Black Thriving Initiative
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.
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…
Drawing upon Evidence-Based Practices for Staff Leaders
<< Return to Mission: Mobilizing the Whole University to Promote Black Student Success, Degree Completion, and Advancement in UCI’s Academic Programs Drawing upon Evidence-Based Practices for Staff Leaders Staff members represent a mainstay to support the research productivity and student learning and development at UCI. However, Black representation across all staff has stagnated at 3% for over a decade and specifically it has dwindled among senior management group leadership to a current low of 14% at a time when the university is using various programs to diversify faculty and students. Alongside all Office of Inclusive Excellence certificate and other…
From Black Deserts to a Thriving Academic Culture for Black Students
<< Return to Mission: Mobilizing the Whole University to Promote Black Student Success, Degree Completion, and Advancement in UCI’s Academic Programs From Black Deserts to a Thriving Academic Culture for Black Students Black undergraduates and graduates are severely under-represented in the student population in general and in academic programs in particular. They experience a virtual absence of Black academic leaders and faculty. Of the 15 academic or professional schools, only two deans are Black: Business and Law – both firsts. In addition to Engineering, there have been three Black deans of academic schools in the entire history of UCI….
Making UCI a First Choice for Black Students
<< Return to Mission: Mobilizing the Whole University to Promote Black Student Success, Degree Completion, and Advancement in UCI’s Academic Programs Making UCI a First Choice for Black Students Increasing the enrollment of Black undergraduates and graduate students is an essential condition to building a thriving culture for Black people at UCI. Over a ten-year period, enrollments for undergraduates and graduate students have grown, but the proportion of Black students has remained steady or only modestly increased. Unless there is a substantial change in our strategy, the proportion will largely remain unchanged. This will contribute to a profound sense…
Mobilize the whole university
<<Back to Black Thriving Initiative Mobilize the whole university to promote Black student success, degree completion, and advancement in UCI’s academic programs The transformation of the professoriate and knowledge workforce of the future depends on the success of Black undergraduates and graduate students thriving in academic programs across the campus. This means increasing total enrollments, growing participation in undergraduate and graduate degrees programs, expanding involvement in high impact campus programs, and eliminating differences in undergraduate graduation or graduate degree completion rates. The below items explore why achieving these outcomes will require a whole university approach. Undergraduate and Graduate Students:…
Black Thriving Initiative Faculty Cluster Hiring Program
Across a two-year period, this program will allocate 10 positions campuswide for proposals that advance the understanding of the Black experience and the drivers of well-being for the Black community. The first round of the program in AY 2020-21 allocated four campus FTE (and was supplemented by an additional investment from one of the schools) to support a cluster hire focused on environmental health disparities. Each cluster will receive a $50,000 supplement annually for three years to support programming efforts to advance the theme of the hiring program. Leveraging school-based priorities, this program is designed to recruit scholars with research…
Black Thriving Institute: Anti-Blackness, Racial Justice and Slavery
<<Back to Black Thriving Initiative Black Thriving Institute: Anti-Blackness, Racial Justice and Slavery The purpose of the Black Thriving Institute is to harness the research and creative capacity of the campus to advance transformational change. Organized around anti-Blackness, racial justice and slavery, the Institute will support interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary activity to both understand the Black experience and promote the drivers of well-being in Black communities. Through the interrogation of these broad themes, the Institute will consciously encompass a broad cross-section of intersectional identities and comparative experiences. These foci will span from class, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, immigrant and…
UCI Cross-Cultural Center: Black Life is Sacred.
Black Life is Sacred. Our spirit is truly with all of our Black community members at this time. We mourn and grieve for the families and loved ones of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery and acknowledge many local racist and anti-Black incidents that have not received the same amount of national attention. The movement for Black Liberation requires that each of us interrogate how deep-seated racism, anti-Blackness, systemic oppression and white supremacy are at the core of each incident leading to the loss of Black life. We must break these cycles of dominance and work diligently towards…