HECUA STUDY AWAY PROGRAM
RACE IN AMERICA
MINNESOTA AND THE UNITED STATES
From settler colonialism and the Civil Rights Movement to contemporary movements for racial and social justice, examine the roots of racial inequality and the work of people organizing for change.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
HECUA’s Race in America program poses the question: how are ordinary people moved to extraordinary action? For years, HECUA students have worked to address this question by examining The Black Freedom Movement of the 1950s and 60s, and more recently, Black Lives Matter — all from the perspective of the people and places of the American South.
In response to the murder of George Floyd, and subsequent summer uprisings in our communities and across the country, HECUA made the Race in America program a special Twin Cities-based offering for Summer 2021. As this program responded to a critical moment in the history of our community and nation, the program sought to honor the thematic priorities of Race in America, including remote engagement with HECUA community partners in Mississippi and elsewhere in the South.
The Race in America-Twin Cities program examines the unique and destructive legacy of settler colonialism in Minnesota and its impacts on Indigenous communities, later Black Minnesotans, and more recently, other communities of color, including new immigrants. Today, Minnesotans enjoy some of the highest quality of life indicators in the country. However, there are also staggering economic and educational disparities — some of the widest gaps in the US — between BIPOC Minnesotans and their White counterparts, particularly across urban communities. The murder of George Floyd and the summer uprisings of 2020 revealed to the world that racial and economic justice in Minnesota and across this nation are far from reality.
Students in HECUA’s Race in America-Twin Cities program are introduced to a new generation of leaders who are working to meet critical challenges in education, policing and public safety, voting rights, environmental justice, and the establishment of a model for grassroots cooperative economics. Students will leave this program with a profound understanding of past and current movements for justice, new ways to examine issues of power and privilege, and a deeper understanding of their own capacity to make change.
PROGRAM STRUCTURE
Program Structure TBA for Summer 2022
TOPICS & THEMES
- 01Racial justice
- 02History of the Civil Rights movement
- 03Racism and white supremacy in America
- 04Community organizing and advocacy
- 05Environmental justice
LOCATION, TERMS & CREDITS
Summer 2022 dates and credit details are retained from the source material and require verification before current publication.
STAFF AND FACULTY
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Lena Jones
Program Director
Lena Jones directs HECUA’s summer program Race in America: Then and Now. Additionally, she is a full-time political science faculty member at Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC), where she has been teaching since 2002. Lena is active in several civic engagement initiatives and is part of a core team that received a 2006 Minnesota Campus Compact/Minnesota Office of Higher Education grant to create a Center for Civic Engagement at MCTC.
In addition to her interest in and experience teaching about civil rights and social change in the US context, Lena has also participated in research projects exploring racism, immigration, and social movements in Western Europe and South Africa.
Lena received a fellowship from the University of Minnesota’s Human Rights Center to support a residency with the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), where she participated in IDASA’s efforts to institute civic engagement projects in the Gauteng province.
While in South Africa, she also took part in grassroots democracy-building efforts aimed at gaining access to water and fighting xenophobia and discrimination.
During Spring Semester 2009, she led HECUA’s Divided States of Europe: Globalization and Inequalities in the New Europe program in Oslo, Norway.
In 2013, Lena was awarded a two-year Bush Leadership Fellowship. She explored concrete ways for colleges and universities to build effective, reciprocal, and lasting partnerships with community organizations and governments in order to support the development of students into leaders equipped with the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to tackle the challenges faced by low-income communities and communities of color in the Twin Cities.
COURSES
Race in America: The Twin Cities Rise Up
This class is taught as one six credit course (four credits for University of Minnesota students).
Through field experiences, readings, videos, and class discussions, students journey into Minnesota’s painful history of racial oppression and examine past and current struggles for racial justice in the Twin Cities and across the country.
COURSE PARTICIPANTS WILL:
- 01
Study the historical foundations of racial oppression in the U.S. and Minnesota and the ways that people have resisted this oppression through readings, films, and visits to museums and key historical sites.
- 02
Participate in field experiences and seminars that explore the unique historical and contemporary interplay between land, power, economics, and race in Minnesota.
- 03
Explore the history of uprisings in the Twin Cities, particularly those in response to the policing of Black and Indigenous communities, including past and current efforts to re-envision policing and public safety with key movement leaders, organizations, and policymakers.
- 04
Participate in remote seminars with veterans of The Civil Rights Movement and social justice organizations in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia working to address issues such as voting rights, environmental justice, mass incarceration, economic justice, and immigrant rights.
- 05
Explore key theories of social movements and social change while examining their own positions in systems of power and roles as agents of social change.
INTERNSHIPS
This program does not offer internships.
PROGRAM COSTS
The following costs are from 2022 and must be verified before being presented as current rates.
Program fees include tuition, reading materials, and group transportation to field sites.
Member schools are schools that are part of the HECUA consortium.
CHECK MEMBER SCHOOL STATUS Member-school status URL to be configured. 2022 MEMBER PROGRAM COST$4,400 (6 credits)Non-member schools are schools that are not part of the HECUA consortium.
CHECK NON-MEMBER SCHOOL STATUS Non-member-school status URL to be configured. 2022 NON-MEMBER PROGRAM COST$4,700SCHOLARSHIPS
Students enrolled in the Race in America program are eligible to apply for $500 Scholarships for Community Engagement.
GOOD TO KNOW
Housing options are available, though not included in the program cost.
Next Step
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