About RCAH
RCAH Mission, Vision, and Values
MISSION STATEMENT
The Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH) is a student-centered college that mobilizes the arts and humanities through our wide range of programming to create collaborative, community engaged methods for addressing the complex societal problems facing our local and global communities and to reimagine and build a more just, equitable, and sustainable world.
VISION STATEMENT
As a degree-granting college at Michigan State University, The Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH) is an educational space built on the ongoing transformative work of radically reciprocal teaching and learning. A residential college in the fullest sense, we build community among our students, faculty, staff, and the people around us, wherever we are living. We are grounded in—and push the boundaries of—the arts and humanities to create space for and deepen multiple ways of knowing that can be mobilized for equity and social justice. We strive to be accessible and accountable to communities as experts and coproducers of knowledge. Our transdisciplinary efforts address inequities that undermine the potential of a socially engaged and communitybased university and a more just society.
VALUES
VALUE 1 RCAH SEEDS CHANGE
“(R)evolutionary college” describes RCAH and our faculty, staff, and students who seek positive social change by engaging in the arts and humanities to root out inequities. We apply multiple ways of knowing, social justice principles, and integrated critical and creative thinking to advance knowledge within and between MSU and the communities we serve.
VALUE 2 RCAH BUILDS COMMUNITY
We are committed to building a community that values the well-being of all who live, learn, and work together in the context of RCAH. We recognize that community-building happens across the College and among our external partners. The relationships we foster sustain us and help provide a sense of pluriversal belonging that is essential to RCAH.
VALUE 3 RCAH CREATES INCLUSIVE FUTURES
By encouraging our community members to explore and experiment with different forms of expression, we advocate for creative alternatives to traditional teaching, learning, and problemsolving. Through creativity, we aim to grow our College, empower our communities, celebrate our learning, and prepare students professionally and personally as they chart their futures.
VALUE 4 RCAH FOSTERS RADICAL RECIPROCITY
We believe socially engaged and community-based teaching and learning can lead to more transformative opportunities for ourselves, our communities, and society at large. We carry this approach across the spaces in which we work, learn, and live. We are committed to creating an environment that recognizes and embraces the many differences represented by all members of our community and supports each member in meeting their full potential. We strive for shared understanding in which our knowledge is produced collaboratively.
VALUE 5 RCAH (RE)IMAGINES POSSIBILITIES FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
We believe imagination is critical to broadening knowledge. Interdisciplinarity, creativity, experimentation, innovation, and intellectual vibrancy are essential. We use imagination to critically examine and understand the conditions that produce social, political, and historical inequities, as well as to build knowledge, explore values, and understand culture. We meet these challenges by (re)imagining new possibilities for doing and being in the world.