Listed below are brief descriptions of the grant recipients for the FY21 Higher Education Innovation Fund and dollar award amounts:

1. Bridgewater State University (consortium grant of $150,000): “(This project will) increase the REJI campuses’ abilities to audit their practices inside and outside the classroom in order to enhance competencies focused on racially just and culturally sustaining pedagogies and racially just and equitable student service(s).”
2. Bunker Hill Community College (individual campus grant of $75,000): “This project proposes to pilot and field-test the equity framework and auditing tool developed by the Center for Equity and Cultural Wealth (CECW), with a sampling of student service and administrative departments.”
3. Fitchburg State University (individual campus grant of $51,743): “This project will support the refinement and expansion of the Heritage Language Program (HLP), (which) focuses on the promotion of multilingualism and multiculturalism at the University. The goal is to create a continuum of support for students for whom English is not a first language through strategies that celebrate multilingualism; leverage their cultural assets to further their academic success while enriching the campus community at Fitchburg State.”
4. Framingham State University (individual campus grant of $62,250): “This project proposes an intensive multiday Racial Equity Policy Review Institute for the college executive team, cabinet members, staff department heads, and academic department chairs…Outcomes for participants include (a) better understanding of systemic racism in education and how it manifests on campus an, b) to learn how to best identify policies that (intentionally and unintentionally) favor white students.”
5. Greenfield Community College (individual campus grant of $61,900): “Campus faculty, staff, and administration will work intensely with an identified Equity Consultancy to develop a Diversity & Inclusion program customized to the College's unique needs. This project will be rooted in Appreciative Inquiry (AI), an approach that is strengths-based and positive for leadership development and organizational change.”
6. Holyoke Community College (consortium grant of $150,000): “This project proposes an Equity Consortium of all 15 Massachusetts Community Colleges for the purpose of learning, sharing, and adopting equity and antiracist resources, policies, and practices.  Each campus will identify two Equity Fellows to participate in a summer Equity Institute offered by the USC Race and Equity Center.”
7. Mass Bay Community College (individual campus grant of $70,004): “This project proposes to provide anti-racist training to 41 academic department chairs, program directors, deans, and members of the Executive Team via Cornell University’s Diversity and Inclusion Certificate Program (PD). In addition, sixty staff members (two groups of 30) will participate in PD provided by a consultant  chosen because the training emphasizes (a) understanding unconscious bias in higher education, and (b) learning how to talk about race and racism.”
8. Massasoit Community College (individual campus grant of $50,992): “This project proposes to advance the DHE Equity Agenda through an institutional focus on faculty academic syllabus review and revision to promote racial/ethnic equity and equity-minded instructional practice. (T)he overarching goal (is) to increase course completion, retention and graduation rates for minoritized students – particularly students of color – by improving course syllabi to address and reduce inequities in students’ academic experiences.”
9. Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (individual campus grant of $28,720): “This project proposes to work with a consulting firm specializing in improving police departments’ relationships with their communities.  The consultant would work with MCLA to develop an interactive training module for the Department of Public Safety with the goal of increasing cultural competency and engagement of its officers and staff with the MCLA community.”
10. Middlesex Community College (individual campus grant of $74,009): “MCC proposes to implement the Equity Minded Professional Development Initiative (EMPDI) for 109 faculty across disciplines. The goal of the initiative is to improve outcomes for minoritized students through professional development activities in inclusive and equitable teaching practices and/or pedagogy.”
11. North Shore Community College (consortium grant of $149,112): “This project proposes to enhance and accelerate post-secondary Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) options as an incentive for college entry, re-entry and completion, and promote advancement at the workplace for diverse communities of students.”
12. Salem State University (consortium grant of $132,013): “This consortium project (with Fitchburg State, UMass Amherst, Worcester State) proposes to build capacity among members to implement practices, pedagogies, and programming for antiracist community-engaged teaching that is student-ready and builds on the cultural wealth of minoritized students while engaging them through high-impact practices.”
13. University of Massachusetts, Amherst (individual campus grant of $74,458): “The primary goal of this project is to build capacity among professional academic affairs and student affairs staff to engage in, and facilitate, transformative racial justice practices. UMA proposes to invite 30 professional staff members to participate in a sustained learning sequence that supports…development of racial literacy, racial awareness, dialogic skills and skilled facilitation.”
14. University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth (consortium grant of $149,043): “This project proposes to research and gather evidence-based data to inform and help build a curriculum for a Transformative Justice (TJ) Certificate Program appropriate for implementation at Institutions of Higher Education (IHE). At the outcome of this project, UMD proposes to build a program vision and curriculum that integrates a skills-based and theoretically rigorous training and certification for Transformative Justice Practitioners.”