Teaching History and Evolution of Cultural Resource Centers

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 8:00 a.m. Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Open Educational Resources for Teaching History of Higher Education (Table 10)

Abstract

Purpose
Cultural Resource Centers (CRCs) were created out of the mobilization of historically marginalized students in the 1960s and ‘70s to hold higher education institutions (HEI) accountable for their failure to support them (Patton, 2010). CRCs have demonstrated they provide space for historically marginalized students to find community; yet, they struggle to exist and persist. The recent passage of anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bills in Florida, Texas, and Utah have forced HEIs to close CRCs such as LGBTQ+ and multicultural resource centers (Alonso, 2024; Mangan, 2024). The purpose of this OER is to examine the historical development of these threatened CRCs. The OER places special emphasis on the advocacy of historically marginalized students on behalf of these resources (Broadhurst & Velez, 2019; Patton et al., 2019).

Perspectives
Critical race curriculum (Yosso, 2002), which acknowledges the intersecting role of racism, sexism, and homophobia in maintaining inequality in HEIs, undergirds this OER. Critical race curriculum views historically marginalized students’ experiential knowledge as assets. A critical race curriculum approach helps students develop critical consciousness by centering this knowledge. Additionally, a critical race curriculum emphasizes both “historical and contemporary analysis to articulate the linkages between educational and societal inequality” (Yosso, 2002, p. 98). This approach is particularly well-suited to teaching the history of CRCs, which are the products of critical consciousness and advocacy in prior decades.

Methods and Source Material
To develop this OER, we searched open archives for primary resources. Primary documents—including those produced by the Third World Liberation Movement at San Francisco State University (1968), the Black Student Union at the University of Washington (1986), and Chicano activists at the University of California Davis (1969)—detailed student demands that contributed to the emergence of CRCs. For case examples of CRCs, we utilized primary documents, student newspapers, photos from yearbooks, and websites from CRCs at Northern Arizona University and Grinnell College. These two anchors (primary sources and CRC case examples) serve as the central teaching touchpoints in this OER.

Results and Significance
To teach the history of CRCs, we developed an OER website providing links to these primary sources, as well as recent news articles on anti-DEI bills demanding the closure of CRCs. This site offers multiple pedagogical approaches to introduce the history of CRCs. Students can analyze primary sources to trace the history of CRCs, understand how the history of CRCs informs the present, and deepen an awareness of the role of CRCs. The significance of this teaching resource is its potential to (1) foster understanding of how CRCs have withstood challenges and resisted threats throughout history and (2) apply this understanding in responding to current challenges facing CRCs.

Author

• Lauren R. Contreras, Northern Arizona University