Image: Graduate students in a hybrid session of the Reconstructing Blackness: Pathways to Collective Advancement course pose for a picture with faculty in the NCCU Criminal Justice Department.
The Wilmette Institute (WI) is delighted to deepen its growing partnership with North Carolina Central University (NCCU), an HBCU advancing interdisciplinary education for social change. This spring, our partnership celebrated major milestones: the successful pilot of a graduate course, the creation of an Interdisciplinary Leadership Group with NCCU and WI faculty, and preparations for a new fall graduate course on social change. As our collaboration deepens, we aim to advance collective learning.
New Graduate Course
WI and NCCU recently marked the successful pilot of Reconstructing Blackness: Pathways to Collective Advancement, offered through the Department of Criminal Justice and taught by Dr. Emily Agbenyega. The course explored how individual and collective transformation toward a racially just society necessitates the reconstruction of race and Blackness in the U.S., coupled with a new vision for the advancement of society. This graduate-level course culminated in a reflective online session where students like Asia Robinson shared how the experience shaped their thinking and methodology towards scholarship and activism. Guest speakers, including renowned scholars and local leaders, added depth and community connection to the learning experience. Looking forward, WI is collaborating with NCCU’s Criminal Justice Department to launch a graduate-level course on social change this fall to nurture engaged, socially conscious students.
Interdisciplinary Leadership Group
Although Dr. Harvey McMurray retired from NCCU in January, he remains a key figure in this partnership, now serving on WI’s Advisory Board and helping establish an Interdisciplinary Leadership Group drawing faculty from across NCCU’s departments. During WI’s recent campus visit, the team helped lay the groundwork for this collaborative initiative, fostering cross-campus dialogue and planning.
Left: Dr. Karrie Dixon poses in front of her university’s statue of Dr. James Shepard, founder of NCCU.
Right: Department Chairs from seven disciplines participated in establishing the interdisciplinary leadership group.
Community-centered vision
WI also had the honor of attending Chancellor Dixon’s installation and engaging with NCCU administrators, faculty, researchers, local leaders including the mayor of Durham, and NCCU Advisory Board members. These connections underscore the broad, community-centered vision that WI and NCCU share: advancing knowledge, capacity, and collective advancement through partnership.
We look forward to learning with our NCCU partners about transformative graduate education through innovative coursework, interdisciplinary research, and student community engagement.
Left: Left to Right–Dr. Chitra Golestani, Dr. Jessica Ganao, Dr. Harvey McMurray, Dr. Claude Maye
Right: Left to Right–Dr. Harvey McMurray, Criminal Justice Dept. Chair Dr. Jessica Ganao, Dr. Chitra Golestani, Mr. Jeff Albert
