The Center’s work complements other racial equity efforts. We have been partnering and collaborating with entities across the university and health system as well as in Durham and beyond. Among those with whom we have engaged, there is significant interest in incorporating the TRHT strategy into their ongoing racial equity efforts and creating pathways to structural revolution. Our partnerships, situated in a variety of contexts, represent the broad reach and different facets of what we do. Periodically, we will highlight our work with specific partners.
Partners At-A-Glance
- Black Alumni Collective
- Burroughs Wellcome Fund
- Center for Christianity and Scholarship
- Danville TRHT Community Group
- Duke Alumni Affairs
- Duke Alumni Association Women’s Weekend
- Duke Arts
- Duke Asian American and Diaspora Studies Program
- Duke Chapel
- Duke Clinical & Translational Science Institute
- Duke Focus Program
- Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
- Duke Learning Innovation & Continuing Studies
- Duke Medical Scientist Training Program
- Duke Office for Faculty Advancement
- Duke Office for Institutional Equity
- Duke Office of Assessment
- Duke Service-Learning
- Duke Student Affairs
- Duke University Libraries
- Duke University School of Nursing
- Duke TeachHouse
- Durham Congregations in Action
- Forum for Scholars and Publics
- Fuqua School of Business
- Hidden Voices
- Kenan Institute for Ethics
- Nasher Museum of Art
- North Carolina Bridging Divides through Story Circles
- North Carolina LiteracyCorps
- Office of Undergraduate Education
- Pratt School of Engineering
- The North Carolina Race Project
Featured Partnerships
Duke Clinical & Translational Science Institute
Initial racial equity work at the Duke Clinical & Translational Science Institute (CTSI) has heavily centered on equity training for faculty, staff, and students as well as the development and implementation of equity assessments. The Equity in Research (EIR) Center and Core at CTSI are in the process of incorporating the TRHT Framework into their efforts and initiatives. The EIR Center will adopt and apply the TRHT Framework pillars of Narrative Change and Racial Healing & Relationship Building as dynamic levers to facilitate their work identifying and anticipating community barriers to health access and equity. EIR has partnered with the TRHT Center to offer one RxRHC annually.
Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
Amid rising racial tensions in 2020, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience (CCN), which is part of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences (DIBS), began exploring ways to support racial equity and promote mental health among its graduate students and trainees. Seeking a positive and holistic approach to building relationships within and across students, trainees, staff, and faculty mentor sectors, the Director of CCN contacted the TRHT Center. Since then, the TRHT Center and CCN have been working collaboratively to develop opportunities for Racial Healing & Relationship building for CCN graduate students.
Duke University Libraries
Duke University Libraries (DUL) developed an Anti-Racism Roadmap to create a shared language and a collective understanding of the pathways and processes necessary to achieve sustained and equitable change. Several focus areas in the roadmap are directly related to pillars in the TRHT Framework (e.g. Reckoning with Duke’s History and Narrative Change), which has contributed to the fruitful collaboration between DUL and the TRHT Center. As part of the TRHT Center’s archival research, we have been working with the University archivist and others interested in Reckoning with Duke’s History.
For Racial Healing & Relationship Building, we have been partnering with the DUL staff community through facilitation of Story Circles and Rx Racial Healing® Circles (RxRHCs). These relational experiences augment DUL’s focus area of Community Reflection.
Duke University School of Nursing
Leveraging the TRHT Framework, particularly the foundational pillar of Racial Healing & Relationship Building, Duke University School of Nursing (DUSON) seeks to foster compassion, respect, belonging, and equity. Collaboration with the TRHT Center includes convening a series of Rx Racial Healing® Circle (RxRHC) experiences for DUSON students, staff, and faculty. In addition, we partnered with DUSON on a documentary film screening of and panel discussion on “Healing the Intergenerational Wounds of Racism.” An RxRHC followed the event to create a compassionate space for audience members to process and reflect on the ways in which the film and discussion resonated with their own lives and stories.
Danville TRHT Community Group
Our sustained partnership with Danville began in late 2018 through Duke alum Steve Darr, who was introduced to us by the then head of DukeEngage. In early 2019, Darr, who has been involved with the Danville community since the 1980s, organized a trip for a racially diverse group of faith and community leaders from Danville to spend a day at the TRHT Center hosted by DukeEngage. The day consisted of an open discussion of the distressing state of race relations in Danville and participants’ visions for truth, racial healing, and transformation. The group also experienced an Rx Racial Healing® Circle (RxRHC), which illustrated the potentially transformative power of Racial Healing & Relationship Building. This visit to Durham inspired the formation of the Danville TRHT Community Group, which meets monthly to discuss its visions for and actions towards transformation in education, community service, law enforcement, churches, and employment. The TRHT Center is also working with the Danville TRHT Community Group to build a Duke-Danville TRHT Youth Fellows Program that would amplify and support youth’s visions for truth, racial healing, and transformation.