in focus

A Center for Transformation

Otterbein focuses on education inequality with new program

Otterbein University is demonstrating its commitment to diversity and inclusion in becoming Ohio’s first Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center.

In February 2020, the university announced its recognition as one of 23 universities to host the center. Since then, Otterbein has rolled out activities, classes and programming to become a safe, education-focused space to talk about race and social justice in central Ohio. Otterbein hopes to change the way community members think and talk about race-related issues.

“We wanted to do it because it is part of Otterbein’s mission,” says Kathryn Plank, associate provost for Otterbein’s academic affairs division.

The TRHT concept is a national collaboration between the Association of American Colleges & Universities and

A Piece of History

In 1955, Ohio legislators removed the requirement that school districts shared the same boundaries with the city they served. Through the 1970s, the city of Columbus began annexing land that belonged to the suburban districts, opening the possibility for Columbus schools to petition the State Board of Education to transfer those areas into its district as well. Columbus schools began to take such action in 1971 with land in the Grandview Heights area, and in 1980 requested to transfer all annexed properties into its district, prompting conflict between Columbus schools and suburban counterparts, including Westerville. State legislators got involved, but eventually in 1986 the win-win agreement among Columbus and 12 suburban school districts established procedures and a revenue sharing arrangement among the involved parties. The agreement was reauthorized by all 12 school districts several times except for Reynoldsburg City Schools, which opted out of the agreement in 1998. communities, designed to bring about sustainable change and to address the historic and contemporary effects of racism. In 2016, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation designed the TRHT’s framework with 176 leaders and scholars as representatives – all of whom have a reach of more than 289 million people.

Otterbein received about $25,000 in grants to get its own TRHT off the ground, with the hopes of becoming a continuous, sustainable program in the coming years. Over the past year – despite COVID-19 – Otterbein has begun to engage with its campus community

in Westerville and branch out to other Columbus schools.

One Otterbein class, for instance, had students collect oral histories of the Westerville community and present them to their classmates. It’s just one way Otterbein can open up the conversation about race and history with the public while keeping the conversation rooted in the lives of Westerville residents.

In addition, Otterbein has facilitated racial healing circles where groups of 20 people or less respond to and discuss a prompt about a social issue. For example, one topic might concern a time in education when a person needed to feel “seen,” or listened to and understood.

“The presentations would have been done in person, but COVID-19 forced the conversations to go virtual,” Plank says.

Plank says that although the pandemic has slowed the rollout of the program, it has also shone a brighter light on the inequality that exists right here in Westerville. Some students, for example, lack reliable access to technology or the internet at home and have therefore been forced to use public resources to engage in virtual learning – a major barrier to a stable college experience.

New Westerville schools programs will implement professional development for district faculty so they, too, can learn and understand Westerville’s history – both successful and tough aspects.

“We partner with TRHT to offer some training for staff as it relates to the history of our school district and how the district came to be settled the way it has settled,” says Vaughn Bell, pastor at Westerville’s Triumphant Church of God.

That history, Bell adds, will touch on the win-win agreement among Columbus schools and suburban school districts over territory and revenue sharing.

A stronger understanding of Westerville’s history at the teacher level would create a stronger experience for students. Some of the staff members have even participated in Otterbein’s racial healing circles, proof that for Otterbein’s faculty, this is more than just a job; it’s a commitment to the community.

“The value is helping both instructors and students understand the district they are part of and how we came to be the way we are,” Bell says.

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