Apply for Accelerating Racial Justice - Because You Can't Do RAPP's the Nine-Month

Throughout our twenty-six years at UC, RAPP's main program has been our academic year-long program.  In budgetary lean times, it's the core we keep alive.  It's arguably the origin of intergroup dialogue.  It's dynamic and ever evolving, ever improving.
It's also inaccessible to lots of students.


Under semesters, this will be even more so an issue.  Previously, we were relatively easily able to accommodate folks who co-oped or interned out-of-town for a quarter.  Now that they'd be out for half the year instead of a third, we're much less able to do this.


This year, we're moving back to having one group of 35 that meets throughout the year instead of two groups (which RAPP has had for the last four years and a total of six of our twenty-six years).  This means there's only one night for meetings:  Wednesday.

So, if you co-op/intern out of the city and/or are busy on Wednesdays, the nine-month program is not an option for you.

Don't worry - because Accelerating Racial Justice hopefully IS an option for you!

Accelerating Racial Justice is RAPP's new five-day, four-night intensive.  For a week, you'll build community while enhancing your knowledge and skills around racial justice and inclusive leadership.

The intensive runs Monday, August 13th to Friday, August 17th.  Transportation to and from the retreat as well as meals, lodging, and supplies are provided at no charge to participants.  The only cost to you is your time!

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

Not available for a year-long program? No problem!  Spend a free week with us at Grailville Retreat Center through Accelerating Racial Justice!

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.

Apply for Accelerating Racial Justice - Focus Your Leadership Trajectory

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.  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 this Friday, June 15th, by 5PM.

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 current 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 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.

Apply for Accelerating Racial Justice - Make Friends!

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 25 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 and 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 26 years).  


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

Building friends through RAPP is both challenging and FUN!

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.

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

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 13-17 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 25 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 this Friday, June 15th.

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.

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

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.

"The Luxury of Misery: A Memoir about Struggle & Redemption" by Justin Christopher

RAPP XXVII graduate Justin Christopher recently had his first book published!  The Luxury of Misery is a memoir and is available for sale from him as well as online through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Better World Books, and The Book Depository, among other places.

From the back cover:

To live, I had to suffer through my own misery.
To survive while suffering - that's the meaning of the luxury of misery.

The Luxury of Misery traces Justin's life from the age of eight to young adulthood.  He was raised by a loving and determined single mother, who worked hard to provide for him and his two older brothers, until crack cocaine devastated her life and the lives of her family.  After kicking the crack cocaine addiction, Justin's mom was again devastated - this time by the onset of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, partially caused by the chemicals she used during her addiction.

Justin writes about how he survived all of the misery of his childhood - domestic violence, an absent alcoholic father, hunger and moving from relative to relative after evictions.   But when the most stable positive influence in his life, his oldest brother Andre, experiences bipolar disorder and commits suicide, Justin begins a downward spiral of crime that ends in a three year state prison sentence at the age of 18.  After becoming Honor Roll Student, Homecoming Prince, Prom King, and an accomplished high school athlete, Justin resorts to crime while he and his mother are homeless.  All within six months of high school graduation his visions of college became a nightmare.  His dreams finally came to light when he began his education at The University of Cincinnati studying English Literature and Africana Studies; pursuing a career in law.

Congratulations to the 2011-12 Social Justice League!

Last night at the RAPPORT Year-End Celebration, we officially recognized the 2011-12 class of the Social Justice League!

The following folks completed the RAPP Social Justice Peer Educator Certificate through several different tracks: Facilitator roles, Peer Leader positions, RAPPORT Only track, and individually developed plans.

The 2011-12 Social Justice League is:

Allison Furterer - RAPP XXVI, RAPPORT Only Track
Brice Mickey - RAPP XXV, RAPP XXVI Peer Leader, SJL 2010-11, Individual Track
Bobby Filbin - RAPP XXV, SJL 2010-11, Individual Track
DeVorah YisraEL - RAPP XXIV, RAPP XXV Peer Leader, SJL 2010-11, Facilitator Track
Joey Scheiber - RAPP XXVI, RAPPORT Only Track
Jojo Azevedo - RAPP XXIV, RAPP XXVI Peer Leader, SJL 2010-11, Facilitator Track
Kevin Weber - RAPP XXVI, RAPPORT Only Track
Matt Miller - RAPP XXVI, Individual Track (not pictured)
Mathew Woodruff - RAPP XXVI, Peer Leader Track
Marjorie Bledsoe - RAPP XXV, RAPP XXVI Peer Leader, SJL 2010-11, Facilitator Track
Rachel Berman - RAPP XXV, RAPP XXVI Peer Leader, Facilitator Track
Tyler Thompson - RAPP XXV, SJL 2010-11, Peer Leader Track
Wil Pierce - RAPP XXV, SJL 2010-11, Peer Leader Track

Congratulations to these outstanding leaders!