About

The USC Equity Institutes aim to bridge a specific gap: professionals often ascend to leadership roles in higher education without having had a proper course of study on how to effectively address persistent and pervasive racial problems, how to responsibly act in periods of racial crisis, or how to achieve racial equity.  

Each Institute is designed for teams of 20 administrators and faculty members on a single college or university campus, intended to increase individual competencies and organizational effectiveness to enhance equity, diversity, and inclusion. Each Institute has 8 modules collaboratively developed by expert scholars and practitioners across the country.  These virtual modules are taught synchronously, with an Institute Faculty member and 20 participants simultaneously engaged on the same computer screen for 2 hours at the same time, one day each week for 8 consecutive weeks.

The learning strategy for each Institute is as follows:

• Introduce participants to topics, frameworks, evidence-based readings, books, and practical tools on racial equity

• Create space for colleagues to talk honestly with each other about seemingly explosive racial topics

• Leverage the expertise of USC Race & Equity Center researchers and faculty affiliates, as well as highly experienced and respected scholars and practitioners in our network

• Cultivate cohorts of equity-minded colleagues and collaborators

• Teach participants how to strategically achieve racial equity, inside and outside of the classroom