2022-2023 Grant Recipients

This internal grant program funds interdisciplinary teams from across the university to drive tangible initiatives that fight racism. Teams led by both undergraduate and graduate students collaborate with faculty and staff to make a difference on and off campus.

Working with and leveraging the expertise and assets of our campus partners and community-based organizations, these teams will help address complex issues including: disparities in health and education; strengthening the pipeline of qualified candidates aspiring to higher education, STEM careers, and the arts; and addressing the persistent disparities and vulnerabilities that communities of color face with respect to the impacts of gender-based violence and mass incarceration. The 2022-23 Racial Justice Grantees are as follows:

• Radical Reading Circle

  The goal of this reading group is to come together through co-facilitated sessions to read, discuss, and think together about radical ideas that are all too often not a part of the everyday discourse of our political world. By providing a space to collectively re-imagine our futures through correspondence between marginalized intellectual theorists and ourselves this group aims to create a space where we can think deeply about how we can push the boundaries of collective thinking in forging new possibilities for our understanding of social justice and leveraging our diverse individual and collective responsibilities through literature.

• The 305 Give Back Drive

  This project aims to funnel resources from larger institutions to local, underserved communities through a back-to-school drive for elementary schools in Miami-Dade that comprise of minorities, especially disadvantaged minorities. It will also create opportunities for current UM students to lead minority-based service projects, serve in the underrepresented communities in Miami and create opportunities for education and advocacy.

• Puzzle Pieces Mentoring for Diversity: A path forward to help future PTs find the right fit!

  This program, created in 2020, aims to increase diversity in the physical therapy (PT) profession by providing a series of experiences that will optimize professional development, provide networking opportunities, and enhance the resumes/applications for Black undergraduate students when applying to PT programs. We are on a mission to decrease the disparity in this field by introducing the physical therapy profession to Black students ranging from middle school to college in an effort to mitigate barriers of applying to DPT programs and entering the profession.

• Exposing the Expansive and Racially Disproportionate Reach of Mass Incarceration in Miami-Dade County

  This is a hybrid research and service project where UM students will team up with members of the organization Beyond The Bars to conduct a canvassing pilot in selected neighborhoods. The long-term goals are to increase awareness of the extent of mass incarceration in Miami-Dade County, to raise community consciousness through canvassing, and to pressure county commissions to policy reform.

• STEAM-D Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics and Diaspora

  This mentorship program helps Black students in high school gain a better understanding of skills necessary to go into a variety of S.T.E.A.M. disciplines. S.T.E.A.M.-D will help contribute to racial justice by building Black students’ confidence, skillset, and networking abilities and providing mentorship, tailored skill resources, and university campus programs and workshops.

• Gender-Based Violence, Racial Justice, and Policing in Miami

  This project will conduct a survey of community organizations to assess perceptions of police interactions with victims of gender-based violence. The goal of this study is to provide recommendations, delivered to the Domestic Violence Oversight Board and the Miami-Dade Chiefs of Police, for improving police responses to gender-based violence, including addressing police bias at the intersection of gender, race, nativity, and other axes of oppressions.

• YPAR at Power U: Young people building power and organization to win!

  This youth participatory action research (YPAR) project supports Power U's mission to “develop the leadership of Black and Brown working-class high school students to build and run bold campaigns.” Through the building of skills and knowledge towards winning racial justice campaigns, this project aims to spark the imagination of Black working-class communities in Miami while offering young people a political education tuned to school budgetary cycles.

• Voting Rights in Miami’s Historic Coconut Grove Village West: Protecting the right to vote and combatting inequitable redistricting through community outreach and education.

  >This project will address and aid in the fight against unfair redistricting and the disenfranchisement of Black voters. We will combat this effort with community outreach, education, and research, partnering with community organizations to hold voting rights and registration outreach and educational events.

• Multicultural Library and Supporting Activities

  Working in conjunction with the teachers & staff at the University of Miami Linda Ray Intervention Center (UM-LRIC), this project will create a picture book library collection and Art Exhibit that will allow students and their caregivers to see clear reflections of themselves in the books that are read to them. Through the creation of this library, current as well as future children in low economic-resourced communities of South Florida will have the opportunity for a better trajectory by being able to have access to picture books that are relevant to their lives and communities.

• Prison Visits for Racial Justice

  This project aims to dismantle biases and stigmas that students may hold towards incarcerated people and/or people impacted by the criminal justice system. Our goal is to showcase the humanity and intellect of incarcerated folks by facilitating two field trips for University of Miami students to participate in a structured afternoon of classroom conversations with incarcerated individuals in one of two local state correctional facilities.

• Shadow a UM Student Day

  This program will provide a cohort of students from First Star Academy with a shadowing event at the University of Miami with the goal of allowing students to see the college space physically and hopefully envision themselves in it as POC. We aim to address the racial injustice and disparities faced by Black Foster Care youth in postsecondary education.

We look forward to learning more about and supporting the awardees and their projects as we work together to advance racial equity. If interested in supporting, volunteering, or learning more about these projects reach out to racialjusticegrants@miami.edu.