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Appendix: Community Engagement and Policy Subcommittee Report
Co-chairs:
Members: Dr. Joseph Richardson Dr. Isabella Alcañiz
Andrea López Jennifer St. Sume Alyssa Whitcraft Gary LaFree Rachel Ellis (African-American Studies) (Government and Politics)
(Anthropology) (Government and Politics) (Geographical Sciences) (Criminology and Criminal Justice) (Criminology and Criminal Justice)
Goal and purpose for the subcommittee
The subcommittee is tasked with surveying both best practices for racial justice policy and levels of current community engagement within BSOS. The committee’s goal is to provide BSOS with recommendations on how to strengthen the university’s active role to promote racial justice both on campus and in the surrounding Prince George’s County.
Subcommittee activities
For academic year 2020-2021, the Community Engagement & Policy Subcommittee for the BSOS Anti-Black Racism Initiative had two projects:
1. Engage in efforts to address the disenfranchisement of Black residents of the historical Lakeland Community in College Park.
2. Survey existing community engagements with a focus on racial justice in which BSOS staff, students, and faculty participate. 1-Engagement with the Lakeland community Lakeland is a historical African American community of College Park that was formed in the late 1800s next to the University of Maryland, known as the Maryland Agricultural College at the time. The neighborhood is nestled between the University, Lake Artemesia, and the Berwyn neighborhood. Beginning in the 1970s, the Black Lakeland community has been displaced by gentrification and urban renewal policies.
The goal and purpose of the subcommittee was to investigate the history of structural racism and its effect on Black residents of Lakeland and in what ways if any the University of Maryland may have been complicit in the structural oppression of Lakeland residents.
We proposed listening sessions with Black residents of Lakeland to understand the ways the University of Maryland may have engaged in forms of structural racism that impacted Black residents’ quality of life, housing, employment, health and social outcomes and wealth. The data collected from these listening sessions would be used to inform the development of restorative justice policies and programming for Black residents of Lakeland. Co-Chairs of the SubCommittee, Dr. Joseph Richardson (African-American Studies) and Dr. Isabella Alcañiz (Government and Politics) contacted several Black churches in the Lakeland community via email and phone but received no response. We attribute the lack of response to the impact of COVID on places of worship. During the academic year 2020-2021, state regulations required that places of worship remain closed to congregants.
We pivoted from this approach, when it was brought to the attention of the co-chairs that the City of College Park had created recently a Restorative Justice Committee. This committee seeks to address the legacy of structural racism, racial inequity and racial injustice in the Lakeland Community perpetrated by the state in the form of urban renewal policies which significantly reduced the housing stock in Lakeland and displaced residents. In February 2021, Dr. Richardson applied for membership to the City of College Park Restorative Justice Steering Committee. His application was accepted. An article published by the Diamondback on the Restorative Justice Steering Committee can be found here: https://dbknews.com/2021/02/10/college-park-lakelandrestorative-justice-steering-committee-council/
In Spring 2021, Drs. Richardson and Alcañiz also attended virtual events sponsored by the Lakeland Community Heritage Project (LCHP) to learn more about the history of Lakeland. LCHP was created in 2007 as a preservation project of the history of the Lakeland neighborhood. More information can be found at https://lakelandchp.com/.
In Spring 2021, Dr. Richardson met with Maxine Gross (President of LCHP) and Dr. Mary Corbin Sies (Associate Professor, Department of American Studies) to discuss ways that the ABRI Community Engagement & Policy sub-committee could support the efforts of the LCHP. Since 2009, Professor Sies has collaborated with the Lakeland Community Heritage Project to guide community engaged scholarship focusing on the history of Lakeland. Part of this work involves coursework in which students help to document the history of Lakeland in primary sources, record oral histories, and work with community members to develop interpretations centered on Lakelanders’ experiences and voices. Part of it involves rethinking and transforming the theory and practice of historic preservation to comprehend both the tangible and intangible heritage of groups that have been marginalized or treated inequitably in the United States and to forge a preservation practice that centers social justice considerations.
Proposal: Dr. Richardson’s meeting with Ms. Gross and Dr. Sies was quite productive and spurred the idea of developing a course on the History of Lakeland that could potentially support the BSOS ABRI minor which is currently housed in AASD and co-facilitated by the Department of African-American Studies and the Department of American Studies. The subcommittee enthusiastically supports the proposal of a course on Black Lakeland and that this course should be supported with resources from the ABRI. Course buyouts for (1) AASD Faculty (1) American Studies faculty for course development.
Furthermore, the subcommittee for Community Engagement & Policy also supported the John B. Slaughter Reparations Series sponsored by the Department of African-American Studies. This year long virtual series convened five panels to discuss reparations for the ancestors of enslaved Africans in the US. Panel discussions centered on reparations policies (local, state and federal), global models of reparations, the psychological cost of racial trauma and the economic cost of reparations. National and international scholars on reparations served as panelists. The discussions on the case for reparations were robust and engaging. To our knowledge, this is the first series sponsored by the University of Maryland on reparations. The events were widely disseminated and attended by members of the local community. Flyers for the events are attached.
2-Survey of BSOS Staff, Students, and Faculty In October of 2020, the subcommittee for Community Engagement & Policy fielded a survey across the BSOS college. We surveyed graduate students, staff and faculty to assess whether they engaged with community programs focused on racial justice. The survey was conducted digitally and asked BSOS members to report whether they engage in community programs focused on racial justice, which programs and if the programs had a presence in Prince George’s County. Response rate was low. However, those who participated reported a variety of engagements. Out of a total of 20 responses (4 staff, 4 students and 12 faculty), 7 individuals reported engaging in some form of community program with a focus on racial justice, 6 of which were engaged in Prince George’s County. The types of engagements reported in the survey included mentoring or education related work; networking groups; immigrant community group; university-related initiatives; protests; voting initiatives; and church-related programs.
Proposal: Although some BSOS members already engage in community programs that emphasize racial justice, more coordination can be done. If the College and University take a
more active role in working with Prince George’s County to provide opportunities for faculty, students, and staff to offer their support, individual efforts will be more
streamlined and cohesive. As a prominent university with the capacity for a wide variety of research and development, establishing and strengthening relations with organizations and government bodies will enable joint efforts to promote racial justice and strengthen our community
2021-2022 Outlook
COVID restricted much of our ability as a subcommittee to meet with residents of Lakeland however we believe that over the course of this academic we made great inroads towards beginning the process of restorative justice for Lakeland. As we move forward, to continue this important work this subcommittee must be supported with significant resources such as a (1) course buyout each academic year for the subcommittee co-chairs, 15% support for summer salary and a graduate research assistant to support the necessary data collection and analyses for proposed research (e.g., listening sessions). For the 2021-2022 academic year, the Department of African-American Studies and the Asian American Studies Program will be cosponsoring a year-long series on the relationship between the Black and Asian American communities and anti-Black and anti-Asian racism. This series will also require resources from
the ABRI (e.g., speaker honoraria). In summary, the co-chairs and committee members should be recognized by the college for their efforts to address anti-Black racism in the local community. Lakeland has suffered from the historical erasure of structural violence. As a land grant flagship state university, the University of Maryland has the social responsibility to address the needs of its residents particularly those who have suffered from structural racism and oppression.
Flyer for the John B. Slaughter Reparations Series sponsored by the Department of African American Studies held on February 23, 2020 that was supported by the subcommittee for Community Engagement & Policy.
