CHALLENGING MINDSETS TO ADVANCE DIVERSITY, HIGH-QUALITY LEARNING, AND

STUDENT SUCCESS

Elaine Ikeda California Campus Compact

Tania D. Mitchell University of Minnesota

Karin Cotterman University of San Francisco

Julie Plaut Minnesota Campus Compact

SERVICE LEARNING AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

a community service action tied to learning goals and ongoing reflection about the experience (Mitchell, 2008)

combining intention and action in a move towards more just relationships (Cruz, 2000)

SERVICE LEARNING AS HIGH IMPACT PRACTICE techniques and designs for teaching and learning that have proven to be beneficial for student engagement and successful learning among students from many backgrounds. Through intentional program design and advanced pedagogy, these types of practices can enhance student learning and work to narrow gaps in achievement across student populations. (AAC&U, 2008)

particularly profound because they require students to interact in educationally purposeful ways with professors and peers, including those who are different from themselves, often over extended time periods. (Harper, 2009)

they afford students deeply reflective opportunities to clarify their personal values and better understand themselves in relation to others. (Harper, 2009)

Service learning is the only high-impact activity in which racial minorities are invariably more engaged than white students. (NSEE data from 2008 – present)

METHODOLOGY

50 service learning syllabi

24 institutions with the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement

Content analysis

FINDINGS

80% (n=40) of syllabi rely on the placement model for service

Average hours required in community = 18

84% (n=42) of syllabi name community placements whose service base is marginalized (and usually people of color)

Fewer than 20% (n=9) of syllabi mention race as a central concept or topic for discussion

“IN ALL RACIALIZED SOCIAL SYSTEMS THE PLACEMENT OF PEOPLE IN RACIAL CATEGORIES INVOLVES SOME FORM OF HIERARCHY THAT PRODUCES DEFINITE SOCIAL RELATIONS BETWEEN THE RACES.”

(Bonilla-Silva, 2005, p. 12)

IMPLICATIONS Creates opportunity to ignore the realities of race in service relationships (i.e., individual problems rather than structural issues)

People who raise/consider race as central to the issues encountered through service are “racist” or “playing the race card”

Continually positions community as “Other”

Emphasizes constructions of pity and helping relationships rather than reframing community work as a tool for justice/change

Reinforces privilege/Retains power

Melissa Harris Perry

“BUILDING LONG-TERM PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN STUDENTS AND THEIR

COMMUNITIES AND ALLOWING COMMUNITY MEMBERS TO DO MOST OF THE TALKING IS

KEY TO TEACHING ABOUT RACE.”

DISCUSSION

How do community engagement strategies on

your campus engage questions of race and racism?

EXAMINING STRUCTURES OF EXCLUSION: BUILDING THE CAPACITY OF WHITE FACULTY AND STAFF

This pilot project and its related study examines building capacity in white faculty and staff to talk about structures of inclusion and exclusion on campus and in community engagement.

This is a model for teaching about white privilege, racial identity development, and unlearning white social conditioning as a means to develop structures of inclusion.

REFLECTING ON WHITENESS: INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT

Predominantly white faculty and staff; Student population majority students of color

Check your Privilege campaign, Dr. Ja’Nina Walker, Psychology, 2014

On The Way of ColorInsight, Rhonda Magee, Professor of Law, forthcoming 2016- Georgetown Law Review

BSU Student Demands, Fall, 2015

ASUSF Stands Against Microaggressions Resolution Fall, 2015

REFLECTING ON WHITENESS: WHY THIS APPROACH

White social conditioning prevents many white people from engaging in conversations about race (McIntosh 1998, Katz 2003, Bonilla-Silvia 2011, and many others)

Contemplative practice was part of the series (Zajonic 2006, Lueke & Gibson 2015, Magee 2016)

Tripartite model of development: Knowledge, Awareness, Skills (Sue, Arredondo & McDavis, 1992)

REFLECTING ON WHITENESS: GOALS

Build community with other white people engaged in this work

Reduce isolation and increase willingness to engage in racial justice work

Build reflection skills re: institutional and individual racism

Focus on Awareness, Knowledge and Skills

Utilized readings, contemplative practice exercises, group discussion

SWIMMING IN MY SEA OF PERSONAL WHITENESS Initial qualitative findings

AWARENESS

Personal Awareness

“…I can’t just hide in my happy community of color ... I have to have conversations, whereas before I think I did a lot of White silence, so that’s the ownership of White privilege, I think the real ownership of it, and not just on a personal level, but on a community-based level…”

Professional Awareness

“Whereas before I thought that it was enough to be a good person and be an ally and, not do harm, but I’m realizing I am doing harm by not swimming in my sea of personal whiteness and dealing with what that really means, because I didn’t want to touch it before.”

KNOWLEDGE

“…I think about the knowledge about the far reaching tendrils of privilege--of White privilege and supremacy, being more both conscious of that institutionally but also beyond institution…”

SKILLS

Addressing Inequality

Talking with administrators about white identity and how, “There are things we can’t understand about this because we are both white. We have to realize that as two white people we cannot make this decision.”

Contemplative Practice

“It’s essential and I think it is what’s going to help on a personal level. It is what helps me stay in the work. It’s what helps me feel connected to the possibility of change in myself. It allows me to not sink into self indulgent inactivity.”

LOOKING AHEAD/ CONSIDERATIONS

Is it possible to build the realization that sitting in the seat of expertise in not actually the goal, rather, the goal is building the capacity to sit with uncertainty?

In a setting where vulnerability is often interpreted as weakness, can we turn the tables, acknowledge vulnerability as a strength and, most importantly, a condition for anyone wanting to work toward social justice?

This frame has the potential of shifting the paradigm in academia: acknowledging what we do not know, thereby making room for non-dominant voices to be heard and valued.

Dr. Robin DiAngelo on White Fragility International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, Vol 3, Number 3 (2011)

Dr. Ja’Nina Walker, Check Your Privilege Campaign and Creating Change Agents (Blog post) http://craseusf.org/2016/02/creating-change-agents/ Prof. Rhonda Magee on The Way Of ColorInsight Georgetown Law Review, forthcoming 2016 Student Demands from Across the US thedemands.org Teju Cole’s White Savior Industrial Complex http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the-white-savior-industrial-complex/254843/ The UNtraining http://untraining.org/

RESOURCES

KEY PARTNERS AT UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO

Office of Diversity Engagement and Community Outreach (DECO) at University of San Francisco

Vice Provost, Dr. Mary Wardell Ghirarduzzi

Program Manager, Ria DasGupta

Dr. Michelle Montagno,

Director of the Clinical Psychology Program and Assistant Professor

Reflecting on Whiteness co-facilitator and researcher

Community engagement is a process that includes multiple techniques to promote the participation of community members in community life, especially those who are excluded and isolated, by engaging them in collective action to create a healthy community.

THE CULTURAL AGILITY COLLABORATION

A learning and leadership cohort comprised of a diverse, multi-racial, multi-generational group of college/university students, community members, campus staff and faculty

Aims to inform Minnesota Campus Compact and campuses’ civic engagement efforts in ways that better equip people to work across differences and advance racial equity

Developing capacity and resources focused on priorities participants identified: creating institutional change; facilitating inclusive, equitable spaces; and authentic community engagement

STORIES, TRUST, & TIME

Trusting, mutually respectful relationships are essential to the CAC’s work.

Take significant time to share stories and engage authentically with each other, considering both individual identities and historical context. The dominant culture—and our desire to effect change—

encourages us to leap prematurely into planning and action. Yet that can mean simply operating in the midst of difference, instead of truly accessing it as a resource.

New connections will yield positive results and new collaborations you can’t fully anticipate.

AN EXERCISE ABOUT IDENTITY

Write down your gender, race, religion, age, nationality, sexual orientation, ability, family status, Minnesota region, socioeconomic class.

Cross off the five least important to you, then narrow from five to two most important, now circle the most important one

What factors went into your choosing the most important? (You don’t have to reveal what it is.)

Are there identities you (or your colleagues or students) might feel unable to bring into all spaces on campus?

POWER & SYSTEMS CHANGE

As much as CAC members want to make change, they initially located power in others.

They also sought to break down positional labels, insisting all were community members with both room to learn and knowledge or wisdom to share.

What participants most desire is systems change, but this is also the area where they feel least equipped.

Since members have very different roles, self-interests, locations, etc., most sustained action and results will probably come through integration into their own work.

ACTION STAR

Iambrown Action Framework by Autumn Brown

What succeeded? What failed? What can we build upon? Resources - What resources do we need to address the issue (time, money, space, skills, etc.)? Relationships - Who needs to be at the table? What relationships do we have or need to develop? Message/Story - What is the vision we are trying to create? What are the institutional narratives and community narratives about the issue? What is our change narrative?

Before acting, consider: Power - Where is power held (structural, financial, positional)? Who has the influence/control to make decisions? History - What has already been done?

Action Star framework http://mncampuscompact.org/clio/iambrown-action-framework/

Building the Field of Community Engagement events & publications www.buildthefield.org

Cultural Agility Collaboration http://www.mncampuscompact.org/programs-and-initiatives/cultural-agility-collaboration/

Exploring Class Cultures http://www.activistclasscultures.org/#about-marquee

Implicit Bias Test http://mncampuscompact.org/clio/test-your-implicit-bias/

“The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en

RESOURCES

DISCUSSION

What are some of the ways that you see service-learning and civic engagement function on your campus to truly respond to issues of racism, oppression, social justice etc.?

Where do you see authentic commitment and work happening on your campus?

What are some of the ways that you see service-learning and civic engagement function on your campus to truly respond to issues of racism, oppression, social justice etc.?

Where do you see authentic commitment and work happening on your campus?

THANK YOU

Elaine Ikeda, Executive Director Tania D. Mitchell, Asst Professor of Higher Education

California Campus Compact University of Minnesota

510 885 7621 612-624-6867

elaine@cacampuscompact.org tmitchel@umn.edu

Julie Plaut, Executive Director Karin Cotterman, Director, Engage San Francisco

Minnesota Campus Compact University of San Francisco

612 436 2081 415 422 5469

julie@mncampuscompact.org kmcotterman@usfca.edu

www.mncampuscompact.org