Focus Your Leadership Trajectory - Apply for Accelerating Racial Justice

Reposted and updated from June 2012:

As described before, RAPP's intensives help students expand their leadership skills and knowledge as well as provide time for reflection.  Combine that with a growing community, and you've got a great mix that often leads to a profound result:  A newly (or more clearly) defined path of where you want to go.

In RAPP we emphasize a multiplicity of meanings to everything.  While that can be frustrating at times to deal with, it also means that you'll be supported in whichever path you want to take your leadership.  You'll make connections to make your journey more successful (in whichever way you define success - which we'll encourage you to explore!).

So, participating in RAPP's 5-day summer intensive Accelerating Racial Justice will help you with your leadership journey in this way.  It also opens doors to leadership opportunities within RAPP.

By completing the 5-day you are considered a part of the RAPPORT community, just like students who complete RAPP's 9-month intensive.  You can then join the Social Justice League and earn a certificate as a RAPP Social Justice Peer Educator.  You can be a Peer Leader, a Facilitator, an Intern.  You can be on the committees that make major changes to RAPP, like the working group that created the 5-day itself.

So, apply now for Accelerating Racial Justice!  Applications are due Friday, May 3rd!

Rachel Berman (RAPP XXV, XXVI Peer Leader, WGSS Intern, working group) being recognized with the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences Spirit of Community award - just one of a dozen or so awards she's received recognizing her leadership and activism at UC!

Lane Hart (XXV) is the outgoing undergraduate student body president - he often cites RAPP as a pivotal part of his leadership development at UC!

Jamieson Williams (XXVII) & Laura Perez (XXVII) being recognized with the Terence L Jones Diversity Award for their leadership within their respective RAPP groups.  Jamieson was selected to represent campus leaders in the 2012-13 Activus and Laura was recently accepted into a competitive MSW program!

How to Apply There are two steps to apply for this life-changing program:

1. Read the Information for Potential Applicants.  This piece is designed to cover the common questions people may have about Accelerating Racial Justice to help you decide if it's what you're looking for.
2. Complete a written application.  This application gathers basic information from candidates.  Information on how to access the application is available in the Information for Potential Applicants, which you are expected to read before completing a written application.

Please contact Rebecca Lehman at lehmanrl@uc.edu or 513.556.6119 with any questions you may have.

Make Friends! - Apply for Accelerating Racial Justice

Reposted and updated from June 2012:

RAPP leaders work not only with our own programs (the 9-month intensive, RAPPORT, and the 5-day Accelerating Racial Justice), but work with the larger campus community through workshops.  Through this, we interact with over 1,500 people a year.

A common refrain we hear when working with groups is that we deepen their relationships through talking about "unmentionables."  Critical concepts like race and justice are oft on people's minds, but many of us find ourselves in spaces where we can't talk about them or feel safe talking about them.

By participating in Accelerating Racial Justice, you'll build friendships through meaningful connections in several ways:

• You'll meet 38 other Bearcats who are also interested in building their skills & knowledge around racial justice and inclusive leadership - a great commonality for first connections!
• You'll be supported by an experienced team through the usually challenging process of having meaningful conversations about personal experiences around race & exclusion with people of different races - a meaningful experience building a lasting connection!   The Accelerating Racial Justice process includes components on maintaining your connections after the five days are over.
• You'll build your own practice at having these conversations as well as leave with a group of new friends who have shared the experience - key skills and connections you'll take home with you!

Folks who participate in Accelerating Racial Justice are welcomed into the RAPP community, which I like to describe as hundreds strong and decades long (around 800 people have completed a RAPP intensive and we've been around for 27 years).  

Apply for Accelerating Racial Justice today!  Applications are due by 5PM on Friday, May 3rd!

Building friends through RAPP is both challenging and FUN!

How to Apply There are two steps to apply for this life-changing program:

1. Read the Information for Potential Applicants.  This piece is designed to cover the common questions people may have about Accelerating Racial Justice to help you decide if it's what you're looking for.
2. Complete a written application.  This application gathers basic information from candidates.  Information on how to access the application is available in the Information for Potential Applicants, which you are expected to read before completing a written application.

Please contact Rebecca Lehman at lehmanrl@uc.edu or 513.556.6119 with any questions you may have.

RAPPORT Year-End Celebration

On Monday, April 15, RAPPORT will be having its year-end celebration from 6PM-8PM in the open space on the 6th floor of the Steger Student Life Center. Come enjoy free food, reflect on the year, and recognize the graduation of the Social Justice League 2013!

Social Justice League 2012 Group Photo (Silly Pose)

Take a Free "Learning Vacation" - Apply for Accelerating Racial Justice

Reposted and updated from June 2012:

Students' lives are busy ones!  You work tirelessly to build harmony between a lot of competing priorities, such as classes & classwork, work-work, families, friends, hobbies, and more.  Taking a moment to stop in the go!-go!-go! life and reflect on that life is a rare luxury.

Accelerating Racial Justice invites you to take time this August 12-16 to stop, breathe, and reflect on yourself as a student leader and person.

We take participants to the beautiful Grailville Retreat Center in Loveland, OH, and house & feed you while there.

The RAPP mission is fighting oppression through individual awareness and collective action.  We lead you through activities that enhance your knowledge and skills around racial justice and inclusive leadership.  You learn and teach with a group of 38 other UC students, building a supportive and meaningful community.  You are given the time to focus on yourself - your whole self as a person, community member, leader, and learner.

This program is FREE for all UC students - graduate and undergraduate, all majors, all colleges, all campuses.  The only cost to you is your time.

Apply today for this free learning vacation!  Applications are due by 5PM on Friday, May 3rd!

How to Apply There are two steps to apply for this life-changing program:

1. Read the Information for Potential Applicants.  This piece is designed to cover the common questions people may have about Accelerating Racial Justice to help you decide if it's what you're looking for.
2. Complete a written application.  This application gathers basic information from candidates.  Information on how to access the application is available in the Information for Potential Applicants, which you are expected to read before completing a written application.

Please contact Rebecca Lehman at lehmanrl@uc.edu or 513.556.6119 with any questions you may have.

Enhance your Leadership through Inclusive Leadership - Apply for Accelerating Racial Justice

Reposted from June 2012:

RAPP is a programming area within the UC Office of Student Activities & Leadership Development.  The name describes exactly what we do:  Facilitate student activities and support students in developing as a leader.  Knowing our home, it's hopefully no surprise to you that leadership development is part of our student activity.  Being an SALD program is only one of many reasons why we emphasize leadership development.

There are as many philosophies to leadership as there are leaders.  The approach we emphasize in RAPP falls under the philosophy of inclusive leadership.  There are several definitions to this, but for today we'll summarize it as a practice that involves intentional focus on creating inclusion in all work for enhanced outcomes.

The new Accelerating Racial Justice 5-day summer intensive has two key foci:  Racial justice and inclusive leadership.  By participating in this program, you'll get to work intently on your knowledge and skills around these two and enhance your own leadership by learning how to integrate inclusive leadership skills and practices into your work.

As SALD says, leaders are made, not born.  Apply to Accelerating Racial Justice today to help make yourself as an inclusive leader!

The RAPP 2011-12 leadership team focused on continually developing our inclusive leadership skills.
Left to Right: Marjorie, Tyler, DeVorah, Rachel, Matthew, Wil, Mieshia, and Jojo.

How to ApplyThere are two steps to apply for this life-changing program:

1. Read the Information for Potential Applicants.  This piece is designed to cover the common questions people may have about Accelerating Racial Justice to help you decide if it's what you're looking for.
2. Complete a written application.  This application gathers basic information from candidates.  Information on how to access the application is available in the Information for Potential Applicants, which you are expected to read before completing a written application.

Please contact Rebecca Lehman at lehmanrl@uc.edu or 513.556.6119 with any questions you may have.

LGBTQ Student Panel

Today at 7PM visit Calhoun Hall lobby to hear from a diverse group of LGBTQ students talk about their experience at UC and what it was like coming out to friends and family.

Learn About Yourself by Learning About Others - Apply for Accelerating Racial Justice - Learn About Yourself by Learning About Others

Reposted from June 2012:

I took English class all through school.  We learned to diagram sentences.  We learned contractions and spelling.  We learned homonyms (including the famous your-you're and there-their-they're that befuddle many).  Given that I spoke, wrote, heard, read, and dreamt in English, I thought I understood it as best as anyone could.

Then I started learning another language.

An experience I had that I've heard many other later-in-life-second-language-learners also share is that my understanding of my own language was exponentially expanded as I learned other languages.  The differences between the two brought out deep nuances in meaning, exposed cultural assumptions, revealed understanding of time, and so many other aspects of understanding the world that my appreciation of my first language was deeply enriched.

Working in multicultural and social justice education, I find people often experience a similar process when learning about social identity.

White folks lamenting not having a culture often experience a profound shift in understanding when they spend time working on race.  Straight folks wondering "where'sour pride month?" often have a transformed understanding after spending time working on sexuality and sexual orientation.  And it goes on and on.

Whatever your identities are, spending a week immersed in Accelerating Racial Justice will help you learn about yourself.  

Sure, you'll learn about others and you'll build knowledge and skills.  But, don't be afraid to sign up just for the "selfish" reason of simply getting to know yourself and what you hope to do better.

Apply now for Accelerating Racial Justice!  Applications due by 5PM on Friday, June 15th.

RAPP XXVII Peer Leader and XXIV alumna Mieshia Barnes thinking things through at at RAPP retreat at Grailville (where Accelerating Racial Justice will be held).

How to Apply There are two steps to apply for this life-changing program:

1. Read the Information for Potential Applicants.  This piece is designed to cover the common questions people may have about Accelerating Racial Justice to help you decide if it's what you're looking for.
2. Complete a written application.  This application gathers basic information from candidates.  Information on how to access the application is available in the Information for Potential Applicants, which you are expected to read before completing a written application.

Please contact Rebecca Lehman at lehmanrl@uc.edu or 513.556.6119 with any questions you may have.