Resources

"When we say access, we are also saying the possibility to inhabit a space to the extent that one can say, ‘This is my home. I am not a foreigner. I belong here’. This is not hospitality. It is not charity.”

Achille Joseph Mbembe

The following resources are available for students, faculty, and staff in an effort to enhance the experiences of our community and help ensure that all members of the community feel included and fully supported at RISD.

For Faculty:

The SEI Research, SEI Programming Fund, SEI Conference and Presentation Fund, and the Decolonial Teaching in Action Course application have all currently been suspended for AY 2023-2024.

The SEI Conference and Presentation Fund will return in a limited capacity in Spring 2024, offering places to faculty to join the SEI team at select conferences. DTAC is amidst discussions for updating and reimagining the program. Please return here or on the Academic Affairs page during wintersession for updates.

The SEI Steering Committee will be offering Expanded Public Programming funds for faculty or departments who already have programming in place for Spring or Summer 2024 and want to increase engagement. Folks can reach out to Ramon Tejada, SEI Steering Committee Co-chair (rtejada@risd.edu), for information.

For Students:

Part of the Center for SEI's initiatives when engaging with students is done through the Intercultural Student Engagement or ISE. ISE's mission is to cultivate an environment that recognizes an ever-changing campus and global community. ISE nurtures the holistic growth and inspiration of emergent artists and designers to enhance social consciousness, cultural mindfulness, self-actualization, and inclusive dialogues.

They also support students from underrepresented backgrounds groups including, but not limited to those who are: first generation, international, LGBTQIA+, religious or spiritual, students who are socio-economically disadvantaged, students with disabilities, BIPOC students, and students not traditionally of college age.

For complete and up to date information about ISE's programs and resources specific to students, please visit their website: https://www.ise.risd.edu.

Project Thrive
Project Thrive is a multi-year student support and learning community program designed specifically for RISD students whose parents did not attend or did not complete college. The program provides students with opportunities to reflect on their identities and embrace the strengths and assets they hold as first-generation college students. Project Thrive challenges students to think critically about their social and cultural identities, aspire to and achieve academic excellence, enhance their leadership skills, and begin to build a path towards professional and personal success. Students who attend the summer FGC POP program are automatically part of Project Thrive. Any student who did not attend FGC POP should contact ISE directly at ise@risd.edu.

Additional Resources for Students:

Materials Fund

The Materials Fund Program was established through a Social Equity Fund Committee proposal in 2018. These funds were designed to help our neediest students with costs beyond tuition and fees. In addition to Materials Funds, funding support for Global Travel and Internships were created as well.

At the moment there are a couple of different materials funds that exist.

1. Ackerman Materials Fund - First-year high-need UG students - All high-need first-year students (for the most part Pell Recipients) receive $1,000 ($500 per semester) as a credit at the RISD bookstore to help with costs associated with their program.

Returning high-need UG students - These same students receive a $1,000 bookstore credit in subsequent years as well. Please note that we are exploring changing this from a bookstore credit to a stipend payment for the spring semester to help students with costs beyond what the bookstore supports.

2. Pilot Program for Returning UG Students with Need - This year, we have rolled out a pilot program to help returning UG students with need. We identified all returning students who receive a RISD Scholarship (eligible financial need) These students will be receiving a $600 stipend payment ($300 per semester) to help with costs associated with projects (The average materials request from UGs last year was $487). Notifications have gone out to recipients. The recipients will receive the funds in the form of a cash stipend.

This is an effort to eliminate students with need from having to continuously tell RISD they have financial need. This has been a long-term goal of the materials fund program.

3. At Large Materials Fund - This fund is designed for all other students who don't fit into the above buckets. 91.8% of recipients came from Fine Arts and Arch and Design, which is expected. We noticed last year that we had a large number of students with no need who applied for funds. They are not eligible.

Who still needs to apply? How do they apply?

Grad students, international students, and UGs who are not part of the above groupings can apply, however students must have financial need in order to receive funds, a formal application process to establish need will soon be available.

Material funds have always been supplemental, RISD students at the time of admission are expected to plan for estimated books and supplies of $2,700 per academic year (undergrad), $3,965 (grad). International students are required to certify they have these funds available in order to be approved for a student visa.

Therefore, it is our hope that students without demonstrated need are not yet in urgent need of potential funding. If they are, they are encouraged to reach out to SFS to discuss their overall RISD financial plan and available resources.

Inquiries may be sent to sfs@risd.edu (note that the old materials fund email is now defunct)

Study Abroad Fund
Scholarships are available for RISD students for off-campus semester programs. Students must submit a scholarship application, in order to be eligible. Scholarships may cover part of, or the entire, program cost and/or airfare cost to the course location.

RISD scholarships are awarded based on a combination of financial need and academic merit. These funds are intended to provide students the unique and often life-changing opportunity to participate in an off-campus global learning experience during their time at RISD.

Study Abroad Fund Scholarship

Internships
Internships help you build a stronger resume; make professional contacts; see your field firsthand; gain academic credit; get a better starting job; and determine what you want to do, and don't want to do. Funding is available to help you pursue internship opportunities you might not otherwise be able to afford.

Internal Funding info RISD Careers

Resource-sharing and Reallocation Initiatives

Provided more than 50 winter coats for students in need through the program Coat Closet
Waived cost of programs (Student Art Sale, Artist Ball, CommenceFest) for students in financial need

Other initiatives

Swipe it Forward: a platform for students to donate their meal swipes to other students in order to alleviate ongoing food insecurity on campus. This program provides a confidential and efficient way for students who may be having difficulty finding their next meal to receive the help they deserve.
RISD Flips: an annual yard sale held at Market Square that generates funds for the Staff Council student scholarship; supports international students by providing available supplies that might be otherwise thrown away; donates unsold articles to community organizations; and reduces environmental impact by reducing the amount of waste generated on campus.
RISD Second Life: a nonprofit, student-run, upcycling program that collects usable art supplies and raw materials and redistributes them back to RISD students and to the local community.

College Preparation Programs

FGC POP: is an intensive, two-week, multifaceted experience for incoming RISD students whose parents did not attend or did not complete college. RISD FGC POP is designed as a transformational experience focused on supporting students in their holistic development.

Project Open Door: is a college access initiative for urban youth. It invites creative teens attending public and charter high schools in Rhode Island’s urban core cities of Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence and Woonsocket to participate in free art and design programming.

RISD Pre-College: offers high school juniors and seniors the opportunity to access life as a RISD student and experience college culture while studying with award-winning faculty in our art studios to create supplementary pieces for their college admission portfolio. Recent enhancements to the program include:

19 Pre-College full scholarships for summer 2018, up from nine in 2017 and zero the year prior
Two full-time counselors hired in addition to planned wellness events
Creation of two new Pre-College majors: Art + Science and Art + Activism

LEGACY OF DIVERSITY

Nancy Elizabeth Prophet

1890 - 1960

Nancy Elizabeth Prophet was an artist of African-American and Native American ancestry, known for her sculpture. She was the first African-American graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1918 and later studied at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris during the early 1920s

More Resources

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For faculty and staff

academic / administrative resources

employment policies

reporting / resolving concerns

Related support services

Books on Race & Culture

AFRICAN AMERICAN & AFRICAN DIASPORA:

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (The New Press)
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward Baptist (Basic Books)
Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness by Simone Brown (Duke University Press)
The Reaper's Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery by Vincent Brown (Harvard University Press)
Slaves of the State: Black Incarceration from the Chain Gang to the Penitentiary by Dennis Childs (University of Minnesota Press)
Women, Race, & Class by Angela Y. Davis (Penguin/Random House)
Women, Culture, & Politics by Angela Y. Davis (Penguin/Random House)
Are Prisons Obsolete? By Angela Y. Davis (Seven Stories Press)
The Meaning of Freedom And Other Difficult Dialogues by Angela Y. Davis (City Lights Books)
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis (Haymarket Books)
On Racial Icons: Blackness and the Public Imagination by Nicole R. Felltwood (Rutgers University Press)
Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching by Paula Giddings (Harper Collins)
When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America by Paula Giddings (William Morrow)
Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation by Imani Perry (Duke University Press)
Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa Harris-Perry (Yale University Press)
We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by bell hooks (Routledge)
Salvation: Black People and Love by bell hooks (Harper)
killing rage: Ending Racism by bell hooks (Holt)
Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination by Robin D.G. Kelley (Beacon Press)
Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class by Robin D.G. Kelley (Simon & Schuster)
Yo' Mama's Disfunktional !: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America by Robin D.G. Kelley (Beacon Press)
To Make Our World Anew: Volume II: A History of African Americans Since 1880 by Robin D.G. Kelley & Earl Lewis (Oxford University Press)
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi (Nation Books)
The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies by Tiffany Lethabo King (Duke University Press)
Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism by Charles W. Mills (Oxford University Press)
Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris (The New Press)
Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-first Century by Monique W. Morris (The New Press)
The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome by Alondra Nelson (Beacon Press)
Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination by Alondra Nelson (University of Minnesota Press)
Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present by Nell Painter (Oxford University Press)
Southern History Across the Color Line by Nell Painter (UNC Press)
Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study by Orlando Patterson (Harvard University Press)
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby (UNC Press)
More Beautiful and More Terrible: The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Imani Perry (NYU Press)
Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop by Imani Perry (Duke University Press)
Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson by Barbara Ransby (Yale University Press)
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts (Vintage)
Shattered Bonds: The Color Of Child Welfare by Dorothy Roberts (Basic Civitas Books)
Freedom as Marronage by Neil Roberts (University of Chicago Press)
In the Wake: On Blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe (Duke University Press)
Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects by Christina Sharpe (Duke University Press)
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (Spiegel & Grau)
Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human by Alexander G. Weheliye (Duke University Press)
Race Matters by Cornel West (Beacon Press)
Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities by Craig Steven Wilder (Bloomsbury Publishing)

NATIVE AMERICAN & INDIGENOUS:

Blood Narrative: Indigenous Identity in American Indian and Maori Literary and Activist Texts by Chadwick Allen (Duke University Press)
Indigenous Storywork : Educating the Heart, Mind, Body, and Spirit by Jo-Ann Archibald (UBC Press)
Community-Based Archaeology: Research With, By, and for Indigenous and Local Communities by Sonya Atalay (University of California Press)
Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies Edited by Joanne Barker (Duke University Press)
Native Acts: Law, Recognition, and Cultural Authenticity by Joanne Barker (Duke University Press)
Sovereignty Matters: Locations of Contestation and Possibility in Indigenous Struggles for Self-Determination by Joanne Barker (University of Nebraska Press)
Dressing in Feathers: The Construction of the Indian in American Popular Culture by S. Elizabeth Bird (Westview Press)
How It Is: The Native American Philosophy of V. F. Cordova Edited by Kathleen Dean Moore, Kurt Peters, and Ted Jojola (University of Arizona Press)
Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition by Glen Sean Coulthard (University of Minnesota Press)
Playing Indian by Philip Deloria (Yale University Press)
Indians in Unexpected Places by Philip Deloria (University Press of Kansas)
Becoming Mary Sully: Toward and American Indian Abstract by Philip Deloria (University of Washington Press)
God is Red: A Native View of Religion (Third Edition) by Vine Delora Jr. (Fulcrum Books)
Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada: Echoes and Exchanges by Beverley Diamond and Anna Hoefnagels (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact by Vine Delora Jr. (Fulcrum Books)
“All the Real Indian Died Off” and 20 Other Myths about Native Americans by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Beacon Press)
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz (Beacon Press)
Indian Resilience and Rebuilding: Indigenous Nations in the Modern American West by Donald Fixico (University of Arizona Press)
The American Indian Mind in a Linear World: American Indian Studies and Traditional Knowledge by Donald Fixico (Routledge)
The Urban Indian Experience in America by Donald Fixico (University of New Mexico Press)
Rethinking American Indian History by Donald Fixico (University of New Mexico Press)
Real Indians: Identity and the Survival of Native America by Eva Marie Garroutte (University of California Press)
The Seeds We Planted: Portraits of a Native Hawaiian Charter School by Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua (University of Minnesota Press)
A Nation Rising: Hawaiian Movements for Life, Land, and Sovereignty Edited by Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua, Ikaika Hussey, and Erin Kahunawaika'ala Wright (Duke University Press)
Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity by J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (Duke University Press)
A Yupiaq Worldview: A Pathway to Ecology and Spirit by Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley (Waveland Press)
Telling Stories in the Face of Danger: Language Renewal in Native American Communities. Edited by Paul V. Kroskrity (University of Oklahoma Press)
The Jesus Road: Kiowas, Christianity, and Indian Hymns Edited by Luke E Lassiter, Clyde Ellis, and Ralph Kotay (University of Nebraska Press)
"Real" Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood by Bonita Lawrence (University of Nebraska Press)
The Stars We Know: Crow Indian Astronomy and Lifeways by Timothy P. McCleary (Waveland Press)
Ojibwe Singers: Hymns, Grief, and a Native Culture in Motion by Michael D. McNally (Minnesota Historical Society Press)
Indigenous American Women: Decolonization, Empowerment, Activism by Devon Mihesuah (University of Nebraska Press)
Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains? Ed. by Devon Mihesuah (University of Nebraska Press)
Natives and Academics: Researching and Writing about American Indians by Devon Mihesuah (University of Nebraska Press)
Intertribal Native American Music in the United States: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture by John-Carlos Perea (Oxford University Press)
Engaged Resistance: American Indian Art, Literature, and Film from Alcatraz to the NMAI by Dean Rader (University of Texas Press)
Arts of Engagement: Taking Aesthetic Action in and beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Edited by Dylan Robinson and Keavy Martin (Wilfrid Laurier University Press)
Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism by Noenoe K. Silva (Duke University Press)
Wiping the War Paint Off the Lens: Native American Film and Video by Beverley R. Singer (University of Minnesota Press)
Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong by Paul Chaat Smith (University of Minnesota Press)
Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Zed Books)
Once Were Pacific: Maori Connections to Oceania by Alice Te Punga Somerville (University of Minnesota Press)
From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii by Haunani-Kay Trask (University of Hawaii Press)
Indian Blues: American Indians and the Politics of Music, 1879-1934 by John W. Troutman (University of Oklahoma Press)
Sivumut: Towards the Future Together edited by Fiona Walton Darlene O’Leary (Canadian Scholars’ Press)
The World of Indigenous North America Edited by Robert Warrior (Routledge)
Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee by Robert Warrior and Paul Chaat Smith (The New Press)

LATINX:

Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California by and Tomas Almaguer (University of California Press)
Ends of Assimilation: The Formation of Chicano Literature by John Alba Cutler (Oxford University Press)
From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity by Juan Flores (Columbia University Press)
Divided Borders: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity by Juan Flores (Arte Publico Press)
Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America by Roberto G. Gonzales (University of California Press)
Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity by David G. Gutiérrez (University of California Press)
The New Latino Studies Reader: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective Edited by Ramon Gutierrez and Tomas Almaguer (University of California Press)
Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol by Kelly Lytle Hernandez (University of California Press)
The Other Side of Assimilation: How Immigrants Are Changing American Life by Tomas Jimenez (University of California Press)
Racism on Trial: The Chicano Fight for Justice by Ian Haney Lopez (Belknap Press)
Latino Stats: American Hispanics by the Numbers by Idelisse Malavé and Esti Giordani (The New Press)
Critical Latin American And Latino Studies Edited by Juan Poblete (University of Minnesota Press)
Chicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement by F. Arturo Rosales (Arte Publico Press)
Latinos: Remaking America Edited by Marcelo Suarez-Orozco and Mariela Paez (University of California Press)

ASIAN AMERICAN:

Partly Colored: Asian Americans and Racial Anomaly in the Segregated South by Leslie Bow (NYU Press)
The Cultural Capital of Asian American Studies: Autonomy and Representation in the University by Mark Chiang (NYU Press)
Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War by Grace M. Cho (University of Minnesota Press)
Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism by Rosalind Chou (Routledge)
Home Bound: Filipino American Lives across Cultures, Communities, and Countries by Yen Le Espiritu (University of California Press)
Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture by Jennifer Ann Ho (Rutgers University Press)
The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee (Simon & Schuster)
A New History of Asian America by Shelley Sang-Hee Lee (Routledge)
Trespassers? Asian Americans and the Battle for Suburbia by Willow Lung-Amam (University of California Press)
Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in the South Asian Diaspora by Junaid Rana (Duke University Press)
Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans by Ronald Takaki (Little Brown and Co.)
The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority by Ellen D. Wu (Princeton University Press)
Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White by Frank Wu (Basic Books)
Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People by Helen Zia (FSG)

RACIAL CONSTRUCTION, WHITENESS, & SOCIETY:

The Book of Gaza by Atef Abu Saif (Comma Press)
On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life by Sara Ahmed (Duke University Press)
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson (Bloomsbury Publishing)
Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (Rowman & Littlefield)
How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America by Karen Brodkin (Rutgers University Press)
Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown (AK Press)
Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness across the Disciplines by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (Editor), Luke Charles Harris (Editor), Daniel Martinez HoSang (Editor), George Lipsitz (Editor) (University of California Press)
White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness by Ruth Frankenberg (University of Minnesota Press)
White But Not Equal: Mexican Americans, Jury Discrimination, and the Supreme Court by Ignacio M. Garcia,
Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond by Marc Lamont Hill (Simon & Schuster)
How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev (Routledge)
When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katznelson (W.W. Norton)
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi (Nation Books)
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram Kendi (Penguin)
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Khalidi (MacMillan)
The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics by George Lipsitz (Temple University Press)
How Racism Takes Place by George Lipsitz (Temple University Press)
White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race by Ian Haney Lopez (NYU Press)
Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class by Ian Haney Lopez (Oxford University Press)
Relational Formations of Race: Theory, Method, and Practice by Natalia Molina (Editor), Daniel Martinez HoSang (Editor), Ramón A. Gutiérrez (Editor) (University of California Press)
Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi and Howard Winant (Routledge)
The History of White People by Nell Painter (W.W. Norton)
The Balfour Declaration: Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine by Bernard Regan (Verso Press)
Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century by Dorothy Roberts (The New Press)
Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs by David R. Roediger (Basic Books)
The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class by David R. Roediger (Verso Books)
A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki (Back Bay Books)
Whitewashed: America’s Invisible Middle Eastern Minority by John Tehranian (NYU Press)
White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise (Soft Skull Press)

SEI