CASAA Microgrants Program

Here are the highlights of the CASAA Microgrants Program:

• Recognizing that racism manifests in different forms and that the ways in which Arcadia faculty/staff might work to understand and combat those systems will necessarily vary, CASAA defines scholarship broadly to include discovery, artistic expression, application, and integration, following the Boyer model. 
• All full-time and part-time faculty and staff are eligible to apply for a microgrant award up to $1500 for individual research projects. Collaborative projects are also considered for funding up to $3000. Expenses for resources, materials, travel, etc. will be charged directly through CASAA so awardees will not need to use personal funds upfront; there will be no charges for benefits out of the grants received.
• Each grant recipient will be required to present on their research-in-progress as part of a roundtable for the CASAA Race Matters Forum the semester after their grant has been awarded. This is intended to stimulate dialogue regarding the important work conducted around race and racism at Arcadia University and to increase visibility of that work.
• Grant recipients consent to the use of their headshots, project summaries and updates, and biographical statements in the marketing and promotion of CASAA. Recipients will also be required to participate in a brief interview (either written or via video) used in Arcadia News articles about the work of the Center.
• After receipt of microgrant funds, individuals will be eligible to apply again to the CASAA Microgrants Program only after a period of one year. This is so that we can extend this opportunity to as many faculty/staff pursuing scholarship on race, race, and antiracism as possible.

The Center for Antiracist Scholarship, Advocacy, and Action awarded six microgrants for the inaugural CASAA Microgrants Program. More information regarding these exciting projects is available in the article, "Fostering Conversations and Research on Race: CASAA Awards Its First Round of Microgrants for Scholarship and Antiracist Pedagogy." Congratulations to our recipients.

• Air Pollution and Environmental Racism in Philadelphia: In his research, Dr. Prash Naidu aims to explore the impact of air pollution and environmental racism on people of color in Philadelphia. He will collaborate with Black community organizations and neighborhoods such as Point Breeze “to design the air quality monitoring project,” to conduct research necessary for future grant proposals, and to design a new undergraduate course at Arcadia “that centers around community-based, anti-racist research.” Read the full project description here.
• Anti-Bias/Anti-Racism Training for NGOs: Though organizations can offer invaluable services to displaced and marginalized communities throughout the world, they can still be impacted by implicit biases and incidents of racism, argue Rachel Kuria, Tyanna Taylor, and Samuel Wragg III. The project—supported by Dr. Warren Haffar and Prof. Allyson McCreery—will fund anti-bias and anti-racism training for Kuria, Taylor, and Wragg and cover expenses related to external consultations with professionals in the field as they design a training program for NGOs. Read the full project description here: Part I and Part II.
• COVID-19 Vaccination Experiences of Black Birthing People: According to Dr. Comfort Z. Olorunsaiye, “Racially- and ethnically-minoritized populations in the U.S. face a disproportionately higher burden of COVID-19 infection and complications,” the risks of which are greater among Black pregnant women. She aims to describe their “COVID-19 vaccination experiences” to better “understand the facilitators of vaccination acceptance and ameliorable barriers” and “to inform tailored strategies for equitable vaccination coverage and protection.” Read the full project description here.
• Dangerous Animals and Private Crime: Discriminatory Ontologies of Migration in U.S. Asylum Law: Dr. Hilary Parsons Dick explores “race, racism, and racialization in the U.S. through analysis of immigration law and policy, with a focus on asylum processing.” Here she calls attention to the ways in which both U.S. citizenship and immigration law equate Americanness with whiteness, thus disadvantaging migrants of color from the Global South. Funding will be used to secure necessary research materials in legal studies and travel to conferences. Read the full project description here.
• Ghostly Images of Racism: Exploring Racism in Dark Tourism through the Lens of Ghost Criminology: Noting the recent “dismantling of pro-southern memorials and relics,” Dr. Favian Guertin-Martin and Dr. Kevin D. Revier problematize “dark tourism, more specifically ghost tours of Civil War battlefields, [which] may be whitewashing American history in the retelling of ghost stories and folktales.” They will participate in ghost tours in Gettysburg to “explore how Black history and the Civil War are explained and imagined in the ghost tour industry.” Read the full project description here: Part I and Part II.
• JLE Academy: Hip-Hop Education in Action: For Stephen Tyson, Jr., experiences as an after-school coordinator and camp counselor provided insight into “how creative outlets [and cultural expression] helped many of our students learn more effectively,” increasing their engagement inside and outside the classroom. Funding will support the development, publication, and marketing of a digital Hip-Hop Education curriculum as well as a campus workshop on Hip-Hop Education. Read the full project description here.