Recently, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s “Toward an Anti-Racist Campus” action grant supported the establishment of a Multicultural Scholars Collaborative on campus. This Collaborative will serve as an institutionalized network to enhance the research productivity of scholars of color, promote retention of BIPOC faculty, and enhance student retention into this pipeline.

The Multicultural Scholars Collaborative (MSC) is a network of collaborative efforts among BIPOC faculty to support graduate and undergraduate students of color, thereby alleviating individual strain on faculty while filling the void of support on campus. The goals of the collaborative will be refined by members, but may include: 

 1) Scholarship: Provide support and resources for the intellectual efforts of BIPOC scholars, promote career advancement, increase interdisciplinary and inter-group collaboration (i.e., across ethnic groups), increase visibility of BIPOC excellence in research. Actions: writing retreats, grant workshops, spotlights on member research. 

 2) Collective effort toward anti-racism: Pool collective resources and expertise on equity, diversity, and anti-racism to share within the network and with the campus community; support in balancing anti-racism work with other academic responsibilities; advocacy for the value of these activities to disrupt implicit expectations that BIPOC faculty will, or ought to, engage in this labor without renumeration. 

 3) Mentorship: Support junior scholars interested in entering the research or academic pipeline; shared supports across network members to show collective support rather than reliance on traditional, top-down models of mentorship (faculty to grad student to undergrad). 

 4) Support: Increase opportunities for BIPOC scholars to diminish the sense of isolation (i.e., “I’m the only one”) and to otherwise support the sense of belonging and value to UWM, with the aim to attract and retain BIPOC scholars. 

Visit the Multicultural Scholars Collaborative webpage.

Follow them on Twitter for current updates and events.