The Pullias Center for Higher Education asked the Center’s alumni to submit proposals for research projects that explore racial equity and inclusion in higher education, with $5,000 presented to each of the three winning proposals.
For the second time, the Pullias Center for Higher Education’s Alumni Awards has again selected inspiring and innovative projects that focus on promoting deeper understandings and actions related to racial equity.
Alumni applicants were asked to either summarize key literature around an important equity top and develop a 10-15 page policy brief, or take research they have conducted and use funding to translate their research project into a 10-15 page policy brief, or other deliverables such as an original documentary, video, website, webinar or other modes.
“This year’s submissions were outstanding and a true testament to the diverse research in equity and inclusion in higher education that Center alumni are involved in,” stated Adrianna Kezar, Pullias Center Director. “The three winning proposals are deeply aligned with our commitment to improve access and student success for underserved and underrepresented students.”
The first Pullias Alumni Award is presented to Alexander Jun (USC ‘08), currently a Professor of Higher Education at Azusa Pacific University. His submission, entitled “Global White Supremacy, Anti-Blackness, and the University,” explores the idea of the university as a carrier of White dominance, and the role they play in knowledge and empire production. Jun’s final product will be an essay on the way anti-Blackness and White supremacy have played a significant role in universities’ curricula, ideologies, and practices in three distinct regions: Southern Africa, Oceania and Latin America.
The second award has been given to a joint proposal submitted by Raquel Rall (USC ‘14) and Antar Tichavakunda (USC ‘18), who propose a series of webinars over the 2022-23 academic year that focuses on unpacking Critical Race Theory (CRT). Rall (currently an Associate Professor of Higher Education at University of California, Riverside) and Tichavakunda (currently an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at University of California, Santa Barbara) posit that while both the left and right-focus mainstream media channels have a lot to say about CRT with their own inherent biases, more public discussions with experts about what CRT is and is not are solely needed. The webinars will be free, open to the public and feature participants from critical race theorists in higher education, K-12 as well as the legal field.
This year’s third award is presented to Jarrett Gupton (USC ’09) for his entry “The End of Racial Justice? A Content Analysis of Racial Justice Backlash Bills.” Currently an Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida, Gupton analyzes the federal executive orders and state bills that have been enacted since the Summer of 2020 and the “racial reckoning that forced the country and higher education organizations to interrogate how they were complicit with structural racism.” His brief will explore the impact these bills have had on universities and the evolution of the regressive rhetoric surrounding the racial justice backlash.
