The Office of Undergraduate Intellectual Life (OUIL) was founded to support students across Rutgers University. Under the leadership of ISGRJ Cross-Campus Director, Carlos Decena, the Office will be spearheading mentorship programs and initiatives to support student leadership in diversity, equity, and inclusion across the university.
Carlos Ulises Decena is the Acting Director, and Cross-Campus Director of Undergraduate Intellectual Life at the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice, and Professor of Latino and Caribbean Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. He is an interdisciplinary scholar of immigration and queer studies, and his research explores the meeting points of Black, ethnic, and area studies.
The Program Coordinators are an integral part of the Office of Undergraduate Intellectual Life. They work closely with the director to coordinate our two main office functions: the RAJU Fellowship and our Student Advisory Board.
Grace Asare is a senior at Rutgers University-Camden majoring in Political Science and double minoring in Legal Studies and Statistics. Grace was previously a part of the Fellows in Racial Justice Learning Community (RAJU), where she co-created a documentary focusing on housing and environmental justice in Camden. She now is committed to expanding racial justice efforts and learning across Rutgers campuses as leads the 2024-25 Student Advisory Board.
Jilary Guaman Calle is a senior at Rutgers University-Newark, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Women’s & Gender Studies. Jilary also pursues a double concentration in Social Justice through the Honors Living-Learning Community (HLLC) and the Honors College. As a member of the Fellows in Racial Justice Learning Community (RAJU), they worked to illuminate community narratives within decolonization discourse, offering a platform for individuals to reflect on the impact of colonialism on their current lives.
Camila María Belliard (Ph.Dc) is a co-founder and coordinator of the Fellows in Racial Justice Learning Community (RAJU). She is a feminist, antiracist, and interdisciplinary social researcher with a background in Social Anthropology. Her professional experience focuses on marginalized black, femme, and queer communities in South America and the Caribbean from the perspective of transnational gender and sexuality studies grounded in the social sciences and the humanities.
The Fellows in Racial Justice (RAJU) Learning Community at the ISGRJ is a universitywide program which aims to identify, accompany and mentor generations of lifelong intellectual activists in racial justice.
This program, open to all undergraduate sophomores, juniors and seniors from Rutgers-Newark, Rutgers-New Brunswick and Rutgers-Camden, centers and maximizes the intellectual capital and cultural resources of students, many of whom have been systematically disenfranchised and excluded from knowledge production and centers of power.
RAJU Fellowship Core Values:
Experiential/Embodied Knowledge
Community Orientation and Ethos of Care
Passion in Social Justice and Activism
Cultural Responsiveness
The Office of Undergraduate Intellectual Life at the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice is pleased to announce its third annual call for applications for the 2024-2025 Fellows in Racial Justice (RAJU) Learning Community. The Fellows in Racial Justice Learning Community is open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors from Rutgers-Newark, Rutgers-New Brunswick, and Rutgers-Camden. There is no minimum GPA requirement. We are looking for students who:
- Are assertive and bold in their convictions and good communicators/listeners
- Are passionate about social justice and activism
- Are interested in thinking from embodied personal and collective experiences
- Want to show up for their communities
- Have diverse positionalities and interact with different identities
- Have availability to commit to being part of this learning community and designing a social action project during the 24-25 academic year
The RAJU fellowship will start on Friday, October 18th, 2024, and continue to the spring of 2025. Enrollment in the entire program is 1.5 credits per semester, for a total of 3 credits. The selected RAJU fellows will meet virtually biweekly on Fridays from 12 pm to 1:30 pm via Zoom, with four in-person meetings on each campus during their fellowship year. At the conclusion of their fellowship year, the RAJU fellows will present a group Social Action Project, which they will plan and create collectively from the beginning and implement by the summer of 2025. The program will end with the fellows' participation in the Racial Justice Summit in the fall of 2025.
Please join us for the second annual Racial Justice Summit: Fighting for the Now, Hopeful for the Future: Living and Breathing Camden. This pivotal event is the only cross-campus, student-led initiative dedicated to exploring the future of racial justice on all three Rutgers campuses, and this year specifically, will address critical issues of environmental and housing justice. The summit will be held on Friday, September 20, 2024 at Rutgers-Camden and is presented by the Office of Undergraduate Intellectual Life and Fellows in Racial Justice Learning Community at the ISGRJ. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from passionate advocates and innovators committed to justice in their communities and beyond.
This year's keynote will be delivered by Arielle King, Environmental Justice Strategist and Assistant Director of the Racial Justice Center at the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The Educational Equity and Excellence Collaborative (E3C), partners with our outstanding access and equity initiatives at Rutgers, and facilitates an eco-system that is committed to equitable outcomes for New Jersey’s historically underserved populations. Funded in part by a U.S. Department of Education grant, the Collaborative will deepen relationships with K–12 and higher education allies across our state.
The E3C will support the innovative pre-college access and student success programs across Rutgers by providing opportunities to build capacity and enhance collaboration. The E3C will create a clearinghouse of resources for students, families, and educators, sharing best practices through symposiums and innovation labs, and supporting cutting-edge research. Through the Educational Equity Innovation Fund, the E3C will incentivize faculty and staff to explore ways to increase access and success for students from lower-income and/or other historically underserved backgrounds. The E3C will provide a platform to amplify the enduring Rutgers story of opportunity and excellence to prospective educational and philanthropic partners.