On Wednesday, Senior Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion Michael Reed announced the first College-wide action on racial justice: a Bowdoin-sponsored online learning program about diversity, equity and inclusion. This course is required for all faculty, staff, students and trustees.

The College partnered with DiversityEdu, co-founded by Kate Chovanetz and Alison Akant, two white-passing women, to deliver courses specific to each of these groups at the College.

“We believe this educational path will enable all of us to have more skillful conversations as we move through a multiyear process of learning and working with each other to understand and address the challenges of anti-Black racism and racial inequity,” Reed wrote in the email.

The course will be available the week of January 18, 2021, and participants will have three weeks to complete it. Later in the spring, the College plans on working with the Racial Equity Institute, an organization that specializes in educating individuals on the root of racial inequity and anti-Black racism, as the second college-wide action towards racial justice.