The Center for Race and Gender (CRG) is an interdisciplinary research center at the University of California Berkeley that fosters explorations of race and gender, and their intersections. CRG cultivates critical and engaged research and exchange among faculty and students throughout the university, between the university and nearby communities of color, and among scholars in the Bay Area, in the US, and around the globe. CRG engages in the following activities:
- Enhances and sustains student research by providing grants to support their research projects, hosting a dissertation writing group and retreats, and organizing bi-weekly forums to spotlight emerging work
- Enhances faculty research by providing a platform for advanced scholarship including forums, symposia, conferences, and institutes
- Bridges research, culture, and community by supporting engaged community-based research projects and artistic works open to the public
- Builds relationships among local, national, and international scholars by organizing major events designed for scholarly exchange
- Sustains on-going research projects through hosting working groups and cutting edge projects, such as the Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project
- Provides a multimedia platform for research development, including a biannual newsletter and an interactive website featuring audio and video recordings of events
Organizational History
The creation of the Center for Race and Gender by the Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley on January 1, 2001, marked a major step forward by the University in recognition of significant new realities in the State of California and within the university community.
Since its founding 134 years ago, U.C. Berkeley has grown into one of the foremost public universities in the nation and has become an internationally recognized center of teaching and research in the natural and social sciences and humanities. U.C. Berkeley has served the State of California in many ways: intellectually, culturally, and economically. But in recent decades, the racial composition of the State has changed profoundly, and the Berkeley student body has mirrored this change by enrolling much greater numbers of Native American, African American, Latino, and Asian American students. Yet the university's faculty, administration, course offerings, and funding allocations lagged behind the needs and circumstances of the State's population and the new composition of Berkeley students.
Accordingly, in the great tradition of Berkeley student activism, in 1999 a group of students demanded, via direct action, that the university address a variety of issues, including failure to allocate faculty positions to the Department of Ethnic Studies and insufficient support for research relating to people of color.
The agreement between the university, the students, and others, committed the university to take certain actions, one of which was the establishment of a new interdisciplinary research center. Although many other universities had already established centers focusing on specific ethnic groups, and a handful had established broader-based centers focusing on people of color, the decision by U.C. Berkeley to include gender as an integral component in the new center's mission, put it in the vanguard. The recognition of the close linkages and intersections between race and gender inequality and oppression enabled the university to create a unique new entity - the Center for Race and Gender (CRG).
CRG IN THE NEWS:
2/28/01- Berkeleyan article about CRG’s beginnings
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2001/02/28_centr.html
DONATE TO CRG:
Your financial support provides much-needed funding to undergraduate and graduate students pursuing groundbreaking interdisciplinary research projects, community partnerships, and social justice projects of local and international scope. Learn more about how to make a gift to CRG by clicking here.
