Campus News

November 18, 2023

The University of the South has been chosen by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) to host one of 16 new Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (THRT) Campus Centers around the country.

“We are looking forward to working with the AAC&U to create Sewanee’s campus center,” said Chair of the University’s Board of Regents Jim Folds, C’86. “The Board of Regents and the administration support this work and are committed to continuing the progress the University has made on these important issues.”

The new cohort of TRHT Campus Centers, announced Friday, Nov. 18 brings the total number to 71, including centers at Agnes Scott College, Bethel College, Brown University, Duke University, Millsaps College, Pepperdine University, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

“I am so proud of the work our team did to secure this partnership and am excited to watch our entire campus participate in the center's development,” said Acting Vice-Chancellor and President Nancy Berner.

Set to begin its work in January, Sewanee’s TRHT Campus Center will integrate existing and new programs along four pillars: creating positive narrative change, promoting racial healing on campus and in the community, erasing institutional barriers to equal treatment, and preparing the next generation of leaders to build just and equitable societies.

“The AAC&U Framework provides coherency and coordination to the racial reconciliation work already underway at Sewanee, and the national designation affirms Sewanee's place among peer and aspirant institutions also engaged in this seminal work,” noted Sewanee’s Chief Diversity Officer Sibby Anderson-Tompkins.

A TRHT Campus Center further aligns Sewanee, the only institution of higher education founded and governed by dioceses of the Episcopal Church, with the Church’s ongoing Becoming Beloved Community initiative. 

“The Episcopal Church, under the leadership of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, has focused attention on truth-telling, racial healing, and repairing the breach caused by generations of racism,” observed University Chaplain Peter Gray. “The Beloved Community framework talks about the need to ‘proclaim the dream,’ that is, to imagine a future that is different from the present: one that is more just, more equitable, more whole. Sewanee’s TRHT Campus Center will help us make that vision of transformation a reality.”