Rooted in the intertwined movements of racial justice, anti-imperialism and liberated education in the 1960s and 70s, the formation of ethnic studies changed how race, inequality and the very history of the United States is taught. The first of two round tables, this is a conversation among representatives from Ethnic Studies institutions at CUNY that were established in the 70s and 80s. These include The Center for Ethnic Studies at BMCC, The Department of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Brooklyn College, The Department of Africana and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College and the Asian/American Center at Queens College. This session also has a representative from the History Department at Bronx Community College and a presentation from a member of the CUNY Digital Archive who will share artefacts from the early history of Ethnic Studies at CUNY. Each CUNY Ethnic Studies institution has a rich history and continues to engage new sites of racialization and inequality, and new theoretical frames.

During the pandemic and in the midst of racial unrest in the United States, Queensborough Community College gained a new president, who spent her first 100 days assessing the gaps in equity, diversity, and inclusivity at the college. This panel will share findings of the 100-day self-study addressing performance, policies, and practices that affect student outcomes and faculty/staff retention. This panel will showcase the process, plans, and procedures QCC has enacted to create a meaningful shift in its structure and practices and to highlight and share plans for the future. Additionally, the panel will share base decisions that influenced the changes, ideas for organizing the leadership to make room for such changes, and the way they plan to support and enhance the work of the divisions of the college through best practices in diversity, equity, and inclusivity

The murder of George Floyd made a searing and indelible impression on the entire world. In the wake of an international demand for more just systems, during 2020, students at Hostos Community College challenged the institution to take a stand in support and defense of Black Lives. Student leaders voiced their hopes, fears, and demands of the College to ensure that Hostos is an affirming institution for its Black students. Students demanded to be seen, acknowledged, and affirmed. In response, President Daisy Cocco De Filippis spearheaded a working group to address the concerns. From the students’ righteous cries, Black @ Hostos was birthed. During this interactive workshop, presenters will share the intentionality behind and sustainability of programming, and the cultivation of a shared understanding of struggles, past and present, as well as the triumphant spirit of a people who continually call for America to live up to its highest ideals.

In her essay, Audre Lorde “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” Audre Lorde asks, “What are the words you do not have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? …. Because I am myself -- a Black woman warrior poet doing my work -- come to ask you, are you doing yours?” This panel features the work of four women of color, all junior faculty and organizing members of Lehman Envision ARC -- a coalition of faculty and students working toward an anti-racist university attuned to the community of scholars it serves in the Bronx. Each presentation demonstrates the importance behind women of color organizing together: they create the solidarity and support necessary to thrive and survive not otherwise offered by the university. LEA serves as a platform to envision a college campus that demands equity for its students, faculty, and staff, free of hierarchical divides and injustices. It represents the grassroots formation of a university community unto ourselves, providing resources in lack, including: mentorship, interdisciplinary promotion of one another’s research, collaborative grant writing, curriculum design, and Union and OMBUDS representation for and by us. The members of this collective offer one another support and energy that the university & college, due to systems of structural racism, have failed to provide.

Newer programs and centers in Ethnic Studies have formed as the population of New York City and the United States have changed drastically in the last half century. This second roundtable on Ethnic Studies @ CUNY turns our attention to Ethnic Studies institutions at CUNY that were established after the 1980s or centered particular nationalities. These include The Haitian Studies Institute at Brooklyn College, The CUNY Mexican Studies Institute at Lehman College, The Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies at the CUNY Grad Center, The Black Studies Program at City College, The DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy at Medgar Evers College and the Asian American Studies Program and Center at Hunter College. Each CUNY Ethnic Studies institution has a rich history and continues to engage new sites of racialization and inequality, and new theoretical frames.

In 2020, amidst rising national tensions regarding race, and facing pressure from our student community, Macaulay Honors College embarked on an effort to understand and confront racism within the college’s hierarchy, policies, and curricula. The Dean of the College convened a task force to hire an independent diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) consultant. Simultaneously, faculty are bringing DEI principles into our required seminars as well as our upper-division courses. These reforms are being undertaken with the growing understanding that we, however well-informed and well-intentioned, are limited in our capacity to ask the right questions, perceive solutions for our unique and complex college structure, or implement interventions with far-reaching effects. Our presentation will offer an in-depth and candid discussion of the challenges and successes of this ongoing process, inviting feedback and reflections from participants.

Puerto Rican Studies (PRS) arose in the midst of a revolutionary era and is rooted in empowering education. Students and grassroots activists successfully struggled for inclusion in curricula that often excluded or negatively skewed the Puerto Rican reality in the U.S. In 2019, PRS reached an important milestone in the academy as it marked a mid-century point of what collective consciousness and action can do to create change in and access to higher education for peoples of all backgrounds. PRS not only empowered Puerto Ricans and Latinxs and equipped students from all walks of life, it revolutionized the academy as a whole with CUNY as ground zero. What you learn about its legacy will surprise you. To contribute to the PRS digital archive, material can be sent to: 50YearsofPRS-CUNY@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

CUNY does not have clear guideline against workplace bullying. With the financial condition of CUNY dwindles, workplace tension raises. Many suffered workplace bullying. The presentation focuses on the development of activism through personal suffering to launch policy shifting effort at CCNY and CUNY from 2018-2020 and beyond to evaluate the result of such effort and envision the future resolution to the issue.

Between ages 2-5, children internalize racial bias and display attitudes similar to adults. By age 12, many children become set in their beliefs. Caring and invested educators and parents unintentionally perpetuate anti-Black racism by promoting a color-blind approach stemming from their discomfort navigating conversations on race. Not talking about race reinforces racism in young children; talking about it encourages the development of positive attitudes and skills needed to advocate for racial justice. Since LaGuardia's Philosophy for Children Initiative is committed to introducing philosophy and critical thinking to young people, we took it as our responsibility to center issues of anti-Black racism, equity and inclusion as part of our daily work. Our workshop seeks to equip CUNY parents and educators with what we've learned to help them discuss race with children in a way that builds the foundation for an inclusive, anti-racist, and intergenerationally respectful community of philosophical inquiry.

The idea of implementing anti-racist practice has gained traction in the academy, spurred by work from scholars, such as Ibram X. Kendi (2019) and April Baker-Bell (2020a, 2020b). Yet, as the protests of this summer have shown, anti-racism may be necessary but insufficient in addressing the deeply entrenched anti-Blackness in U.S. society (Sharpe, 2016; Wilderson, 2003; Harney and Moten, 2013; Hartman, 1997; Spillers, 1987; Wynter, 1994). Consequently, in this session, the professor and seven student members of a Graduate Center course on Black girlhoods discuss the means, rationale, challenges, and opportunities of shifting focus from anti-racist to pro-Black educational practice. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in small group breakout sessions to more deeply explore specific topics related to transforming the classroom into a pro-Black learning space.

In this workshop, we will examine linguistic discrimination in the classroom. Conscious or unconscious biases against speakers of “nonstandard” varieties of English are often reflected in our teaching practices, to the detriment of students. Do your syllabus or grading rubrics reference use of “standard English” or “appropriate grammar”? Have you ever deducted points of an assignment due to the presence of linguistic structures that are considered acceptable in a non-standard dialect? If so, what are the consequences for your students? Are there any alternatives? In this workshop, participants will learn about linguistic discrimination and identify ways to move away from approaches that unfairly penalize speakers of “nonstandard” varieties of English without sacrificing academic rigor. Instead, we recommend an asset-based approach which recognizes the value of all language varieties.

Immigrant students from diverse countries, and experiences can be shocked at the racism and sexism they encounter in curricula, and in their lives in New York City, especially if they have not learned about these issues in their first country. Therefore, a framework that provides information and perspective built on student’s personal experiences helps them prepare for their academic texts, critical analysis, and writing. Furthermore, with increased confidence, students are more likely to contribute to dismantling racism and sexism in their personal lives and their communities. Join former CUNY Language Immersion Program (CLIP) students, and their instructor, Caryn T. Davis, in this interactive workshop which they have presented at ESOL conferences and graduate classes in New York City.

Together, we share a commitment to revolutionizing higher education. We believe a more just future depends on our collective work to create equitable and flexible learning environments that empower students. Our interactive panel, inspired by our collaborations within the Mellon-funded, CUNY initiative, Transformative Learning in the Humanities, will explore student-centered approaches to teaching and learning that dismantle racism and the hierarchal structures that support it. Our presentations on pedagogy argue for engaged learning that equips students with the tools they need to become lifelong learners, prepared to think critically, creatively, and proactively in their lives within and beyond the classroom. We contend this turn in pedagogical practice must take place in public education, where most BIPOC and working-class students study. CUNY—the nation’s largest and most diverse public urban university should lead this pedagogical revolution.

This interactive workshop offers a glimpse into an ongoing action research community at Queensborough Community College where participants practice Social Presencing Theater; SPT uses simple body-based exercises to awaken our capacity to sense, discern, and initiate. Workshop attendees are invited to practice and dialogue with the student and alumni participants, while learning about the struggles and successes of sustaining an iterative process on campus. We will include tangible examples from our social change process, from a student’s first person experience of the transformation of everyday life, to ensemble transformation on identity, power, and privilege, and student-initiated programming via a workshop on empathy to action.We aspire to re-cultivate care in our relationships within the academy. Through each delicate gesture of our attention, we revitalize empathy and intuition, developing our capacity to generate space for engaging in difficult conversations, untangling wicked problems, and co-creating open futures.

The opening presentation of this session examines choreographer Joan Miller’s signature solos, Pass Fe White (1970) and Homestretch (1972), in the context of her work establishing Lehman College’s dance program in 1970 and in the 1960s/’70s student uprisings more broadly.  The solos “read” the desire to embody idealized, feminine whiteness within a larger critique of structures for accessing national belonging: marriage, celebrity, and education.  Performing her choreography as a form of black study (Moten and Harney 2013), I argue that Miller’s work affirmed the capacity to desire differently, provoking considerations of other terms for belonging in the world. The closing presentation of this session unpacks the transformative shifts in the Dance Program curriculum at Lehman College in the wake of the uprisings of 2020. I will use images, video, and sound to illustrate personal anecdotes that will reveal the potential impact of these curriculum changes, as a student and teacher rooted in Hip Hop culture. We will discuss the failure of multiculturalism to decenter whiteness in curriculum design, and explore how culturally relevant curriculum and critical pedagogy provide more useful frameworks. It will include the insights, challenges, and some solutions for how the Dance Program is navigating this challenging and necessary moment of change.

This roundtable explores a Freshman Seminar at Queens College, designed to foster first generation student success through course content that emphasizes anti-racism, diversity and inclusion. TA Škrijelj explains her units of the seminar, organized around readings on inequality in higher education, linked to a diversity-conscious exploration of key moments in US history. Faculty member Simerka describes the use of peer models as a tool for freshman empowerment: her units featured presentations from students in the QC Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program. Pedagogy sessions often include excerpts from student work as data. Instead, this roundtable gives voice to the students, with five brief presentations that demonstrate their mastery of and passion for topics ranging from #BLM, to linguistic discrimnation in classroom settings, to microaggression in K-12 and med school settings. The round table concludes with an analysis of the seminar’s successes and consideration of future improvements. 

Students choose dance class for many reasons, usually variations on “because it’s required”. The problem with existing Dance Appreciation texts is their focus on western concert dance forms such as ballet and modern. My decolonization practice relies on movements from many sources to gain a deeper understanding of dance as a social, cultural, and kinesthetic experience. In this workshop, I will guide the participants through a movement-based lecture and offer suggestions they can apply to their classes. Dance matters; it is an everyday experience that connects us.

Like dance, music is a connective tissue among communities. As the faculty in my department began to seek healing in our community through decolonizing our curriculum, we realized that our auditions were barring many potential music majors from even beginning our program. In considering what musics our prospective students learn to love in their communities and high schools, we developed a new BA track in American Music and Culture. Our presentation will discuss the challenges of creating and implementing this program.

As BMCC has worked in recent years to develop a strategic plan that designs for success, and because that plan includes a priority to “demonstrate leadership and a commitment to increase equity, foster inclusion, and dismantle systematic racism,,” a group of BMCC students, staff, and faculty from the BMCC Learning Academy (BLA) participated in a series of Fall 2020 workshops to interrogate the extent to which participant students have experienced and could identify examples of equity, inclusion, and anti-racism in their classes at BMCC. This panel presentation will include details on developing “You Are the Expert” workshops, implementation, and reflections from students on the experience of thinking about inequality, identity, pedagogy, and how to practice anti-racism inside and outside classrooms.

Pure Love is a two-part, performance-led workshop that explores how we can thoughtfully incorporate race, gender, and other elements of identity into music. In the first part of the interactive workshop, participants will be asked to contribute reactions to the piece “Prema” (1978) by Alice Coltrane and compare their listening experiences before and after learning more about Coltrane’s background. Jackson will illustrate how she came to interpretative decisions based upon her own research on the composer and time period.

The second part will discuss the York College Community Jam Session, hosted by Zlabinger since 2017. After running a jazz-centric session for years, Zlabinger decided to host a more open session that would focus on anyone interested in jamming, emphasizing inclusion by welcoming instruments and voices of any background and ability. Music during the session is spontaneously created and all sounds are welcome, as long as all present are encouraged to contribute. Zlabinger will share anecdotes from session participants.

Jackson and Zlabinger will draw connections between Coltrane’s work and the spirit of the jam session. The workshop will conclude with a live improvisation by Jackson and Zlabinger.

Collaborative International Online Learning (COIL) provides opportunities for students to investigate global realities from a cross-cultural perspective.  In a time when acquiring global competencies is vital for the development of an individual and the Corona pandemic discourages face-to-face instruction, virtual exchange through COIL projects connects campuses in different parts of the world.  This presentation is a report from Fujimoto and Gokcora who incorporated the COIL project into their curriculum. The Japanese discussion COIL project promotes active discussion between Queens College (QC) and Nanzan University students in Japan on the topic of cultural differences, diversity, and discrimination in the advanced language class during Spring 2020. On the other hand, at BMCC, immigrant students worked on two major projects with the students at the University of The Bahamas which required them to compare their college education experiences reflecting on Rodriguez’s “The Achievement of Desire” and make an oral presentation by selecting an authentic social injustice topic in their home culture.  The results show that technological tools motivated students to engage in collaborative learning and created meaningful student learning opportunities

Nearly all universities struggle with measuring success with faculty diversity. Generally accepted constructs can provide consistency but may appear difficult to interpret, and findings can appear to conflict with our lived experience. This presentation provides an overview with common methods of measuring diversity, some of which were established by government and have been in use for some time. We will focus on the underlying assumptions, utility and limitations of these methods. Alternative and/or emerging methods will be presented and participants will have time to discuss alternatives that could apply to faculty recruiting, retentions, and advancement.

This panel will discuss the accounts of three Asian women faculty members teaching in the age of COVID-19 and the concomitant escalation of anti-Asian prejudice. Each panelist will explain how their racial identity categories—Asian and female—inform their pedagogical methodologies, their research, and their relationships with their students. The panel will address the urgency of decentering whiteness in the college classroom, and to hold space for the Asian experience in America, particularly in a time fraught with anti-Asian sentiment in the national rhetoric.

This presentation addresses recent activities at Queens College and Queensborough Community College (QCC) which are focused on faculty, student and community engagement around understanding and acknowledging Indigenious survivance. The presenters take the living Land Acknowledgements and engagement with shared authority as it has been practiced in collaboration with the Kupferberg Holocaust Center at QCC as two starting points towards allyship relationships and a centering of Indigenous Knowledge at CUNY. Through this presentation we hope to connect and co-ordinate with other colleagues working on decolonial projects within the CUNY community by sharing information, ideas and resources.

Transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) students deserve safe learning environments. In this workshop, participants will explore personal and societal biases that may negatively affect the learning experiences of their TGNC students. Working with other faculty and staff, participants will co-create tools they can bring back to their classrooms and campuses to include and empower TGNC students. This presentation is a result of a collaborative project beginning when Raz Edwards was a student in Dr. Spring Cooper’s class. Participants will receive informational media materials developed through this classroom experience.

Stereotype threat is "the threat of being viewed through the lens of a negative stereotype or the fear of doing something that would inadvertently confirm that stereotype" (Steele & Aronson, 1995). Research suggests that when students are in performance situations with the potential to activate this “threat”, stress levels may increase, working memory may be reduced, capacity to focus on the task may be lessened, performance may be impaired, and/or sense of belonging in a chosen field may be reduced. Stereotype threat can affect anyone, depending on the context, but students who identify with groups that are underrepresented in a field or institution may be especially vulnerable to its effects. In this workshop, we will define stereotype threat, review the science behind it, identify triggers that may activate this threat, and identity and practice empirically supported strategies to defuse the impact of stereotype threat to foster an equitable learning environment.

In the current political, economic, and social atmosphere, fear, anger, and uncertainty seem to be everywhere. Divisions arise even in the midst of honorable intentions. Many of us are not sure what to do when facing discussions on racism. In this workshop, three anti-racist social work educators with very different social identities use their own experiences and lessons learned to inspire a dialogue on the challenges and learning opportunities participants have faced as facilitators of conversations on racism. Workshop participants will understand more clearly their roles and expectations and identify tools for cultivating deeper compassion for self and others when having these often-difficult conversations. Because of our differences, it is important to honor how deeply personal and consequential issues of racism are when they appear in the classroom, in faculty meetings, and in the field. Leading these critical conversations is essential to promoting equity, access and inclusion in higher education.

“Intersectionality in Practice: Feminist Pedagogy and Praxis in the Classroom” responds to the call for faculty to reconceptualize pedagogy and teaching methods that consciously address issues related to women, gender, and sexuality studies in the community college curriculum and learning space. It considers intersectionality as an integrative framework that can be used by faculty to develop and implement an inclusive pedagogy and praxis.

Humor is a helpful defense mechanism to cope with adversity or trauma; however, it can also be a smoke screen for discrimination in the form of microaggression. The history of the Italian in American humor has from the beginning been a source of both solace and bigotry. Stereotypes were created allowing American humor to birth and foster a culture of discrimination against Italians. This panel will explore how the subtlety of humor continues to encourage prejudice against Italian Americans, whose place as an affirmative action group within CUNY remains fragile due to the widespread acceptance of such behavior. This presentation will include an overview of such humor in the media, a review of the history of humor from the perspective of Italian American studies, and conclude with an analysis of the meanings of humor from a psychological perspective and how humor contributes or detracts from diversity and inclusion.

Healthy CUNY(HC), a University-wide initiative, promotes the health of CUNY students to support their life success. Healthy CUNY investigators have studied and acted to reduce health problems that block student achievement. In this session, Nicholas Freudenberg, Distinguished Professor of Public and faculty director of HC, and Erinn Bacchus, a public health PhD student with HC, reflect on their studies of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, mental health problems and food insecurity on the well-being of CUNY students. They present data from the HC COVID survey, discuss the creation of Guide to Surviving and Thriving at CUNY, designed to help students overcome problems imposed by the pandemic, and suggest how CUNY can create policies and cultures that shrink the deep racial/ethnic and economic health and social gaps that characterize CUNY students. Their vision of a CUNY that incubates health and social equity in NYC seeks to spark a dialogue across CUNY.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had global devastating effects. Black, Indigenous, and people of color have been disproportionately affected while simultaneously navigating a pandemic composed of racism, violence, and injustice. It is imperative to explore and identify the experiences and needs of Black students for their overall wellbeing, educational success, and career trajectory. Research posits that Black students are more likely to feel comfortable around, connect with and disclose to Black faculty and staff. However, for these faculty and staff, this uniquely supportive role may come with negative consequences such as vicarious trauma, burnout, and emotional fatigue. This panel will explore the experiences and needs of Black CUNY students, faculty, and staff. Panelists will provide insight into the intricacies of supporting Black students and the resources that benefit them. Panel members’ experiences and expertise span domains and departments including education, mental health, academic support, and career support from two CUNY colleges.

The unique challenges faced by college students as it relates to mental health throughout this pandemic, have shined a spotlight on the lack of a comprehensive infrastructure for supporting students. These vulnerabilities are amplified by the fact that the academic pressures of college can cause its own set of issues. The pandemic has created an environment that leads to elevated rates of suicidal ideation, anxiety and depression. The stigma of a positive COVID status may exacerbate risk for harm experienced by students with mental health issues. The systemic flaws highlighted by the pandemic can be addressed from a standpoint that sees the merit in implementing comprehensive reforms. Raising awareness about the realities of mental illness among college students is crucial. Offering presentations for students and reimagining all that is possible, will position students for success, and make administrations more capable of helping their students.

We will present preliminary findings on the association of socioeconomic discrimination and depression among young people of color in NYC. People of color and those living in poverty are especially vulnerable to discrimination and microaggressions, particularly when multiple identities intersect with one another. Data were collected from 317 CUNY Freshman (average age 18 years old, majority reported household incomes below $50,000 per family unit, 98% of the participants were students of color) from CUNY campuses in Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and Manhattan. Socioeconomic microaggressions were associated with depression, somatic complaints, and difficulty concentrating. Participants who were food insecure reported more experiences of socioeconomic microaggressions, depression, and difficulty concentrating. We will present findings and lead an open discussion about potential implications surrounding SES microaggressions for CUNY students, including but not limited to social mobility, needs for support, and the intersectionality of discrimination for CUNY students of color who are also food insecure.

Our Panel presents a research assignment that invites first-year composition students to reframe social issues, including racism and other systems of oppression, as public health issues. Two Hunter College students present their research on police brutality and diagnostic overshadowing as public health issues. Then this panel continues to examine the negative consequences of the COVID 19 Pandemic on many CUNY (QCC) students and their families. The historical disadvantages that plagued many minority and immigrant communities were exacerbated when the COVID 19 Pandemic hit the USA and the State of New York. Finally, we highlight the increased struggle of these families to provide housing, food and transportation for their families.

The authors will share first hand experiences and self-care strategies they have used to maintain physical and mental health in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Each presenter will share their perspective from the positions of faculty, Dean, and Chairperson. Emphasis will be placed on the merging of liberation-based self-care, leadership, and pedagogy in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis with a goal of sharing specific strategies for maintaining and strengthening self-care while navigating leadership in the context of the pandemic. The presenters will also discuss how these strategies have been applied to assist members of vulnerable communities, including themselves and students.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES 2018) reports that only 6% percent of the nation’s professoriate are Hispanic/Latinos. This Hispanic Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (H-AGEP) program was created to increase the number Hispanic faculty trained with innovative teaching skills, and to advance knowledge about models to improve pathways to the professoriate and success of historically underrepresented minority (URM) graduate students, particularly Hispanics, in STEM disciplines. The panelists will discuss the new model components, program accomplishments, and lessons learned.

Abstract not available

The Zicklin School of Business has identified three initiatives aligned with our diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. The first is a partnership with the PhD Project to facilitate the development of a pipeline of diverse full-time faculty. The second, the BMCC-Baruch College Business Academy, creates appropriate processes and support structures to facilitate a seamless transition pathway for students in the business administration program at BMCC to complete a BBA degree at the Zicklin school. Finally, to attract more underrepresented students to Zicklin’s graduate programs, the Zicklin School would like to partner with select HBCUs to enroll students in its MS Accountancy and Finance degree programs as well as the full-time MBA program.  Diverse student recruitment is a step in the right direction. However, considerable research has revealed that there is a gap in the ability of business faculty to teach concepts that fully address racial inequities in the classroom. This dilemma begs the question: Are business faculty complicit in  mythologizing business concepts by ignoring historical precedence, due to a practice of white supremacy? Cutting-edge research suggests that business curricula must be demythologized using a symptomal reading practice. This will allow business faculty to dismantle white supremacy in their pedagogy and classroom management by scrutinizing the history of discrimination and racism in American business.

National statistics are clear—historically, the academy has long been made up of mostly white men and women. Approximately six percent of full-time faculty at flagship universities is currently Black or Latino; the numbers specific to Black and Latino male faculty are even more abysmal and represent less than three percent. Members of underrepresented groups (including faculty of color) are desperately needed in higher education not just to increase representation, but also to act as role models for the next generation of students and professionals. Panelists will examine faculty recruitment and retention through a gendered and intersectional lens that considers the intertwining role of race, gender and immigrant status in shaping academic careers. The challenges experienced by racial and ethnic minorities in seeking tenure and promotion will also be discussed, including the most common fears and myths that are often institutionally reproduced. The critical role of mentoring and peer support will also be addressed toward truthfully cultivating diversity and inclusiveness in academia.

This panel illustrates implementation of the transformative, inclusive and anti-ableist pedagogy that promotes equity, diversity and inclusion in the classroom and beyond. The three former LaGuardia CC students will share the highlights of their social psychology course project in which they explored personal struggles for inclusion and equitable futures for themselves and members of their communities. Drawing on the critical social psychology perspective that approaches the self as a socially, culturally, historically, and spatially constructed process of engagement in social relationships and practices, students analyze the personal stories of conforming, negotiating, or resisting the institutional dominant discourses and social practices locating people in various oppressed intersecting positions of gender, class, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability, immigration status, age, or other social categories. The students illustrate developing counter discourses that oppose oppressive and discriminatory dominant discourses and practices and explore positions of the agency and reimagined selves. The panelists will also reflect on the role of knowledge in promoting social justice and consider their contributions to the field of critical social psychology while developing their own activist agendas.

This panel presentation will discuss the findings from an empirical study, as well as the outcome of a classroom intervention in which students felt ‘seen’ not only for who they are but what they were collectively experiencing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research project explored the role of identity status in academic achievement for first generation college students (FGCS). While this population has attracted much scholarly attention, psychosocial factors such as identity remains under-studied. Research suggests that successful FGCS who identify as racial minorities accredit their high academic and life achievements to a communal sense of belonging and constructive identity development. The central argument of this study is that it is not just ethnic or social identity exclusively, but also academic identity that elicits differences in achievement. The presenters will also provide an overview of how participants in an Interdisciplinary Health Psychology course achieved visibility in an online classroom setting during the COVID-19 pandemic. The theme of the course was “racial health disparities and justice”. Strategies for achieving course objectives including the use of breakout rooms, taking inventory of existing beliefs and sources of knowledge, radical easeful access to the professor, and a meditation on plagiarism will be discussed. Presenters will share academic, personal and pedagogical achievements from Fall 2020.  

Almost 4 percent of CUNY students are undocumented. What are their experiences and how can faculty and staff most effectively support them? We propose an interactive workshop that combines research findings and research-informed recommendations with discussion and development of strategies and connections among participants. The presentation is grounded in findings from a research project investigating the experience of CUNY undocumented students, funded by the W. T. Grant Foundation and carried out by the workshop organizers and Drs. Amy Hsin at Queens College. Often stereotyped as “Dreamers” and “DACA students”, undocumented CUNY students are, in fact, a very diverse group. They were born in countries all over the world. They differ in their immigration histories and possibilities for legalization. Many do not identify or even reject the label “Dreamer”. We stress this diversity and the need to center student experiences in building an anti-racist CUNY

Among the many strengths of CUNY, and of Baruch College in particular, is the vast cultural and linguistic diversity represented within its student populations, including the unique ambition and insight these multilingual students bring to their quest for a degree. However, there remains an urgent need for ongoing language support for multilingual students within CUNY. Presenters will demonstrate how a one-of-a-kind academic support program at Baruch, Tools for Clear Speech, serves as a replicable model for improving the oral communication skills of this diverse population. Following an overview of current research in the oral communication challenges many multilingual students face in higher education, the presenters will argue for CUNY-wide involvement in student success by empowering faculty of all disciplines to make their language and teaching practices more accessible to English language learners and non-native English speakers. 

This panel features faculty, staff, and students from the Borough of Manhattan Community College and Guttman Community College who will offer a curricular and cocurricular approach to fostering student belonging, both of which center around shifting students from passive learners to active participants in the creation and dissemination of knowledge and understanding. BMCC will demonstrate a curricular approach of how faculty can collaborate with Career Services to implement career advisement in the classroom through specific interventions to increase engagement such as LinkedIn, group-based problem solving, and the contextualization of course materials. Also, the use of podcasting in Native American/Indigenous literature courses will be presented as a means of further validating student voices and experiences. Guttman and its chapter of Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) Honor Society will present their cocurricular Amplifying Student Voices initiative. The shift to remote learning has resulted in decreased student belonging and interaction, which has compounded stereotypical thinking because of fewer opportunities to build mutual understanding and empathy. In response, PTK members created a student-run website that culminates in an Ending Single Stories event designed to provide all students with a space to engage in dialogue about their collective diversity and to ensure student’s voice is represented in the larger college community. Attendees will be invited to consider how resources on their campus might support curricular and cocurricular efforts to build an inclusive academy in which students are active knowledge creators.

Many current and potential CUNY students are impacted by the vast reach of the criminal legal system. CUNY’s mission is to provide quality education to all New Yorkers, ensuring equal access and opportunity regardless of background or means. While leadership across CUNY agree upon the importance of serving justice system-impacted students as part of this mission, system-impacted students still experience stigma and barriers on campus. Launched in 2020, the CUNY Justice Learning Collaborative convenes administrators, faculty, staff, and students striving to ensure that CUNY is welcoming and supportive to system-involved students. This panel discussion with students in the Learning Collaborative will explore how system-involved students experience campus life and the assets they bring to their institution. Panelists will also discuss opportunities for higher education to improve the quality of interpersonal, academic and professional interactions to work toward a healthy campus and inclusive climate.

The past several years have seen the burgeoning of a large anti-racism training industry. However, there is growing concern among BIPOC in the academy that much of this training reproduces white supremacist values. This is specifically evident as we look at the privileging of white academics within antiracist work such as in the case of Robin DiAngelo. And additionally evident as we look at the long line of white and POC administrators tasked with organizing antiracist work in academic spaces that have not explored their own positionality as it pertains to race, institutional hierarchy and systemic racism and thus reinforce white dominant culture.  How do we go about the important work of operationalizing antiracist values in a way that avoids this dynamic? Members of the CUNY Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Incubator will take the audience through collective naming process of signs of white supremacy within DEI and antiracist processes, and share tools to help uphold antiracist values and culture borrowed from the Racial Equity and Liberation Group, and the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond.

The George Floyd and Breonna Taylor uprising this summer reminded us that any serious discussion of how to create an anti-racist academy must prioritize demilitarization and the removal of police, ICE and other institutions of organized violence from campus. In this session, we will consider the possibilities and limitations of university-led diversity and inclusion projects through an abolitionist framework, comparing and contrasting reformist and non-reformist reforms. The session will feature a panel of CUNY student, staff, and faculty organizers from Rank and File Action, Free CUNY, and CUNY for Abolition and Safety. Panelists will reflect on the contradictions and duality of the public university, considering it as a site where the logics, mechanisms and power of the carceral state and racial capitalism more broadly are reproduced but also, considering the long history and ongoing examples of anti-racist and decolonial struggle, a place of fierce resistance. The format of the workshop will encourage participation and interaction with attendees, fostering the development of connections and analysis across the CUNY system.

The Power of An Antiracist Academy: Reimagining Systems & Structures, considering the current political and intellectual climate, is a very provocative and challenging topic that can be objectively discussed by intellectuals deeply committed to the creation of a better world, beyond void rhetoric. I wonder, how are power relations currently articulated within CUNY? Who dominates who? In the relations ‘agents’ vs ‘structures,’ who are those responsible for the maintenance and reproduction of systems that have prevented systemic changes within our public institution? As it is articulated, is CUNY’s institutional dynamic compatible with heterogeneity, ‘diversalité’ and ‘pluriversality’ of its actors? This proposal attempts to answer those questions while offering an interpretive approach helpful to advance towards the decoloniality of power and knowledge, as well as the demolition of discourses and practices anchored in soft segregation, and systemic and institutional racism.

CUNY Unlimited, an inclusive model for students with intellectual disabilities (ID), opens educational and career opportunities for citizens typically denied access to college. “Belonging” is thought to be particularly important to the success of student communities that have historically under-participated in higher education (Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Strayhorn, 2012). Yet, little is known about perceptions of belonging by this student group. Understanding belonging by students with ID, and other stakeholders, allows faculty, program designers, and administrators to grow best practices, programs, processes and systems that support inclusion in higher education. Quantitative and qualitative data collected over five years was analyzed using student affairs, inclusion and adult learning frameworks. Findings identified artifacts of belonging, as described by these various groups, that are used in the construction of belonging, whereas language highlights symbols of belonging and systems that emphasize nonbelonging. Recommendations for how to resolve systemic barriers to inclusion will be discussed.

Touted as the most educated demographic group in the U.S., Black women represent a mere 3 percent of faculty, inclusive of all ranks. To address the underrepresentation of Black women scholars, higher education institutions must do more than “open the door” and increase the racial and ethnic makeup of its ranks. Recruiting, hiring, retaining and supporting Black women scholars will require universities to center their voices, address and dismantle substantive structural barriers, and more specifically, acknowledge how the multiple identities (i.e., race, class and gender) of Black women intersect to create multiple oppressions, in and out of the classroom. Relying on the HistoryMakers Digital Archive and contemporary case studies, we analyze the educational experiences of Black women scholars, primarily in STEM and social sciences. Emergent themes detailing HistoryMakers' means of support, culture, and impactful experiences can inform tangible, institutional recommendations to reimagine and cultivate a more equitable and accessible academy.

One group will present results from a faculty-student teaching collaborative focused on antiracist pedagogy at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, and describe current goals, methods, and strategies employed to create change in their pedagogy. Another group will present results from a yearlong peer-mentoring effort through an online faculty writing group aimed at faculty retention and dismantling structural racism and systemic inequities for women faculty and faculty of color at Hunter College. Panelists will share their processes, reflections, struggles, and successes as well as the potential implications of structurally embedding similar spaces across CUNY institutions.

Abstract not available

Two CUNY campuses have created methods of tackling the pervasive challenge of systemic and structural racism in criminal justice, health care, and education that has been starkly exposed by the pandemic. The first, Bronx Community College, has engaged its faculty, staff and students by creating the BCC Social Justice Network (SJN). Sick and tired of being sick and tired of performative solidarity statements and status quo curricula, the SJN came together to enact socially-just practices and civic engagement activities. As a result, the SJN supported over a two dozen initiatives in the Fall of 2020 and Spring 2021. SJN members, will first share their experiences and identify the continued institutional challenges to social justice initiatives they encountered. The second example is from Queens College where presenters will discuss the inception and existence of the Black Latinx Faculty and Staff Association and the purpose of initiating an antiracist academy while fostering a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community of administration, scholars, and learners. They will examine how Critical Race Theory (CRT) can be centered through the recreation of organizational systems with power, curricula, and understanding the experiences of the communities that remain at risk of exposure to the novel coronavirus.

One-half of CUNY’s colleges are designated as Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI’s). An HSI is an eligible institution with an enrollment of at least 25 percent Hispanic undergraduate full-time equivalent students. As a federally designated HSI, these campuses are eligible for grant funding from the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). In fact, in 2014-2015, the top five institutions for enrolling Hispanic undergraduates in New York were all CUNY schools. It is crucial to develop and support best practices supporting CUNY faculty will share experiences and initiatives, discuss challenges, and identify growth areas on our campuses. Developing an HSI identity can create safe spaces for Latinx faculty and students to share mentorship, scholarship, and experiential experiences for Latinx students. CUNY faculty will share experiences and initiatives, discuss challenges, and identify growth areas on our campuses