Confronting Extremism Awards
Understanding Extremism
Please note: there are no calls out currently. Future calls are to be determined.
Understanding extremism is a fundamental responsibility for citizenship in the 21st century. The scale and scope of extremism poses a threat to our civic institutions, democratic values and our very multi-cultural society. It demands more than an initiative. The Confronting Extremism Program initially grew out of needs to understand rising extremism in the nation while fortifying our resilience as a campus community. Nearly 50 programs have been funded to-date to advance knowledge and positive actions for inclusive excellence.
Upcoming Events
Learning from Lectures and Conversations
A Debate on Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism with Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalists Michelle Goldberg and Bret Stephens
Racial Bias in America: How Did We Get Here and Why Are We Stuck?
with Jeffery Robinson, Deputy Legal Director, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Charlottesville: A Defining Moment in America: A Conversation with Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., Chancellor’s Professor Michele Goodwin, and Dr. Rabbi Hillel Cohn
Antisemitism: A Conversation with Deborah Lipstadt and Douglas M. Haynes
Calls for Proposals
Confronting Extremism through Compelling Work for Community Needs
Three projects were funded to examine the instances where best practices (from past funded projects or other evidence) may mutually address individual and systemic issues challenged by extremism to measurable ends and impacts. Student directors and faculty directors of student resource centers and Senate faculty are eligible to submit proposals. Find out more about this initiative.
Confronting Extremism through Community, Thriving and Wellness
Ten projects were funded to highlight approaches to enhance outcomes for community, thriving, and wellness in the face of extremism and the deleterious impacts of COVID-19. Find out more about this initiative.
Building Community to Confront Extremism
Eleven projects were funded to foster UCI community while confronting extreme ideologies, practices, policies and systems that are far outside of the norms for verdant and democratic values. Find out more about this initiative .
Are We in This Together? Advancing Equity in the Age of COVID-19
Nineteen projects were funded as part of a call exploring “The Are We in This Together? Advancing Equity in the Age of COVID-19.” The funded project leads represented Senate faculty, research center teams, and resource project directors examining the meaning (s) of the pandemic from a broad cross section of fields, disciplines, methodologies or theoretical perspectives. Using COVID-19 as a lens through which to explore fault lines of inequities, these projects interrogate the uneven effects and realities of the pandemic on people, communities, societies, nation-states, state systems or global or planetary conditions. Find out more about this initiative.
Provost Initiative on Contemporary Issues: Understanding Domestic Terrorism
The Provost Initiative on Contemporary Issues: Understanding Domestic Terrorism requests UCI Senate faculty proposals that explore the origins and sources, causes and consequences, methods and modalities, representations and discourses, and responses to and engagement with domestic terrorism. Find out more about this initiative.
Provost Initiative on Understanding and Engaging with Extremism
Eight faculty were funded for projects in the 2017-2018 call for proposals which (1) confront the denial of our common humanity; (2) confront the denial of science; or (3) broaden experiential learning and critical inquiry in general education courses. Find out more about the funded projects by clicking on the “2018 Awardees” tab on the initiative web page, and view the introduction videos for each funded project to hear directly from the faculty awardees. To receive an update on the outcome of the funded projects, visit our website later in the fall to find out about our Confronting Extremism Talks event in November.
Exploring Extremism Through Faculty Research
About the Initiative
con·front·ing
facing especially in challenge; causing to meet; bringing face-to-face
ex·trem·ism
the quality or state of being extreme; advocacy of extreme measures or views
– www.Merriam-Webster.com
UCI Confronting Extremism was launched as a one-year initiative in 2017 with the opening event, Charlottesville: A Defining Moment in America, A Conversation with Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. The initiative was dedicated to understanding the ideas and behaviors advocated far outside of alignment to the campus values for social justice and equity in today' society as a means to identify pathways for building positive campus and democratic communities.
The initiative connected current campus efforts with new intentions and activities – emphasizing the merits of research, innovative teaching and engaged service to inform inquiry and knowledge bases, practices, and values clarification aligned to the University’s mission in and beyond the 21st century. Moreover, the initiative dissected extreme rhetoric, violent acts, and related incidents, to reject their associated limits and divisions and, rather, to explore proactive, evidence-based, and instructive approaches and actions where societal progress may emerge.
What's next? Understanding extremism is a fundamental responsibility for citizenship in the 21st century. The scale and scope of extremism poses a threat to our civic institutions, democratic values and our very multi-cultural society. It demands more than an initiative. It is for this reason that Vice Chancellor Douglas Hayes is announcing the establishment of Confronting Extremism as a dedicated campus-wide program. The former initiative responded to an event, the program is designed to fortify our resilience as a campus community while advancing our commitment to inclusive excellence.
[1] Statistics on Incidents of Terrorism Worldwide retrieved from: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/statistics-on-incidents-of-terrorism-worldwide.
[2] See Indicators of school crime and safety: 2014, retrieved from: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2015/2015072.pdf.
[3] See the UCI Strategic Plan (2016), p. 3.