American University in D.C. has announced its new Department of Critical Race, Gender and Culture Studies.
The department, which will focus on six areas and study, grew out of the former Critical Race, Gender and Culture Studies Collaborative formed in 2015 and will continue the work of the collaborative, producing scholarship and programming in traditional scholarly venues and in creative venues across the metropolitan area.
“The transformation of the CRGC into a department is the fruit of many years of hard work from selfless faculty and staff who have labored on behalf of under-represented groups and have modeled interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship on this campus,” Eileen Findlay, professor of history and chair of the Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies Collaborative, said in a statement. “With the institutional stability provided by departmental status, the CRGC hopes to serve as a hub for cutting-edge, wide-ranging intellectual, pedagogical, and programmatic diversity and equity work at AU. We look forward to collaborating with like-minded colleagues and students in building a truly equitable, visionary university.”
The university said that it hopes that by creating an interdisciplinary department with a central mission to advance equity, inclusion and diversity in its pedagogy, scholarship and community-building, it will give students and faculty an intellectual and social home where they can produce knowledge and build relationships beyond the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines.