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ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2020

United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. In the three months the application was open in 2020, 15,159 young leaders applied to join the Class of 2020 on 1,458 campuses across 135 nations.  80 campuses worldwide (just 6%) were selected to host the 1,000+ Millennium Fellows.  The Class of 2020 is bold, innovative, and inclusive. 

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UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT RABIYA RIZWAN ISMAIL, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2020.

Tufts University | Massachusetts, United States | Advancing SDG 4 & UNAI 3

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" I am so excited to be part of the Millennium Fellowship because it gives me the opportunity to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion work in higher education. Educating students and young adults on bias and diversity is necessary, it allows them to unlearn the colonized version of U.S. history they may have been taught and be open to a new way of reimagining power and privilege. I am excited to work side-by-side with those who want to empower others in education. "

Millennium Fellowship Project: Racial Awareness in the Classroom

All students at Tufts are required to take foundation requirements: the writing requirement, language requirement, and world civilization requirement. The world civilizations requirement has in the past focused on an “in-depth study of a non-Western civilization or the interaction of non-Western and Western civilizations with equal attention given to both -- including Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and selected indigenous cultures of Oceania and North America” but has failed to address those cultures according to current undergraduate students at Tufts. It has not been re-evaluated since 1986. Times have since changed -- thus, the project goal is to re-vamp the World Civilization requirement into the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion requirement. While ignorance is not the sole cause of racially targeted incidents on campus, it is more important now than ever that Tufts students are aware and educated on the injustices marginalized communities face. This requirement will be the first step to a global and inclusive education.

My original goal was for a committee or task force to be created by October to evaluate the curriculum as it stands, but as of late July, a committee has been created! It will oversee the restructuring of the world civilization requirement. Thus, by the end of October, there should be a plan to host a town hall related to diversity equity, and inclusion in the classroom, and work together with the committee to evaluate what a new requirement would look like, what classes would count for the requirement, what faculty could teach, etc. By the end of December, we will have hopefully finalized plans to include a requirement related to diversity, equity, and inclusion or cultural competency.

About the Millennium Fellow

Raised in a Pakistani household in Orlando, Florida, Rabiya has often found herself juggling multiple identities and experiences. From a young age, she has been passionate about issues pertaining to immigration, homelessness and most recently inequity in education. Currently, she is a first-generation, rising junior at Tufts University double majoring in Political Science and English with a double minor in Education and Entrepreneurship for Social Impact. She strives to expand her knowledge every day by getting involved with work relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion. When she is not involved in actions, you will find her jogging or journaling! A quote she lives by is "For my part I know nothing with certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."

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