Columbia up to date its mission statement in 2022 to say that its function is “to interrogate racism and different programs of oppression standing in the way in which of social fairness and justice and to foster social work schooling, apply and analysis that strengthen and increase the alternatives, sources and capabilities of all individuals to attain their full potential and well-being.” What was once its central mission — to boost the world of social work — now follows an emphatic political assertion.
Melissa Begg, the dean of the Columbia College of Social Work, mentioned that whereas the college’s mission has all the time been about social justice and “equitable entry,” its mission has developed as a result of “racism is a part of the nation.” The varsity, she defined, is making an attempt to construct an consciousness of and provides college students the instruments they should deal with a various vary of wants. As she put it, “In case you consider slavery as the unique sin of the USA, it is sensible to heart that actuality as a part of the college’s mission.”
In 2017 the Columbia social work college launched a framework round energy, race, oppression and privilege, which the college known as PROP. This started as a proper course for all first-year college students to create what Begg known as “self-awareness.” In subsequent years, the PROP framework was applied to the complete curriculum of the college, and the PROP class turned a required course known as Foundations of Social Work Observe: Decolonizing Social Work.
In accordance with the course’s present syllabus, work “will probably be centered on an anti-Black racism framework” and “will even contain examinations of the intersectionality of points regarding L.B.G.T.Q.I.A.+ rights, Indigenous individuals/First Nations individuals and land rights, Latinx illustration, xenophobia, Islamophobia, undocumented immigrants, Japanese internment camps, indigent white communities (Appalachia) and antisemitism with specific consideration given to the affect of anti-Black racism on all beforehand talked about programs.”
As a part of their coursework, college students are required to offer a presentation during which they share a part of their “private technique of understanding anti-Black racism, intersectionality and uprooting programs of oppression.” They’re requested to elucidate their presentation “because it pertains to decolonizing social work, therapeutic, important self-awareness and self-reflection.” Teachings embrace “The Enduring, Invisible and Ubiquitous Centrality of Whiteness,” “Why Individuals of Coloration Want Areas With out White Individuals” and “What It Means to Be a Revolutionary,” a 1972 speech by Angela Davis.