Resources

Terms of Reference

Background

All members of the Trent community have a right to study and work in an environment that demonstrates professionalism and values diversity, equity, and inclusion. The university expressly recognizes and commits to addressing the racism experienced by Black, Indigenous and racialized people through initiatives that will promote a high level of inclusion and organizational cultural competence and that will allow our diverse community members to learn and work in a safe and equitable environment.

On October 1st, 2020, the Provost and VP Academic announced the creation of two working groups related to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion matters at Trent University. The Anti-Racism Task Force (ARTF) was one of those groups.

The principal task of the ARTF is to formulate a Trent Anti-Racism Action Plan: Immediate Actions that Trent can take to to remove identified barriers and provide a comprehensive move-forward agenda to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion at Trent. This Plan will include specific actions and metrics and be drafted with the engagement of a broader set of stakeholders and subject matter experts committed to anti-racism at Trent.

Purpose

The ARTF will consider the present environment of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Trent and formulate recommendations for improvement by evaluating the campus environment (learning, living, working) as experienced by racialized students, faculty and staff, with a view to identifying the present University race-related culture.

The ARTF is charged with researching and interrogating structural and individual racism at Trent and identifying key issues.

The ARTF is committed to investigating issues of structural racism using an analysis that considers the intersections of racialized processes with those concerning gender, class, sexual orientation, and ability.

Scope

The university has established processes to address university communications and individually reported issues of racism. ARTF’s purpose is to collect data, analyze, and make recommendations. The committee is not intended to:

Speak on behalf of the university on emergent issues.
Address individual instances of racism.

Process

The committee, will:

institute a consultative process with faculty, staff and students and the broader Trent community
examine multiple aspects of institutional, work, academic and learning environments
analyze data and potentially formulate working groups or administer surveys to interrogate specific issues identified during the exploratory stage of the group’s work
make clear, concise, and actionable recommendations to senior management and the board
publish a final report to be shared at large

Membership

Task force members are assigned by the Provost and Vice President, Academic and seeks to implement a balance of ethnicity to reflect a majority diversity of its membership as much as is possible. Membership on this committee is not intended to represent specific groups on campus, but to collect the necessary experience and expertise to fulfill the functions of the committee.

Chair/Vice Chair

The ARTF will be chaired by Tariq Al-idrissi (Associate Vice President, IT at Trent University) and vice chaired by Dawn Lavell-Harvard (Director, First Peoples House of Learning at Trent University) with administrative support from Kevin Maina (Administrative Assistant, Office of the President at Trent University)

Creation

The ARTF was created with the following additional membership:

Amina Malik	Faculty, Business - Durham
Ashish Tharoor	Trent International Students Association
Cayo Whyte	Therapist (BIPOC), Counselling Centre
Danielle Adderley	Trent Central Student Association
David Firang	Faculty, Social Work
Denise Handlarski	Faculty, Education
Glennice Burns	AVP International
Kenzu Abdella	Faculty, Mathematics
Mitch Huguenin	Indigenous Pedagogy Designer
Moriah Hillyer	External Relations Coordinator, Trent University Native Association
Nadine Changfoot	Faculty, Political Studies
Nathan Barnett	VP, University Affairs, Trent Durham Student Association
Raul Ponce-Hernandez	Faculty, School of Environment
Sandra Klemet-N’Guessan	President, Trent Graduate Student Association
Shaoling Wang	Faculty, Modern Languages and Literatures
Tara Harrington	Human Rights Advisor

Decision Making

While there is no mandate for the ARTF to make specific decisions, the ARTF may be called upon from time to time to make decisions regarding approach and methodology or recommendations. As much as possible, we will attempt to make all decisions through consensus.

Subcommittees and Working Groups

The ARTF may form subcommittees and working groups as necessary to address specific issues. These subcommittees and working groups shall draw upon members from the broader university community. The Chair of a subcommittee and/or working group shall be a member of the ARTF and shall be appointed by the Chair of the ARTF.

Meeting Frequency

Meetings will be called by the Chair as necessary to meet the objectives and deliverables of the committee. Generally, meetings are closed to encourage frank communication. Invited guests will be considered as agreed upon within the group. The length of meetings may vary depending on the agenda.

Meetings of subcommittees or working groups that have been formed by the ARTF may meet at any time and at any location as agreed by the subcommittee members and are in addition to the regular meetings of the ARTF.

The ARTF will initially meet bi-weekly until the Terms of Reference and Work Plan for the group are established and finalized. The work plan will drive future meeting frequency and subcommittee formulation.

Reporting

The Chair of the ARTF will report monthly to the Provost and Vice President, Academic on the progress of the committee. Reporting will be driven by the work plan and the deliverables in progress.

At his discretion, the Provost and Vice President, Academic may ask for reports to be made to other groups e.g. the President and Vice Presidents group.

Recommendations and Proposals for Change

As part of its final report, the ARTF will recommend:

Actionable initiatives focused on the implementation of anti-racism principles into academic and administrative structures.

An implementation framework consistent with broad Trent community participation.

An ongoing institutional monitoring and accountability process.

Initiatives to address issues of future advocacy and mobilization around anti-racism.

Overall, the final report will make meaningful recommendations that intend to contribute to lasting organizational change as well as connect to social action.

Word document: Terms of Reference - Trent Anti-Racism Task Force

Other resources

ARTF Glossary of Terms