Holy Names University Selected to Host New Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center
(Oakland, October 12, 2021) — The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has announced that Holy Names University is one of 19 institutions selected and receiving preliminary funding to host new Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers. One of 49 TRHT Campus Centers across the United States, HNU is the only one in Northern California.
Established in partnership with AAC&U and hosted by colleges and universities across the country, TRHT Campus Centers pursue the goal of preparing the next generation of leaders and thinkers to break down racialized practices and to dismantle the belief in a hierarchy of human value. These self-sustaining, community-integrated campus centers play a vital role in the national TRHT effort to address historical and contemporary effects of racism and to promote transformational and sustainable change.
Says VP for Student Affairs at Holy Names University Laura Lyndon, “We envision a holistic, united, and engaged community where students have the agency to shape their education. We also envision a future in which we are cultivating and sustaining deep and reciprocal relationships with partners and stakeholders in the Oakland Community with whom we share a commitment to promoting educational equity and access, and social, racial, and economic justice.”
The TRHT effort is a national, community-based initiative launched by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation that seeks to address the historical and contemporary impacts of race and racism within our communities. Each TRHT Campus Center prioritizes expansive, community-based healing activities that seek to change collective community narratives and broaden the understanding of our diverse experiences.
Says HNU President Mike Groener, “Establishing a TRHT campus center at Holy Names will provide an important space for critical reflection and dialogue. Naming and owning our role in systemic racism, past and present, will directly inform the action we take toward creating an actively antiracist institution.”
It is especially meaningful to the TRHT team to share this news following Indigenous People’s Day. Holy Names University’s TRHT action plan deepens our commitment to engaging in dialogue and transformative action around decolonization and the occupation of Ohlone land on which the University sits.
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Holy Names University (HNU) has been empowering and preparing a diverse student body for productive lives of leadership and service since 1868. Rooted in Catholic intellectual and spiritual traditions, the University was founded by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. HNU offers a liberal arts and professional education. Student-centered, with small class sizes and courses in varied formats and schedules, HNU meets the needs of all learners, including first-generation students and working adults. Nestled in the Oakland hills of California, the University’s idyllic, 60-acre campus offers panoramic views of San Francisco Bay. For more information, visit hnu.edu.