Our Current Praxis
Beginning in the Fall Quarter of the 2017-2018 Academic Year, IRISE engaged with faculty, department chairs, on-campus institutes and centers, and off-campus partners toward identifying how its resources would be directed. In the Fall of 2017, IRISE conducted a series of focus groups with DU faculty and staff whose research and expertise connected with IRISE's initiatives. A guiding question for each focus group was "how could IRISE best direct its resources and priorities to meet its mission and align its work with that of DU Impact 2025. What emerged from these conversations was a recognition that DU could play a leading role in responding to issues of racial inequity, documented most prominently by the Rocky Mountain Public Broadcast Station (RMPBS) in its award winning Losing Ground report.
IRISE is an effort to respond directly to many of the issues identified in the Rocky Mountain PBS Losing Ground Report. Our new initiative seeks to make IRISE a community-centered fulcrum that amplifies campus expertise, marshals interdisciplinary campus resources, and creates meaningful pathways for DU to partner with non-DU leaders and organizations to challenge systems and structures that lead to racial and social inequities. IRISE therefore seeks to equip our campus to partner with community agencies and historically marginalized groups and individuals in the collaborative production and application of knowledge leading to greater community inclusion.
IRISE ultimately expands the university's ability to work at the racial and political borderlands between and within historically marginalized communities to effectuate meaningful social inclusion.