The Rockefeller Center’s student grant program is one of the few of its kind at Dartmouth, offering funds for individual students to attend off-campus conferences or for student groups to host an event on campus. This past academic year, the Center supported 20 students and student groups with the Mini Grant Program.
One of the recent individual recipients was Kaira Shlipak ’26, who attended the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association Conference at the University of California, Los Angeles. The conference was a gathering of activists focused on multiracial topics, community organizing, and related policy. Kaira shared, “From the landmark Loving decision of 1967, which deemed prohibitions on interracial marriage unconstitutional, to early multiracial community organizing through I-Pride and the Hapa Issues Forum, and the change to the United States Census in 2000 allowing individuals to select more than one race, I learned that I stand on decades of advocacy and coalition building that made multiracial experiences visible within law, policy, and public consciousness.” She continued, “It was valuable to learn from scholars about frameworks for understanding my own experiences and those shared in our organization, MOSAIC.” As the president of MOSAIC, Dartmouth’s own multiracial student organization, Kaira was able to take these perspectives and her own reflections and bring it back to her organization. Upon her return she facilitated and hosted a reflection session for MOSAIC members and the greater student population. Her presentation covered key takeaways garnered from pioneers in critical race theory and discussed how to work across different college campuses with other similar student groups to build greater community.
Rocky also helped support on-campus programing by helping fund the Dartmouth Organization of Rural Students (DOORs) in hosting Rurality in the Ivy. This conference was attended by rural students from colleges and universities across the Northeast and “open[ed] a new space on Dartmouth’s campus for dialogue and discussion about rural and small-town identity, policy, and challenges” explained Nathaniel Wayne representative for DOORs. The event was a day long affair, starting with a panel on rural education policy in K-12 settings leading into breakaway group discussions and a keynote address. The keynote, by Mara Casey Tieken ’01, discussed how rural students can and do thrive at top colleges. By focusing on uplifting and connecting students to experts and peers alike, “Each session offered another angle [to examine] the presence of rurality in education, encouraging students to think about how their college experience relates to their home and future,” Natheniel said.
Mara Casey Tieken ’01
Mara Casey Tieken ’01 giving the keynote at Rurality in the Ivy.
Those interested in applying for a Rockefeller Student Mini Grant can find more information on our website. Application review dates for the upcoming 26-27 academic year will be posted in the coming weeks.