The Papa John’s Foundation has donated a two-year $500,000 grant to the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) to support the creation of at least 150 community-integrated Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers.
Dr. Lynn PasquerellaThe association has partnered with colleges and universities around the country to establish TRHT Campus Centers to better prepare the next generation of leaders and thinkers to dismantle racial hierarchies and the belief in a human value hierarchy.
AAC&U has already developed the first 10 TRHT Campus Centers and are launching plans with the goal of moving the needle on diminishing structural barriers to equal treatment and opportunity in communities, campuses and for the country around the pillars of the centers’ framework: racial healing and relationship building, narrative change, separation, law and economy, according to an AAC&U release.
“The Association of American Colleges and Universities is grateful to Papa John’s and CEO Steve Ritchie for their commitment to and investment in building community,” said AAC&U president Dr. Lynn Pasquerella. “Their support will enable AAC&U to carry its Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation program, aimed at jettisoning a belief in the hierarchy of human value, to the next level. Only by working together to upend structural racism and classism will we be able to fulfill the promise of American higher education.”
