Alexandra Doyle Bauer and Monica Diego at Palomar College created a Black Lives Matter and Asian Pacific Islander resource guide for the library. Thank you for your leadership towards racial equity at Palomar College! The BLM resource guide is here and the API guide can be found here.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Antiracism
Palomar College Pronoun Project
Our Palomar Pride Center and colleagues have put together a really wonderful pronoun guide to share with campus.
Pronouns are an important part of gender identity and a way for people to show respect for people and their gender. Traditionally male pronouns are he/him/his, traditionally female pronouns are she/her/hers. But there are other options for pronouns that people may prefer when the traditional pronouns don’t feel right. These are known as gender neutral or gender inclusive pronouns. Gender inclusive pronouns can seem awkward or unfamiliar to those who are unused to them. But they offer an opportunity for people to find personal pronouns that fit who they are and feel good to them. Pronoun usage matters. Using people’s correct personal pronouns validates and confirms that you see them and that they are respected. Many people feel that alternative pronouns are silly or wrong, but using correct personal pronouns is a very basic way to prevent someone from feeling invalidated and disrespected.
Africana Studies for Staff, Faculty, and Admin at Palomar College
Posters for Inclusion Project
MATCH in collaboration with the counseling department has created the ‘Student Edification Project’. You will soon see in many classrooms’ posters that validate, engage, and give students a sense of belonging to succeed in our classes. We want to encourage students to persevere in our classes, and by attending to their affective domain we will together edify them so they can gain agency and focus on our class content. Please visit here to download and use:
White Allies for Antiracism at Palomar College
White Allies for Antiracism at Palomar College
A new group has formed at Palomar College over the summer to support antiracist efforts. This group is open to and inclusive of all employees of Palomar College. This group’s focus is listening, learning, collaborating, and acting in support of BIPOC colleagues at Palomar College. The group’s first meeting will be Friday, August 28, from 9am-10am via Zoom. To register for the meeting, please click here: https://bit.ly/WAAPC
Vigils Held for Black Lives Matter & Asian Pacific Islander Community
This summer Palomar College held a Black Lives Matter Vigil, two Equity forums and healing circles and a region X forum to support Black Indigenous and People of Color. Please stay tuned for additional forums as they occur throughout the year!
Palomar College Joins USC Equity Alliance
Palomar College is very excited about this opportunity. Being a part of this alliance will mean a sustained year-long professional development program. Each month we will get to send 5 people to the monthly e-convening where they will spend 3 hours in a deep dive of the content and the final hour will be spent learning how to teach the content to our campus. Each group will create an action plan for the campus based on their work. This means each month for the next year, 5 of our colleagues will be teaching us. At the kick-off call we learned we can either send the same 5 people to each e-convening, however we are encouraged to send 5 different people each time. Looking forward to the next meeting in September. Dr. Harper who organized the alliance has also been nominated as a member of Governor Gavin Newsom’s new California Higher Education Recovery with Equity Taskforce. The Taskforce includes state and national experts in higher education known for equity and innovation work.
Decolonizing Syllabi & Institutionalizing at Palomar College
Drs. Hossna Sadat and Luis Guerrero are presenting at this years plenary on methods to decolonize ones syllabus to make it within the antiracist framework. They will be working with campus groups this year to determine if this can be an institutionally adopted practice. More information to come!
NACCC Survey Data Update
The National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates (NACCC) is an annual campus climate survey administered by the Race and Equity Center at USC to students at colleges and universities nationwide. Administration of the survey was introduced to the campus community at Spring Plenary in January 2019. This was followed by a faculty and student memo regarding the survey from the college president in early February 2019. IR&P requested the student level data from the Race and Equity Center and is currently coding and analyzing this data. IR&P will use these survey analyses to complement the report provided by the Race and Equity Center and help set up the reporting for the upcoming administration of the survey as part of the USC/CCC alliance teamwork.
Required Antiracist Question(s) For Administrators and Staff & Next Steps
The administrators and classified staff have adopted a policy to require all interviews for admin and staff to require an antiracist question pre-interview to assess new applicants dedication to antiracism. In addition, administrators have met over the summer to create a draft plan to share with the Strategic Planning council to agree upon a shared goal, barriers, and action steps to remove those barriers. Faculty and staff have also brainstormed ideas in our Teams channel which will be folded into these discussions. More to come!