Our Community School Launched ☄️

Some of Team We Here’s biggest dreams included our very own personal and professional development program. We grew tired of seeing “diversity” webinars and courses that barely scratched the surface of systemic racism and oppression. We also wanted a way to pay BIPOC for their experience, knowledge, and skills. This is how the Community School was seeded.

The We Here Community School seeks to provide a learning community with opportunities for personal and professional development based in anti-racism pedagogy, as well as recognizing and acknowledging systemic racism and oppression.

We launched with the course “Just What is Critical Race Theory and What’s It Doing in LIS?” with Sofia Leung and Jorge Lopez-McKnight, editors of the forthcoming book Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies through Critical Race Theory (2021 MIT Press), which includes “a community of 27 BIPOC scholars contributing necessary alternatives to dominant ways of being, knowing, and acting in archives and libraries.”

The course is a 6-week, 5-meeting synchronous course that will take place between June 22 - July 31. It sold out in one week (but folks can join the Waitlist), so we hope to offer this version of the course again the future, but Sofia and Jorge would also like to lead a 201 version, so stay tuned ☺️

Sofia and Jorge have generously offered to fund one individual enrollment by having the amount removed from their base pay. One full enrollment for an individual is available for BIPOC.

BIPOC who would like to be considered, please email us@wehere.space with Subject Line: “Application for CRT course scholarship,” the following:

• How you identify your race or ethnicity.

• A brief (300 words or fewer) statement of financial need.

• A brief (500 words or fewer) description of how you hope to incorporate what you would learn in this class into your work (personal or professional).

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