"We were interested in realizing what's possible for us at Elizabethtown College if we were all in," Nichole Gonzalez, the college's vice president for student life, tells Lancaster Online.
That's because the central Pennsylvania college has launched a Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation campus center, a series of programs that allow students and community members to engage with one another on sensitive issues around race while reexamining history that may have gone ignored.
Students and community members participate in two parts: a reexamination of the community's history with racism and racial healing circles led by a member of the center.
The circles allow participants to share their experiences with discrimination, examine personal biases, and build relationships with one another through prompting of a series of questions.
"Some students reported that they found them intimidating," the center's senior advisor tells Lancaster Online.
" Others stated that they brought back painful memories."
The center is led by a mediator from the college's Office of Diversity, Equity & Belonging and Kesha Morant Williams, the office's senior advisor.
The office plans on introducing more students and community members to the program at the college's upcoming Social Justice Fair.
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