University of Memphis faculty are getting $3,000 stipends to redesign courses that further diversity and “social justice.”
The university is offering stipends to 15-20 faculty in two installments after “syllabi redesign” and course completion are finalized.
The $45,000 – $60,000 project is part of the university’s “Eradicating Systemic Racism and Promoting Social Justice Initiative,” presents the effort as “an opportunity for interested faculty” to promote the commitment to “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice.”
Scott Sundvall, assistant professor of English at Memphis, told Campus Reform that the stipends evolved from a discussion during a department meeting about which courses could be applied to a social justice minor.
Sundvall said that the stipends for redesign “may seem ideological” but is “really not as radical” and a “good idea.”
“It is imperative that no area of the curriculum is excluded,” an Eradicating Systemic Racism and Promoting Social Justice Initiative report stated. “[I]t is the nature of race oppression for it to find ways to operate invisibly, and in turn to produce conceptual spaces that are mistakenly judged to be ‘race neutral.’”
Hellbound and Down 