GIBBS COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE FACULTY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA RECEIVE GRANT TO CREATE COMMUNITY LED POLICY AND DESIGN MULTIDISCIPLINARY THINK TANK TO ADDRESS DISCRIMINATION AND IMPLICIT BIAS

Gibbs College faculty Deborah Richards, assistant professor of Architecture, and Vanessa Morrison, affiliate faculty in Regional and City Planning, have partnered with Dr. Andrea Benjamin from the Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies to propose a think tank to address the implicit bias and racial inequality pervasive in classrooms. Gibbs College researcher C. Aujean Lee also received funding from this program.

The researchers have been awarded a grant to fund the project “Community Led Policy and Design: A Multidisciplinary Think Tank.” The grant is part of the by the OU Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships’ Inequities in the Academic Research and Creative Activity Enterprise Rapid Response Seed Grant program. Their proposal was one of 11 chosen for funding at this time.

The team has found that academia has allowed environments where racialized trauma is a common lived experience amongst marginalized groups in classrooms nationwide. This is combined with coursework that may not create meaningful connections with the communities in which they work.

The team believes that students and faculty need time to listen and engage with their communities in order to build strong relationships that will allow them to create impactful work within the community they serve.

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