Black Community Solidarity
Below you'll find our post category archive. Note that many titles will have , , and at the end of the text. These help identify pages, posts, and events representing our three core values: Community, Thriving, and Wellness. To learn more about this, read about our Action Plan. These also all help support our #ActForInclusion.
UC President Michael V. Drake reflects on Black History Month ♥ ★ ✚
This Black History Month, UC President Michael V. Drake reflects on the Black workers, scholars, artists and activists who have propelled the University of California-and the world-forward and the work that remains to achieve our ideals of equality, inclusion and justice.
UCI Black Thriving Initiative Update ♥ ★✚
We are in the third month of the UCI Black Thriving Initiative. National awareness is growing. The initiative has received coverage in the Los Angeles Times, attention in Insidehighered and notice in the Chronicle of Higher Education. This week Chancellor Gillman featured the initiative during his presentation at the national meeting of the Association of Public Land Grant Universities this week. This national awareness is matched by the whole university engagement with the three action platforms. As I detail below, our undergraduates and graduate students, faculty and staff, and alumni are responding to the imperative to make UCI the nation’s…
Take the Pledge! ♥★✚
Dear Campus Community, This fall, all UCI community members are encouraged to Take the Pledge as a first step in helping to shape a university culture where Black people can thrive. The Take the Pledge campaign builds on the UCI Black Thriving Initiative, which aims to respond to and recognize anti-Blackness as an existential threat to our mission as a great public research university. A Black thriving culture relies on all of us being accountable for confronting anti-Blackness where teaching and learning, discovery and creativity, and healing and serving take place at and on behalf of UCI. The purpose of…
Fall 2020 Inclusive Excellence Opportunities ♥ ★ ✚
Dear Campus Community, As we begin the new academic year, I write to welcome you and invite you to participate in advancing the campus commitment to inclusive excellence. Below are several opportunities to learn and grow as a community with faculty, staff and students through our curricula and courses. Modules for Confronting Anti-Blackness (https://inclusion.uci.edu/inclusive-excellence-certificate-program/modules/) Preventing anti-Blackness by understanding it. Several new courses are free and open to all UCI faculty, staff and students. These five-hour modules include weekly moderated discussions that are supplemented by reading and viewing resources: Module 1: Anti-Blackness in the U.S.: Black Protest Tradition Module 2: Anti-Blackness…
Establish an External Advisory Board for the Black Thriving Initiative and Office of Inclusive Excellence Speakers Bureau
<<Back to Black Thriving Initiative Establish an External Advisory Board for the Black Thriving Initiative and Office of Inclusive Excellence Speakers Bureau The Initiative requires a coherent strategy and purposeful execution to succeed. This is particularly the case in Orange County where Black people comprise a little less than 2% of the general population of 3 million or 60,000 people. The size of the Black community requires a strategy that is simultaneously focused and broad; engaging with Orange County while reaching Black population centers, including Los Angeles, Bay Area, and Sacramento, across the state and the nation. To facilitate…
Change Aligns the UCI Police Department with the Campus Commitment to Inclusive Excellence
<<Back to Black Thriving Initiative Change Aligns the UCI Police Department with the Campus Commitment to Inclusive Excellence As the current national reckoning has underscored, policing is definitely a major focal point for change. The campus takes this seriously as part of a comprehensive commitment to inclusive excellence. A whole university approach toward safety and community conceives of the police department as serving the campus according to equity diversity, inclusion and free speech principles. The Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC) playa a critical role in the continuous improvement in campus policing. Reporting to Vice Chancellor of the Division of Finance…
Recognize and Interrupt Microagressions
<< Return to Change the Culture Recognize Microaggressions and the Messages They Send Racial Microaggressions as a Tool to Understand Everyday Racism in Academia Interrupting Microaggressions Racial Microaggressions – Annotated Bibliograph Recommended Readings: Ogunyemi, D., Clare, C., Astudillo, Y. M., Marseille, M., Manu, E., & Kim, S. (2020). Microaggressions in the learning environment: A systematic review. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 13(2), 97–119. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000107 Sue, D. W., Alsaidi, S., Awad, M. N., Glaeser, E., Calle, C. Z., & Mendez, N. (2019). Disarming racial microaggressions: Microintervention strategies for targets, White allies, and bystanders. American Psychologist, 74(1), 128-142. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000296 Lui, P. P., & Quezada, L….
Office of Inclusive Excellence | Why Juneteenth Matters in 2020 ♥★✚
Dear campus community, Today the campus observes the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth or National Freedom Day. It refers to the date when enslaved Black men, women and children in the state of Texas collectively marked their emancipation at the end of the Civil War. Since then, Juneteenth not only commemorates the ending of chattel slavery by Black communities, but also bears witness to the millions of Black people who were enslaved and exploited for well over 400 years. (For more information, visit the National Museum of African American History & Culture: https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/celebrating-juneteenth.) Juneteenth is different from the celebration of national…
Office of Inclusive Excellence | Inclusive Excellence and the UCI Police Department ♥ ★ ✚
To the Anteater community: We are writing to announce several actions to further align the UCI Police Department with our commitment to inclusive excellence and confronting anti-Black racism. This commitment is grounded in a community where all expect equity, support diversity, practice inclusion and honor free speech. Realizing this commitment mandates a campus police department that serves our university community according to these principles. These actions further UCI Police Department’s work to continuously improve service and relationships with the University’s diverse community and build on the recommendations of the 2019 Presidential Taskforce Report on Universitywide Policing. We are also acting…
School of Humanities | Events this week on anti-blackness and racism ♥ ★ ✚
Events this week on anti-blackness and racism The events of the last two weeks following the police killing of George Floyd have galvanized ongoing protests and calls for action against the structural racism in American society. Across the campus and in the School of Humanities, there have been several events to educate ourselves and learn about anti-black racism and to discuss what we can do to make meaningful change. In my drop-in lunch with faculty and staff yesterday, I was asked about further opportunities to learn and also share access to our events with members of the larger community…