Diversity Champions:

Thank you to everyone who joined us yesterday in Ballard Hall and online via Zoom. To those of you with 4-H, Open Campus and other conflicting meetings, THANK YOU for staying engaged by reading Chapter 3 of the book, this blog recap and engaging with other champions that attended the session. We started Tuesday’s session by using the homework assignment from our last meeting to talk about how important passion is to our work as Diversity Champions and then spent the rest of the meeting discussing Chapter Three of our CCAR Field Guide. The outline below provides a brief summary of the session.

Welcome and Introductions:
• For this meeting, we were joined by Marcianne Koetje, Equity and ELL coordinator for the Corvallis School District, who has been participating on our Diversity Champions team since our kick-off event at the Extension Annual Conference. Marcianne has been in education for over 15 years and has served as teacher, principal and coach in dual language schools. She grew up in Caracas, Venezuela and is passionate about the advocacy and empowerment of communities. Marcianne is currently a PhD student in the LEEP (Language Equity and Education Policy) program here at OSU.
• Reminder: Check in with your Courageous Conversations Compass during these conversations.
– If you are working in pairs or with a smaller group of Champions, consider designating one person to be the “compass enforcer.”
– Ana Gomez played this role during our meeting and reminded us that checking in with the compass will help us stay focused on our personal, local and immediate racial context. This is crucial to our Courageous Conversations practice because this is work from the inside out.
– The compass can be found on Page 29 of your Field Guide books. For practice, try making a copy and posting it in your office so you can check in with yourself throughout the day.

Homework Activity Review (Pg 31-33):
• We introduced the concept of Courageous Conversation as Utilizing the Protocol, (which is the 4 agreements, 6 conditions, and compass), to engage, sustain, and deepen interracial dialogue in order to examine schooling and improve student achievement.
• Defined “passion” as it relates to equity work: Without your passion, this work does not happen. Our Field Guide book and many of our team members describe passion as the cornerstone and driver of this work.
– What does passion mean to you? Did the homework assignment help clarify this for you?
– Compass check: What quadrants where you in when you completed last session’s homework?

Chapter Three:
This session was an open conversation with many of our team members sharing personal stories of success or discomfort in their different experiences. We encourage you to connect with other Champions to reflect on what you learned in Chapter Three: Why Race?
• We opened the conversation by asking, how have we been conditioned to think about race?
• We defined the following terms:
– Race: The socially constructed meaning attached to a variety of physical attributes, including, but not limited to skin and eye color, hair texture and bone structures. Often, the definition of race is tailored to benefit different purposes thorough history.
– Racism: The belief that one set of these physical characteristics is superior to another set.
– Racist: Any person who subscribes to the belief above and perpetuates them intentionally or unconsciously.
– Please note that these definitions are not exclusive or extensive. Refer to chapter 3 for further reference.
• A Success Story: The needs of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work are so great that it can be easy to get discouraged or feel like we could never make a difference. That is one reason why we are excited to share this story of success from our guest facilitator, Marcianne.
Five years ago, the graduation rates of Corvallis School District Latinx students were hovering around 50%. The district knew it needed a change and began sending teachers and staff to the Courageous Conversations Beyond Diversity workshops. These workshops, along with efforts to connect with families and create culturally relevant classrooms and curriculum, had amazing results that were felt throughout the community. Currently, over 500 teachers and staff have gone through the Beyond Diversity workshop and graduation rates for Latinx students are now above 80%! So please don’t lose heart, Diversity Champions. The passion you have makes a difference in your communities every day.

We talked about how relevant the Courageous Conversations protocol has been in creating a common language about race and allowing us to talk about it and its impact in education. Perhaps it is required to think, feel, believe and act differently to see different results like this (a close in the racial achievement gap).

See you on April 17 for our next meeting!
Homework: Journal on the following topic (this can be kept private, and you will not be asked to share if you are not comfortable):
Topic: Think of an experience when your racial consciousness was developed. Name and reflect on the discovery, then trace it through the stages outlined in the reading.
Reading: Please read Chapters 4 and 5 before this meeting.

Thank you again,

Ana Lu

View the meeting slides here: Diversity Champions Slides 2.20

Dear Champions,

Thank you to those of you who joined us on Tuesday for our first Courageous Conversations About Race meeting. For those of you who had scheduling conflicts, this blog post provides a brief summary of Tuesday’s session. We appreciate you taking ownership of your own learning and encourage you to find others in your office to connect with about the content. Please refer to the link at the top of the page to access the meeting slides. To help us connect with each other, we have posted our membership list on our website: 2017-18 Membership list.

Welcome and Overview:
• We appreciate your dedication to this important work and want to stress that this first stage will be a personal journey with much self-reflection. However, as Diversity Champions and catalysts for institutional change, we need to first understand how race and culture impact everyone’s lives.
• We read Pablo Vega´s poem (refer to Slide 2) and used it to remember why we do this work: We do it for young people just like Pablo.

Review of Courageous Conversations Protocol (refer to Slide 3):
• The 4 Agreements: With practice you can utilize these agreements in many aspects of your life. They will be especially important to our work as Diversity Champions.
• Using The Compass, please think about which quadrant(s) you were in as you read the poem from Slide 2.
• Review the 6 Agreements. Which Agreement(s) do you think may present a challenge for you?

We started to establish our working definition of race:
• We talked about race as a social construct, however we will take a deeper dive into this in Chapter 3 (that´s one reason you should not miss our next Meeting on March 20th!)

We shared some of our worries and concerns:
• These conversations can be challenging because many of us are afraid to speak up or ask questions in fear of saying the “wrong thing.” In our meetings, we want to create a safe space that helps lessen these fears and encourages communication.
• This work can be emotionally draining, so we need to practice self-care to avoid burning out.
• Often there is no “instant gratification” for this type of work. We are fighting the long fight and that can be exhausting.
• What are some of your fears about taking on this heavy, but rewarding work?

Homework for March 20 meeting:
Please refer to Slide 6 for the reading and activity and to our membership list to find Champions to partner with. The activity is presented as a group activity, but you are welcome to work in pairs.

We are looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday, March 20th at 9:30 a.m. to explore Chapter 3 “Why Race”. Until then, I invite you stay engaged in this process by practicing the Four Agreements in all aspects of your life. You will see how this new understanding of the world quickly and positively effects your personal, local and immediate lives.

All my best,

Ana Lu

Dear Diversity Champions,

It was amazing getting to know you on a more personal level last December 4^th!

For those of you that were not able to attend, please know that we just opened a can of worms, now is time to go deeper, therefore your contributions from now on will be impactful and very much appreciated.

Based on your feedback and your amazing energy and the will to act and influence O&E now, we designed a developmental journey with the topics that you identified as most relevant for your own unique work and life situations.

I am sure that you already know this, but just want to remind you that this journey NEVER ends, the struggle of justice and inclusion still continues and I invite you to be an active part of the change thorough your entire life.

Here is the professional development plan to kick start your journey as diversity champions. Within this plan there are four stages. We are going to talk more about this plan in our next Diversity Champions virtual meeting and in the blog

The first stage of your journey is to explore your own racial identity and how that intersects with how you experience the world. For this amazing journey, we are going to use the theoretical framework of Courageous Conversations About Race. All of you who attended the “Setting the stage” event at the Fall conference have the blue book (I hope). If this does not sound familiar, contact me and we will get you up to speed.

The first time we will meet by zoom will be  Tuesday February 20^th at 9:30 am. Prior to this meeting please read part 1 chapter 2 and 3 and be prepared to reflect on and deconstruct your own racial identity. We will meet every 3^rd Tuesday of the month for this journey. Please e mail me if you have a consistent conflict with this time arrangement.

I understand that not all of you are going to be able to attend this meeting (I really hope that you do). However, this plan is designed so that you can take charge of your own growth.

During stage 2, you will get to experience the 2-day Social Justice Training by the amazing Jane Waite, Senior Social Justice Initiative Director. This 2-day workshop is likely to be held here on campus during summer, we will send a doodle pool soon.

During stage 3, we will move to intercultural communication as well as personal bias. Most of you want to also advance in your ability to adapt practices and behaviors to different ways to experience the world. We will use the Intercultural Development Inventory

with this tool we will enhance our cross cultural competency (using a wide definition of culture that includes our learned behaviors and mindsets). Please feel free to suggest other methods or frameworks by e mail or in the comments section.

After you complete stages 1, 2 and 3, the final stage of this plan will transition to your own Personal Leadership Journey, in which you will get to decide your initiative based on your passion and the change you want to see in Outreach and Engagement.

Thank you again for joining this amazing group. Together we will transform the

ways we see and engage with ourselves and each other.

Diversity Champions, now more than ever is the time to build bridges to understand our own identity and to engage with each other in a meaningful way.

Looking forward to seeing you on the 20^th!

Check out this video

Welcome to blogs.oregonstate.edu. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!