![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Kdupe.jpeg\")
Kilee Knight ’23.<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cThis was, honestly, probably the best thing I could have done for myself,\u201d Knight said.<\/p>\n
Having a safe place to wrestle with tough questions was a relief, especially against the backdrop of turmoil across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe work that we\u2019re doing is really emotionally heavy, especially if you\u2019ve never diagnosed your white privilege before,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Rev. Kate Taber, associate chaplain, leads the racial justice cohort. It\u2019s one of three groups that replaced the EVM off-campus internships this year. The other two groups are studying pastoral care and religion and politics.<\/p>\n
Students\u2019 first year in EVM is an orientation to the concept of fusing faith and work. Each year after that, students usually do community internships in settings such as churches, hospitals and nonprofit organizations.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeading into this year, we knew that we needed another option,\u201d Taber said.<\/p>\n
Her group started with a broad diversity and inclusion theme, but it quickly became clear that Knight and Katie Crockford \u201921, both of whom are white, wanted to focus specifically on racial justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does it mean to be white and desire to be anti-racist?\u201d Taber said.<\/p>\n
EVM began the 2020 fall semester with a three-week focus on racial justice for all its students. They explored Hebrew and New Testament scriptures for teachings on race, discussed their earliest memories of awareness of race and assessed their own thinking on race. That group work ended up being a springboard for Taber\u2019s cohort.<\/p>\n
She, Knight and Crockford meet weekly to debrief on their work.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve had conversations about disillusionment \u2013 how hard it is to talk about race, how little they actually learned before college.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought we knew,\u201d Crockford said. \u201cIt turns out we didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fall semester included developing a racial identity autobiography, listening to the \u201cSeeing White\u201d podcast, working through a handbook on racial healing and completing a series of interviews with Furman diversity officials, professionals in their chosen fields and family members and friends.<\/p>\n
Some of that work will continue this semester, but the main focus for the spring will be a special leadership project related to racial justice.<\/p>\n
Crockford, a religion major, did summer research on spiritual wellness on college campuses. She continued that work as an independent study last fall. Her project may be to develop that work into a paper on the spiritual harm of racism and to seek publication.<\/p>\n
Knight wants to organize a Cultural Life Program on racial disparities in healthcare. She feels equipped now for both the emotions and the conversations.<\/p>\n
Before this program, \u201cI didn\u2019t know how to put words to it, I didn\u2019t know how to put actions to it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s really emotionally heavy work, but it\u2019s good work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every week the students have had a chance to try to identify and interrogate their own implicit biases, process personal, community and national events related to racism, and explore what it could look like to engage in anti-racist conversations and actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a really appropriate year for this to be the conversation,\u201d Taber said. \u201cThey\u2019re learning about the nature of the problem, the vastness of the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a more typical year, internships would have given Knight and Crockford insight into a particular field. This year, they got insight into themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really unique opportunity that I don\u2019t know that they would have had otherwise.\u201d Taber said. \u201cA first, crucial step in introspection and engagement that should be ongoing.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It turns out that a year of challenges also can be a year of opportunity. COVID-19 prevented students in Furman\u2019s Exploration of Vocation and Ministry (EVM) from taking community internships […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,70,41,7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","category-theatre-arts","category-top-four-news-2nd-story","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}