ACCUTE’s BIPOC Caucus
The BIPOC caucus of ACCUTE held its first meeting at the online conference out of Montreal/Tiohtià:ke in 2021. It was designed to be a safe space for BIPOC-identifying members to share their experiences navigating academia as minoritized scholars. This closed-door meeting of BIPOC members of ACCUTE was met with an enthusiasm that demonstrated how great a need there is for these conversations, and we have been proud to establish it as an annual event.
The BIPOC Caucus was formally inducted into the ACCUTE Board in 2023, when Dr. Chinelo Ezenwa was elected to the Board as Member-at-Large for the new caucus.
In addition to these annual meetings, the BIPOC Caucus hosts virtual coffee hours, the latest being A Conversation with George Elliott Clarke.
These activities are supported in part by the EDID Initiatives Fund provided to ACCUTE by the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
If you are a BIPOC scholar who would like to get involved, please contact Chinelo Ezenwa at cezenwa2@uwo.ca.
Past BIPOC ACCUTE Member Meetings:
- 2021, virtual – Coordinated by Uchechukwu Umezurike (Calgary)
- 2022, virtual at the Alt Hotel, Montreal – Coordinated by Amatoritsero Ede (Mount Allison)
- 2023, in-person at York University, Toronto – Coordinated by Titi Aiyegbusi (Toronto) and Chinelo Ezenwa (Western)
- 2024, virtual – Coordinated by Richard Douglass-Chin (Windsor) and Chinelo Ezenwa (Western)
First-Person: Interviews with BIPOC ACCUTE Members
The BIPOC/ACCUTE First Person Interview series is adapted from the CBC First Person series. Organized by Chinelo Ezenwa, it captures the stories and perspectives of BIPOC members of ACCUTE from different parts of Canada at different stages of their teaching, research, or graduate student careers. The interviews are presented in dialogue style to enable us to present participants’ stories and experiences in their own voices.
