Redressing historical and contemporary inequities

A culturally competent community member will recognize and understand individuals’ and groups’ historical and contemporary experiences with power, privilege, and oppression. This includes actively confronting institutional barriers, inequities, and disparities in education and other systems in pursuit of justice, and doing so with thoughtfulness, savvy, and an intersectional lens.

Delilah – Pursuing Skill Development

Delilah has lived in her community for more than 15 years. While she has been aware of immigration as a heated political issue at a national level, rarely have conversations about immigration been broached among her friends and colleagues in town. In recent months, the discourse has changed dramatically. Delilah finds herself in multiple conversations a week where her colleagues, friends and acquaintances are openly discussing the impacts of national immigration policy on their lives and in the happenings of their town.

The Counseling Center Team – Shaping Practices with Historical Context

The team at Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) is well aware that the number of students of color who access services is well below proportion in relation to white peers, and the rate of access does not reflect the level of need assessed through institution-wide surveys and corroborated with the college counseling scholarship. It has been three years since the CAPS team became fully conscious of the racialized disparity of student access, and the team has not realized meaningful change.

The Academic Affairs Team – Enabling Critical Inquiry

Across the country, multiple public colleges and universities are engaging in dialogue and self-examination of problematic histories related to the inclusion and full participation of African American students, faculty and staff. Media coverage on these institutions is reaching a fever pitch. In addition to conversations being ever-present in television programs and periodicals, the academic discourse in journals and conferences is increasingly engaging the conversations initiated by student, faculty and staff activists.

Reuben – Examining Exclusive Cultures

Rueben is the director and principal investigator of a lab in wildlife and fisheries. He attends a meeting as a function of Academic and Student Affairs’ joint student success initiative. At the meeting, Reuben learns about a phenomenon on his campus in which several labs on campus have been successful in attracting women, queer and trans folk and students of color as undergraduate and graduate research assistants.

The Biology Department – Confronting Troubling Histories

Following a series of direct actions by student activists and their faculty and staff allies, a team of faculty and researchers in Biology engage in a learning series about the department’s history with the 20th century eugenics movement. The team’s dialogue and self-study reveal troubling and violent research agendas in the department’s past that directly contributed to scientific racism and ultimately produced harmful and inaccurate knowledge that drives contemporary white supremacist discourses.

Edward – Offsetting Costs, Improving Access

Edward is an associate professor in Chemistry, and an active member of Faculty Senate. At a recent Faculty Senate assembly, student leaders who organize the campus food pantry presented a report on how students are navigating the skyrocketing costs of college attendance. The student leaders shared troubling statistics of growing rates of student food insecurity, hunger and houselessness and how all of these conditions are exacerbated by inflating tuition rates, student fees and textbook costs.

Marjorie – Flipping the Curriculum

Marjorie is a senior instructor in Musicology. After attending a national disciplinary conference and attending a number of sessions on issues of diversity and representation in musicology, Marjorie is overwhelmed and inspired by the ideas shared by colleagues. She reflects on her newly forming knowledge about the underrepresentation of women and people of color in the scholarship of musicology and the erasure of their contributions in the canon of music theory and contemporary musicology.

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