a glockenspiel, and a piano.”
An honorable mention in the diverse media category went to Alice Lubin-Meyer, a sophomore in photography from Lawrence. Using a large format view camera, Lubin-Meyer explored the meaning of “home” by taking documentary photographs of her grandparents’ longtime home as their lives changed due to aging and health concerns.
More information about the awards and excerpts from the recipients’ projects are available online.
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https://kansaspublicradio.org/podcast/when-experts-attack
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Contact: Wendy Conover, KU Libraries, [email protected]
KU Libraries honors student employees at Dean’s Award luncheon
LAWRENCE — Leaders at the University of Kansas Libraries hosted the annual Dean’s Award for Student Employee Excellence (DASEE) award luncheon May 2, recognizing the essential contributions of student workers and highlighting outstanding student employees and ambassadors.
This year, 147 student employees contributed essential work across all major offices and divisions of KU Libraries.
“With the support of staff supervisors, student employees have significant impact on the reach and work of the libraries, engaging with multifaceted projects and meeting a wide range of patron needs,” Libraries Dean Carol Smith said to the DASEE lunch crowd of students and staff.
Nicholas Schemper, a senior in history and classics from Phillipsburg, was awarded a DASEE for his work in the Access Services Department at Anschutz Library. Schemper was honored for his reliability, initiative, and ability to collaborate with and supervise other student workers.
“With the long hours that we have at Anschutz, we really depend on our student supervisors a lot to help fill in gaps when other staff members can’t be there,” said Morgan Smith, Anschutz operations manager. “Nick is one of those people who you know, beyond a doubt you can depend on.”
Schemper has been instrumental in both daily operations and special projects over the past two years at Anschutz.
“As a student supervisor I will oversee everyday tasks that need to be done like shelving or scanning,” Schemper said. “Other times there will be big projects that we need to do, like last summer we had a huge shifting project where we literally shifted thousands and thousands of books, and it took every single one of our student workers.”
Hailey LaPlant, a senior from Scott City and Wichita, was honored for her contributions at the Watson Library circulation desk, where she has worked for five years. LaPlant’s responsibilities have grown over that time from covering the desk to helping guide and train new student employees. She also takes part in wellness-related efforts and plant care at the library. LaPlant has been especially helpful this year in covering extra shifts with increasing responsibilities to fill gaps in scheduling and staffing.
“My favorite thing over the past five years is just meeting all the people,” LaPlant said. “I know I’ve made some friends that I’ll keep for hopefully a lifetime. All the staff and students we work with, they’re amazing; it’s such a community.”
Cash prizes were awarded to the DASEE winners, who were nominated by supervisors and selected by a committee including members of the KU Libraries Board of Advocates. The DASEE Awards were established and are sustained through a gift from Lorraine Haricombe, former dean of KU Libraries .
In addition to libraries student employees, two members of the KU Libraries Student Ambassador Program (KULSAP) were also recognized for outstanding service. KULSAP members meet throughout the year with libraries’ leadership to engage and build awareness among fellow students and enhance libraries’ services and facilities. Margaret Baechle and Zoe Camarin were honored for their creativity, dedication and leadership in the group.
“It’s a really rewarding club, everyone in (KULSAP) is super fun and nice, and just enjoys being there,” said Baechle, a junior in English from St. Louis who served as president of KULSAP this year. “We have a lot of free range with what we can do.”
“It’s very beneficial not just through making connections, but also learning about what the libraries have to offer,” Camarin said.
Camarin, a freshman from Olathe, said KULSAP was the first club she joined at KU. “I’ve made some of my best friends in this club,” she said. “And I’ve learned things I probably wouldn’t have known if I just walked into the library.”
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