Recent recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement, the push for Indigenous reconciliation and the need for anti-racism mechanisms within institutions have produced conversations at Carleton about the importance of institutional change.
The Pauline Jewett Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies is paving the way for change alongside nationwide pushes for inclusivity and diversity. For the institute, this means introducing new minors in critical race studies and a name change proposal.
The institute first offered a new minor in critical race studies in fall 2021. This was made possible through the hiring of assistant professor Manjeet Birk.
“[We] decided that one way we could contribute to what’s going on at Carleton, as well as reflect the directions we wanted to go in, was getting clearance to make a hire in critical race studies,” said institute director Ann Cvetkovich.
“[My students] do practical work, thinking through solution-oriented kinds of practices,” Birk said. “They consider how to engage in solving some of the tangible problems that community organizations are having on the ground to tackle larger system issues like racism and patriarchy.”
“My biggest goal for my students in critical race studies, but in all my classes really, is to understand how systems operate,” she continued.
Third-year student Cassie Rodriguez is part of the first cohort of students minoring in critical race studies.
“I feel really lucky to be at a university with professors like Manjeet Birk who have taken on teaching these very hard, heavy topics,” Rodriguez said.
She said the minor is “one of those things where it feels long overdue but also feels so ahead of its time.”
The introduction of the critical race studies minor is not the first of its kind within the institute. In 2018, the institute added minors in sexuality studies and disability studies.
The institute hired Fady Shanouda in 2021, who currently teaches an introductory course in disability studies. He also teaches a third-year course that discusses mental health and history through the lens of “mad-identified people and scholars.”
It also introduced a new course that bridges the institute’s intersectional disciplines.
In aligning with intersectional principles, Cvetkovich said the recent program changes stemmed from “wanting to refine our curriculum to make it clearer that we teach in all of these areas and that we see them as interconnected.”
The institute is also slated to be renamed the Feminist Institute for Social Transformation, pending approval by the Board of Governors in the spring.
Steven Reid, Carleton’s media relations officer, wrote in an email statement that the new name is a result of the institute’s structural changes over the last two years.
“We want to use that name change to signify we are an umbrella for work in all of those areas,” Cvetkovich said.
Rodriguez said she is looking forward to the institute’s future because there’s no limit to what the institute could teach.
“As cheesy as it sounds, the institute has really changed my perspective on life,” she said.
In Birk’s experience, students have come to her classes with a “real commitment to changing the world and being open-minded about how to do that.”
Birk said she holds faith in Carleton students.
“I’m really hopeful that we will continue to do this work cause it’s easy to fall into the cog of the machine of the master’s tools,” Birk said. “It’s important for us to continue to be critical of ourselves, as well as the institutions that we are a part of.”
While recognizing the positive changes at Carleton and within the institute, Birk said she is still aware of the limits of academic systems.
“Institutions cannot always operate in the way that we need them or want them to operate,” Birk said. “I often quote Audre Lorde’s words in my lectures: ‘The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.’”
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
