 All right. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. Welcome to our April webinar for Open for Anti-Racism. And we're just thrilled to have Dr. Frank Harris, the third with us today. And his topic is Employing Equity-Minded and Culturally Affirming Teaching and Learning Practices to Advance Institutional Equity. And this is an area of expertise and scholarship for Dr. Harris. And I'm Una Daly from the Community College Consortium for OER. And I'm here with my colleague, James Glapa Grossclang, College of the Canyons, who is the co-principal investigator with me on the Open for Anti-Racism project. Hey, everybody. Glad everybody's here. Hey, James. We also have with us some other very important people on the Open for Anti-Racism project. And that is we've got our course developers here, Joy Schumate from College of the Canyons, Kim Gruy from the Northern Virginia Community College System. And we also have our coaches here for our peer groups, which are for our 17 faculty who are actually in this cohort. And I'm not going to introduce them right this moment, because I'm sorry I don't have their names handy here, but James, do you remember all of our coaches' names? We have Maritaz, we have Micah, we have Aloha, and we have Alisa with us. Yeah, and do we have Micah today? I don't see Micah here. Okay, and they are all leaders in OER and equity at their California Community Colleges. Today, our agenda really is, we're just going to, a real brief overview of the Community College Consortium for OER, and then we're going to hear from Dr. Frank Harris, and I'm going to introduce him in just a moment. I think most of you know him, but just in case, and then Dr. Frank Harris will speak with us for about 45 minutes, I think is what his plan is, and then he's going to open it up to Q&A. He's also, it says please use the chat window to communicate during the, during his presentation. So bear with me while I share with you this very impressive CD resume from Dr. Frank Harris. He's a professor of post-secondary education and co-director of the Community College Equity Assessment Lab at San Diego State University. He's also a senior strategist in the Division of Campus Diversity and Student Affairs. In this role, he advises on efforts to institutionalize equity and designs innovative professional learning experiences to build equity mindedness among faculty and staff. He's best known for his expertise in racial inequity in post-secondary education and has made important contributions to knowledge about college student development and the social construction of gender and race in college context. His work prioritizes populations that have been historically underrepresented and underserved in education. His scholarship has been published in leading journals for higher education and student affairs research and practice, and his commentary has been sought by high profile media outlets, including CNN, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He has worked with more than 100 post-secondary institutions, community organizations, and nonprofits on student equity, student success, and institutional transformation. He's also delivered more than a thousand academic and professional presentations. During the Obama administration, Dr. Harris was invited to the White House to share his knowledge and expertise on the status of boys and men in color in education. Before joining the faculty at San Diego State, he worked as a student affairs educator and college administrator in student crisis support and advocacy, student orientation, multicultural student affairs, academic advising, and enrollment services. He was also an adjunct professor of speech communications at Los Angeles Trade Technical College. He earned his bachelor's degree in communication studies at Loyola Marymount, a master's degree in speech communication at California State University Northridge, and his doctorate in higher education from the University of Southern California. So this is definitely a California person. Dr. Frank Harris, would you like to say anything before we do a little intro on the CCCOER community? Thank you, Yuna, for the wonderful introduction, a very warm and welcoming introduction. I'm excited to be here, excited for the conversation, and a shout out to all of my adjunct and part-time faculty colleagues. I learned a lot in that experience, and so thank you for the work that you do. If we have any, join us today. Oh, for sure. Yes. So very, very briefly, the Community College Consortium for OER has been around since 2007, working with community colleges on adoption of high quality open educational resources and practices. In order to support faculty choice around instructional materials in order to improve student equity and success. We also work with OER leaders around the country to share and collaborate on issues of policy, stewardship, sustainability, and professionalism. And we are so excited to now be in 35 states with 91 members, and this all actually started in California. And we're so pleased that the California Community College Chancellor's Office is a member and we have 14 individual college members just within California. And very briefly once again for those of you who haven't joined us before, the Open for Anti-Racism Project is a pilot project that we are so thrilled to be running here for the first time with the support of the Human Flora Hewlett Foundation. It's a program for faculty to explore how they can use open educational resources and open pedagogy to make instructional materials and their teaching more anti-racist. They have taken a four week intensive course back in January to learn about all of these topics, and they are implementing action plans in their classroom this spring in collaboration with their students. And we have over 17, well we do have 17 California Community College faculty who were selected for this program, and they're really dispersed around the state. And we're also I think most proud of the variety of disciplines from administration of justice, biology, business, chemistry, counseling, early childhood education, emergency medical technician, English, ESL, history, math, social work, and sociology. And we will and next month we will actually be hearing from some of these faculty about the work they've done this spring with their students. And now without further ado, I am going to turn this over to Dr. Frank Harris and I will stop sharing so that he can share his screen. Awesome. Thank you so much. You know, sounds like a wonderful community that we have here right a community of folks that are, you know, thinking about innovative and creative ways to use OER and to meld that with equity minded pedagogy and, you know, of course, I think all of us are willing to challenge today to think about how we can be more intentionally infused principles and concepts related to racial equity and more, more importantly, anti racism into all of the work that we do with students. So I'm just thrilled to play a small role in the conversation and hopefully contributing in some ways that are value added for everyone who's here today. So I want to start with offering a land acknowledgement, letting you know that I am joining you here from, you know, the Southern California region more specifically San Diego. We're on occupied Kumi Island. And of course, this is a land that has protected us that has healed us that has inspired us and nourished us and continues to do has done so for generations, and continues to do so. But I hope to be able to, you know, talk about today is really, I will spend a lot of time on this this first bullet point talking about the ways in which culturally diverse learners are disproportionately impacted in post-signal education, not going to spend a lot of time on that, because I think everyone has a pretty good sense of, you know, what that is and what some of the trends and patterns are here. We'll spend most of my time on strategies. How do we inform equity, infuse equity mindedness, and, you know, being culturally affirming into the work that we do with students in the classroom, all with the goal of creating spaces that are intentionally and unapologetically anti racist. And of course, you know, we know there's an urgent need to do that for several reasons. We are articulated here, we think about the current context. You know this global pandemic that of courses has disproportionately impacted communities of color, right, whether we're talking about those who've been, you know, unfortunately killed by the virus but also when we look at infection rates and now when we see those who have access to vaccines that there's some huge disparities there with regard to race, the racial reckoning I mean there's not what more can I say about that we continue to have people of color that are killed by law enforcement. And, you know, we had two, one is that we, you know, Dante right, you know in Minnesota that occurred earlier this week and then, you know, we learned about another young man in Chicago who, you know, there was body cam video released of that, that was just just really difficult to see and watch. And then you know there's some other ways and other other issues here related to this racial awakening awakening here, but it all speaks to the need to be more intentionally anti racist and the work that we do. The economic recession that's going to you know continue to have some impact. It's going to impact our institutions but more importantly is probably going to impact our students. You know, community college students, and relying on things like the service industries for example as a way to be able to pay to go to school to be able to, you know, make ends meet with regard to taking care of themselves and taking care of family members. There's certainly some concern there. The, the, the presidential election was incredibly intense that continues to have some impact on our current context. There was this insurrection at the Capitol that we all that was both horrific and we all experienced it. And then we see this, you know, this this growing rash of hate crimes that target our Asian American Pacific Islander Desi American community. And so you know it's just to say that the current social political context really underscores the urgency and the need for us to have conversations like this but more importantly not to just talk about it, but to change something to do with our community than the way we've traditionally done them. I should also add that all of this is happening while we're trying to teach classes and you know in some cases, run divisions and run institutions remotely. And so there's a there's a lot that's being asked of us, and we need to continue to build our capacity because the context, and what we can tell is going to continue to shift, and seems to be more dynamic than it's ever been before. This speaks to the need to infuse equity approach our work from an equity minded perspective. Of course when we're talking about equity at its core we're talking about enacting intentional strategies to meet the needs of groups that have been disproportionately impacted in our colleges and in our institutions. And we know when we look at most indicators of student success, whether we're looking at course success rates persistence rates transfer rates, whatever it may be your certain groups of students who consistently show up as disproportionately impacted. Right, our racially minoritized students, our adult learners, our students with disabilities, former foster youth justice impacted students members of the LGBT QIA community and so all of that speaks to the need for us to again to think about and figure out what intentional strategies help to address these disparities and to close gaps gaps both in outcomes, but also gaps in the experiences that are not as easily measured but show up in our outcomes, and one way or another. And we have to approach all of this through the lens of equity mindedness. The work of a Stella's been Simone speaks to the need to be equity minded. Her work also talks about these five characteristics of equity mindedness. Again, I'm not going to read them and fully do a full unpacking of them. But just as a reminder of what equity mindedness is and how it's related to equity. Now, those of you who've seen myself for my, my friend and colleague Dr would present before you're probably familiar with this next framework that I'm going to share. So if you've seen it before, I think repeated engagement sometimes helps when it comes to concepts and things of that nature. And if you're seeing it for the first time. I hope you find it to be again insightful and value added to advancing your understanding of equity and equity mindedness. We developed this framework a few years ago, because Luke and I were having many conversations with many colleagues, and we were encountering many perspectives on equity. And so we felt like we needed to have something some kind of framework, some kind of tool that allowed us to make sense of the range of perspectives we were encountering. But also to give our colleagues who are leading conversations and designing professional learning experiences on their campuses to have something to guide and inform their perspectives as well. So out of that need came this taxonomy. And you can see that the taxonomy essentially has two constructs. The first is what we describe as competence situated at the top here. And we can simply think about competence as an educator's knowledge and understanding of equity and equity minded practices. I know what it is. And I know why it's important. And I know what to do to infuse it into my teaching. Right. So I got it. I get it. The second construct, however, is also important. And we can think about that construct as motivation because one thing we all know as educators, knowing how to do something in and of itself is it's necessary, but insufficient when it comes to actually being able to do it or being willing to do it right this so this, this piece around motivation becomes very important. And so, when we take the box here that's labeled kw. This captures the perspective of educators who know what equity is, and who know what equity mindedness is and they practice it on a regular basis, right they're already infusing it they've already done the things that they need to do to build your capacity to teach from an equity minded culture affirming perspective, perhaps predictably we call this group the choir, and we call this group the choir choir because more often than not it's the choir that's leading the efforts and leading the conversations on their campuses right. These are the folks are saying hey, you know what, this is not acceptable. We have to be better. We have to do better. And really motivating their colleagues to think about their work differently to approach their work differently. Maybe they're bringing in the resources they're bringing in information. They're inviting speakers to get to campus, but they're the ones that are deleting voices when it comes to equity, both in terms of the importance of it, but also in terms of modeling and practicing it on a regular basis. There's also another group that's just as important as the choir that we call the allies. The only thing that separates the choir from the allies, for the most part, is that the allies haven't had the coaching, they haven't had the professional development, they haven't had the opportunity to learn about equity and equity mindedness and to really infuse it into their practices with students. However, if you give them the opportunity to learn it, they could just as easily become a part of the choir. So when we're talking about any type of institutional change efforts, or any efforts around professional learning, the ally is it's more often than not our target group. This is the group that we're trying to engage in some outreach to right a group that's open a group that's willing a group that has the motivation, and simply needs to build their capacity from the perspective of knowledge and strategies. Right. So this is all this is a very important, you know, part of our efforts here. Now, some of you are probably thinking it'd be easy if we could just stop there. We can, because if our goal is institutional transformation right where we want these practices and we want these conversations to not just be happening at pockets, you know, pockets here and there, but for them to be embraced, and to become a part of the institutional culture, we have to engage some other perspectives like the next one we see here we call our resistors. These are the folks who haven't been trained. They, they, they haven't embraced equity or equity mindedness that don't see it as necessary. They're not motivated to do it. And those of you who've heard me or Luke speak before, you probably recall we said that there are two types of resistors, active resistors and passive resistors active resistors are the ones who are simply the most vocal and forthcoming about their equity and equity efforts. These are the folks are saying why are we doing this. This is, you know, this is not important. This is not necessary. If these students don't have the knowledge or the resources that they don't have what it takes to succeed here. Then perhaps they don't belong here. Right. But the fact that a matter is this right some of you may see this is good news. Perhaps some may not, but most resistors are actually what we would describe as passive resistors. So they're not going to be as vocal and transparent about their opposition to equity, but they're also going to avoid any and every opportunity there is to be authentically engaged in it. So you say Frank Harris is coming to campus, and he's coming to speak to us about equity and equity mindedness and how we can use it into our teaching. This is a voluntary thing. Everybody's invited. Bring your back brown bag lunch, come and check it out. These folks are not going to show up. Right, they're not coming. And so we always talk about the need. Again, if our goal is institutional transformation, that we have to take these conversations the ones that we're having today. And it's important to have them with the choir and with the allies but we also have to bring them into places and spaces where folks who are not already on board are present so that they have to hear what we have to say. They will have our next group that we call the Defiant. Now, here's what's interesting about the Defiant. They actually have a good understanding of equity and equity mindedness. However, they refuse to enact the practices with the students who need to support the most. So they're not really concerned about disproportionately impacted students, right students who may not be having a good experience. Students are not well served in one way or another. They're most concerned about students who look like them students who may be working their research lab, or students who maybe be one of their work study students, or the kids who play baseball with their kids. They're not at all concerned about, you know, addressing disproportionate impact that's just not a priority for them. Now, one time Luke and I was presenting this framework, and we were approached by a colleague immediately after who said Luke Frank like the framework makes a lot of sense, certainly aligned with my experiences and what I see and working with colleagues but it's missing something. What about the folks who think their equity minded, we think they're part of the choir, but they really have no idea what they're doing or what they're talking about. So Luke and I reflected on that for a little bit of time, and we decided to add a fifth group to our taxonomy a group that we called the oblivious. And we call this group the oblivious because one can arrive at becoming oblivious and one of three ways, typically one of three ways the first is when we approach our equity work from a savior complex. We believe that our work is about saving students, rather than empowering them. I think a core part of being equity minded is rejecting deficit narratives deficit notions and deficit perspectives of students. And so really believing that our students have everything that it takes to be successful. And so our role as educators is not to save them, but to eliminate the stuff that gets in the way to eliminate the institutional barriers, you know, identify and eliminate the stuff that doesn't allow them to maximize their potential as learners. Right. That's that that's very different than this notion of saving students saving is the notion, you know, these poor students. They don't have what it takes to be successful. They need us to save them right they can't they quote unquote can't do it without us, which is a, you know, different perspective. Next is where we're not reflected when our words and the values that we espouse are not aligned with our actions and the ways in which we teach and serve students. So you can't be in the meetings talking about equity and equity mindedness. And then when we go and observe what you're doing in a classroom your micro aggressive students. You know, you're not using a range of pedagogy, you know, teaching methods, you're using one strategy to assess students. You are penalizing students who may not have purchased a textbook. Right. And so, when we talk about being equity and equity minded, a big part of what we have to do is to make sure the values and the words that we espouse are aligned with the actions and the ways in which we teach students. And this last one the one that bugs me the most is grandstanding. And grandstanding is really about this is when our commitment to equity is really more about developing a reputation for it, or advancing our careers are being perceived a certain way by our colleagues, then it is about equity. You know, when I started doing this work. I would say in the early to mid 2000s. You know, equity was in many ways seen as a bad word in many spaces and on many campuses. Right it's not as it wasn't a concept it wasn't a practice that was as widely embraced as it is now. Right now, it's not so bad to be the equity person on your campus. Right now, as as as being an equity champion, you can get promoted, you can get invited to serve on search committees right there's all these opportunities, and all these ways to elevate and leverage being the equity person on campus. And so I think as a result of that, we get some folks who are not authentically committed to the work, and who really, again who really are approaching it to see this as a way to leverage and advance their own careers that it is about helping the institution achieve institutional transformation, and of course helping students achieve their goals and everything that comes with being a student. And so before I can tell you I think this is a good place I see the chat has been. I haven't been able to read the chat messages but it looks like there's been some comments there so I want to stop and sort of see if anyone has any thoughts or reactions to anything that I've shared thus far. Before any points of disagreement, I would I would invite as well. And if you can do me a favor if you could introduce yourself before you, you offer your statement, just your name and where it is that you work I would, I would greatly appreciate that. And I see Cindy Stevens. I just handed I see go for it Cindy. Hi, thank you so much for being here Dr Harris I heard you speak many many times and I'm just so grateful that you're here. I am from the canyons and I teach early childhood education. And I'm a part of afar. And I just wanted to just echo what you said in this last moment I totally am in 100% agreement with those that are grandstanding in fact I think they get in our way, much more than some of the other folks that you're talking about because they talk about it, and they have no idea what they're talking about they you know they're using it exactly what you said and I think this is, I would love to hear some strategies I hear I know this happens. There are many spaces that I'm in, where I'm trying, you know, I work in a lot of different arenas, I'm president of a tricy ECE, which is California Community Ecology early childhood educators and I'm a consultant for Peach, which is another early childhood. We're trying to do this work we're trying to do this, you know, create this, you know, anti racist institutions and the grandstanders are just so they just get in the way, and maybe you have some strategies. Yeah, thank you, thank you Cindy thank you for sharing your perspective and I can sense and understand your frustration as well. So, grandstanding, some people call it performative allyship virtual signaling I mean we're starting to see all sorts of different different ways to describe it. But here's, you know, here's, here's what we have to understand when it when it comes to grandstanding, when it comes to any of these perspectives to be honest with you. But I actually know that's, let's focus on grants, let's focus on the ability as to grandstand. Cindy you made a point that I think is really important. When you ask folks, right, folks who are really deeply committed and deeply engaged in equity work. What is more of a barrier to any type of advancement what's more problematic. Is it the resistors in a defiant, or is it the grandstanders are those who oblivious right so we sort of juxtapose those as, you know, toxic support versus toxic resistance. Some folks say they would much rather encounter they would much rather deal with an active resistor than a grandstand. For the reason that you, you highlighted Cindy, at least with someone who's actively resistant I kind of know, I kind of know where that person stands right, there's a transparency there. I may not agree, we may not share their, we may not share perspectives, but I at least know what I'm dealing with I at least know where they're coming from. Maybe we could have a conversation and maybe there, there might be some convergence and some areas where we might be able to agree. But with someone who's a grandstander right or so we're talking about toxic support. I have a hard time working with that person because I don't really know what to expect. In one meeting they're saying one thing, and another meeting they're saying something else, and I have no idea how to really authentically engage and work with this person, because they're kind of all over the place. And quite frankly, it doesn't really help us in any, any real meaningful way. And so I think that is, that's something that that we all struggle with or probably, there's at least one colleague or one person who, you know, who exhibits that behaviors that that we have to engage in in a way that here's the part that most of you are probably not going to like that I'm going to that I'm going to say in terms of how do you deal with this. You have to deal with it with humility with grace, and with collegiality. So what does that mean Frank that means that I got to be able to engage this person in a way that's critical. But to do it in a way that still somehow preserves our relationship as colleagues. And so with someone who's oblivious I may have to say you know Frank, you know, I appreciate you as a colleague, I think you know you contributed some valuable ways but you know, when you are in the search committee meeting and you say well you know we don't have any candidates of color because you know most of them aren't you know they aren't in this area but that doesn't that doesn't really help us advance the conversation and the work that we're trying to do right now. And a lot of times it's not what you say but how you say it. And so somehow we got to find a way to be transparent, but to do so in a way that, again, allow someone allows us to still be colleagues with that person, which is incredibly difficult to do. At times but that I think that that at least has to be the goal and intention, when we, when we have these interactions and conversations. There was another hand I don't see it here but I want to. And I don't know if it's because I was, you know, blabbering too much I think it was Aaron Thomas maybe who had a hand up Aaron I don't know if you still have a question. If so I'd love to love to have you ask it now. If not no worries you could completely ignore that I, but I just said. Okay, maybe one more any others. All right, I see Jung Jung Park. Sure, I'll go. And just hearing you name it and say it is really therapeutic for me and I have to echo the sentiments of Cindy and echoing Dr West that we have to be willing to die every day which is why now my home page is Prometheus. Because it's, it's intense emotional labor and that's the part that you know I think a lot of us struggle with is that willingness to be misunderstood and still have the bounce back, you know, and that's hard. And so I just want to express my appreciation for everyone, and also recognize that it takes a lot of emotional labor to do the humility grace, collegiality when you just want to slap them, you know, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. You know what, let's be honest. Sometimes it just feels better to just let somebody have it. Right. I mean, you walk away feeling like yeah I just really told that person what time it was. And maybe that feels good in the moment, maybe that feels good for you know some period of time. But if the goal is to exhibit leadership in this space, and to bring folks in right to get more people to be a part of the choir and to be allies. But if we, you know this whole idea of you know, being graceful and humility is it has to be something that we leave it and the humility part is really important as well, because no matter how far along or how much we think we know we all have we all screw up. You know, we all say the wrong thing sometimes we all make mistakes, and we're going to expect some some grace when we when we miss miss step as well. Right. And so I think that's that that's part of what what we have to commit to doing but I hear you I feel you. And, you know, there have been times when I haven't followed it, the advice that I'm giving. And every single time I've regretted it, and that's just, just being honest with you. All right, truth I can smart and you get the last word and then we'll, we'll go back. Oh, hi, can you hear me okay. Absolutely. Thank you so much. I came in a little bit late so I just appreciate being here and I just wanted to add that there's so many awesome people doing this work in urban it's like San Diego County Office of Education, a lot of urban areas and, and it's like, it'd be nice to have them just supported for the work that they are already doing, you know a lot of the urban areas have been working with the anti racism and equity, you know, an education. And I think it's just, it would be like an act of humility to like support them and lift them, you know, that have those programs in place. And sometimes I'll hear it like it's a brand new thing like, oh this is new, you know, and it's like, it's been, you know, since the 1960s and 50s and 40s, you know, but I appreciate this. Everything everyone does I just wanted to comment. I appreciate it. Thanks. Yeah, I appreciate the comment. Truth. You know, I think when it comes to some of these concepts, some of them have been around a long time. And maybe what we see are new ways of presenting them and packaging them or, you know, maybe they've been, you know, I like to say updated to meet, you know, and match the current context. Yeah, you know, I would say some of, I think I still think there are some new ideas and new approaches and new ways of doing things, but also think that there are some some lessons that we can learn from from reading and looking back at to what's been done before. I think there's some some value in that as well as I appreciate what you're sharing. Let me let's dive into strategies here. And hopefully we'll have at least 10 maybe even, you know, 15 more minutes to end with with dialogue and Q&A and so let me let me I'm going to skip ahead a little bit and go right to strategies and so bear with me for a few slides here. Okay, here we go. So, I'm going to share about, I don't know, maybe a half dozen of strategies and practices that I think are important for for any educator that's looking to infuse. Equity, equity, mindfulness, anti-racism into their courses. And so a few caveats here. Everything I'm going to share with you is based on the work that my colleagues and I in a community college equity assessment lab have been doing for, you know, the past decade with hundreds of institutions and so everything I'm going to share none of it is are things that I've made up. These are all practices that I have seen to be that have been proven effective. Of course, some things are going to be more, you know, more specific to certain contexts. So you may say wow that that works really well in STEM or that really will that works really well, you know, an ESL or early childhood, and other things just say yeah I can see this work in regardless of with the content or with the course maybe so keep that in mind. Also is important again, it's not just about applying the strategies. It's about applying them from an equity minded perspective that's really important. And the ultimate goal here is to, is to obtain an optimal balance between challenging students and supporting students, while also conveying high expectations and authentic care and we're going to get into, you know, some details about what those concepts are, and what they look like. But one of the first things I think we have to do is to be race conscious. Think very critically and very intentionally about how does race. Impact and influence the teaching and learning experience for students right and some things that we can that we have to recognize as this. When we look at the curriculum in most disciplines. Right, my area, you know, I, my master's degree and undergraduate degree or in communication studies, speech communication, what I'm about to say applies to speech, it also applies to psychology math it doesn't really matter. By and large when we look at our curriculum, the voices perspectives and contributions of black and indigenous people of color are largely invisible. And if they show up in the curriculum is usually showing up, you know, in a negative way or in a sort of a deficit way, doesn't talk about important contributions made a lot of what students learning these areas are not directly related to their lived experiences so you know as a person of color I can understand how these things, these concepts and things that I'm learning how they apply to the things that I see every day in my community or in my lived experiences. And so when we think about curriculum, most curricular. The most part what they do is they systematically advanced white supremacy. And so I think when it comes to being raised conscious it really does mean asking the question, how does the curriculum that I'm developing. How is the courses that I'm developing to teach this curriculum how does it continue to advance white supremacy, and what are some things that I can do to intentionally disrupt that. We also have to think about, you know, things like invisibility and hyper surveillance, not going to get into a lot of details there other than to say that when it comes to the experiences of black and indigenous people of color. Invisibility in the sense that usually not people who look like you that are teaching the classes. I've already talked about how your experiences largely absent in the curriculum at least in a positive way. Right, so that's what invisibility comes in. But at the same time there's a tendency to feel like you're being hyper surveilled, when there's an exam, right, the instructors looking at you more closely. If you happen to arrive a few minutes late everyone turns and notices. If a topic around civil rights or slavery or crime or something like that comes up everyone looks to you for your perspective. And so it's just this dualistic experience of having to navigate being invisible in the ways that matter, but being hyper surveilled in a ways that you would rather not that really creates a triggering experience for many of our black and indigenous students. And then also, the issue of racial micro aggressions is really essential here. We know three, the three most common racial micro aggressions that are experienced is an inscription of intelligence when we assign a degree of intelligence based on race. Pathologizing culture is when we assume that black and indigenous people of color come from families and communities that don't value education and an assumption of criminology is when we associate racially minoritized identities with being thugs deviance and criminals. And so these are things that we have to be mindful of these are patterns that we consistently see that have to inform what we do in the classroom with students. Next we have to, we have to talk about being intrusive and being intrusive essentially means that we don't sit back and wait for students to invite us to support them. When we're intrusive we take a proactive approach to doing so. Right. And so, for example, if we're talking about online course or any course for example, right, one of the most important and intrusive practices that we can employ is to transparently and proactively answer the question what will it take to be successful in this course. What resources will I need. How should I approach things like the readings and notes and prepare for exams right. A lot of times we assume that students already know how to do it. But what they're doing is their responsibility to figure it out. But let me give you an example here, one quick example of note taking is one that I really want to highlight here. We know that note taking is one of the most important skills that you could have as a learner, right regardless of where you are what it is that you're learning, but we also know that there are literally hundreds of different ways to take notes. So we also know that some note note taking strategies to going to work well as some classes, then they would in other classes. And so one thing that we would suggest to say okay we're going to be intrusive. Take some time early in the course, demonstrate to the students how do you take notes and how is what are good set of notes going to look like for your class. And what are some examples of good notes that what are some examples of what good notes look like, and how can you use these examples to create and build your notes right. And so the key point here is that regardless of what we're talking about here is you don't want to leave students guessing and wondering what it is that they need to do to be successful. We want to proactively answer that question. Right. And we also want to, you know, again if you're thinking about the pandemic and remote learning, hopefully, most of us are going to be making some sort of return to campus sometime in the fall. My sense is we probably won't be, you know, fully there until spring 2020, excuse me, spring 22 at the earliest. And so we really have to think about what are the resources and information students need in order to really successfully experience a course. So doing some sort of informal assessment at the outset. It's the first time taking an online learning course. How are you going to be accessing it. What concerns that you have. How can I best facilitate your learning short email videos, right, any type of tools or anything that you can do to support learning, right and to support access to support open access with as few barriers as possible is really aligned with this whole idea of being intrusive. We must have to be relational. So one thing that one of the most important and consistent lessons that we continue to learn in our work at seal, regardless of what type of study we're doing, regardless of who we're talking to is authentic relationships between students and educators that are grounded in trust mutual respect and authentic care whether we're talking about online environments or in person environments are absolutely critical to student success. And also know this, those relationships are most likely to be established when the educator takes on the responsibility of creating the conditions for them to happen. A lot of times it's, I have office hours, students know where to find me if they need something, they can reach out, if they don't reach out, I'm assuming everything is good. And that's a dangerous assumption. Right, especially today. So the goal, the thing that we have to do is to first and foremost let students know that we are partners in the learning process with them. And that I'm not successful as an educator, if you're not successful as a student. Also, being willing to talk with them informally about things that have nothing to do with the course. Right. Relationships are often form. And so I know sometimes, you know, we might think about things like learning about students hometown and learning their names and learning about, you know, their hobbies, right, we may think about those as trivial details that have nothing to do with learning, but it's these type of details that can often be helpful in building relationships with students. Right. And I also know this is that validation is really, really important. Right. I know, you know, sort of the, the, the, the prevailing perspective today is all about, you know, self love and self care and self validation and I'm all for that I think those things are important. There are learners, right, particularly those who may have been marginalized in education for most, you know, through high school for most of the time they've been in school, they need to hear from educators on a consistent basis. You're smart. You can be successful. You're intelligent. You belong here. I'm proud of you. Keep up the good work. They need to hear that on a regular basis for more than just one person. I think it speaks to the need to be relational and some things that we can do to, to intentionally build relationships with students. We also have to be culturally relevant and affirming which really in some ways speaks to some of the things that we talked about with regard to anti racism. What does it mean, what is a culturally affirming, you know, course or experience I should say look like. Here's some examples. When we center diverse learners in every aspect of the course first and foremost, and folks like Gloria Latin Billings and other scholars who study this, they say that it's not just important for, you know, my racially minoritized students. It's important for all students. Right. It's important for all students even white students can benefit from a course that's that's rooted. It's really relevant and culturally affirming. So about acknowledging the diverse, the intellectual contributions of diverse people we've talked about that and why that's important, and if using positive images of diverse people in the course, and making sure that the things that you're teaching that somehow they are connected to the lived experience students lived experiences, the things that they experience on a regular basis. Right. How does it help them make sense of what they deal with and what they go through and what they see and observe on a regular basis. Right. And then what, what are some things that we can do to make sure our courses are culturally relevant and affirming. I'm not going to, there are 10 things here I'm not going to highlight all 10, but some things that I do want to pinpoint is, you know, making sure that we're making sure the course is rooted in an ethos that prioritizes community and collaboration as opposed to competitiveness. Some other things that we can do using a range of strategies to assess student learning is another one we all know right we've all been educators long enough to know that there is more than one that there's a there's a thing. Known as learning strengths, and some of us are better at certain types of learning and certain types of ways of demonstrating our learning than others. And so one thing that we have to do is to use a range of strategies to assess student learning, not just exams, not just term papers, not just or presentations but maybe all of them. These give students some options creates more work for us as educators, right, because that may mean for one assignment, you may need three or four different rubrics, but imagine how this opens up the space for students, and how the positive impact you can have on student learning. Maybe just one more here that I think is important. And it's number 10. Making sure that every policy that we create, where there's related to attendance or grading or participation, or requiring textbooks, or even how our assignments are submitted, that they do not disadvantage populations that are already disproportionately impacted. And we don't often think about this right sometimes we say listen, the textbook is required everybody got to get it everybody got to read it. We don't think about what what about a student who may not have the financial resources to afford the $200 textbook that you're only going to use three chapters in anyway. Right. Think about how does this policy. How is it what I'm doing. Is it likely to have an impact on disproportionate impacted students. And if so, is there a way that I can reconsider it as well. I'm going to skip ahead here just the last thing I want to share is really thinking about the syllabus the course syllabus. We often think about the syllabus is just a document or a contract, but the syllabus really does set the tone for the relationship that will be formed between students and the educators. So making sure that we're using language in the syllabus. That's not punitive that doesn't just communicate rules, but that really let students know that you believe in them you believe that they can be successful that you care about them. That's where I say that, and that their success is in many ways a reflection of your effectiveness and your success as an educator. I know some of this is stuff that you all may have talked about as a part of consortium and if so, you know, if you're hearing it again. You know I apologize but again often think repeated engagement sometimes you need to hear the right thing more than once for it really to stick. And so I hope if there's anything that's been repeated that you've seen it heard before that it's having that impact. I hope so much for allowing me to be a part of your community. Looks like we have about eight minutes for any dialogue and Q&A. And so I would be happy to hear anything that anyone has to share. The first hand that I see is a colleague from San Diego Palomar College, Hosna, Dr. Hosna, how are you just seeing you. Hello, Dr. Hello. I was, I've been honored because you were my professor and my doc program so a lot of my education and a lot of my activism is is due to you and your leadership and your teaching so thank you. One of the things that resonated with me that you shared was all the different recommendations that you had for faculty and practitioners to look at when it comes to really validating students in our institutions and providing equity minded practice. I've noticed that in the in our community college system, they, it's so automatic for people to say go see a counselor, you need validation go see a counselor, you need to be affirmed go see a counselor. And so we become these in, you know, which I don't mind I don't I do that anyways. It doesn't matter who comes into my classroom or my counseling session I do that. But what the goal is from what you're sharing is how can educators employ those praxis in their classroom. If it's within their curriculum within their pedagogy within their praxis and I think the challenge is how do we get our colleges to move to that direction because there's a lot of resistance by, you know, instructional faculty saying, Well, I'm just going to, I'm just the content expertise I'm not here to counsel students that's not what I do. And there's a lot of stigma against that so I just wanted to ask you what suggestions you have in terms of us changing that paradigm. I had a, you know, when you're asking that question almost chocolate a little bit because I remember I was, I was doing an interview with a faculty member a while ago. And, you know, we were talking about this whole idea right about conveying authentic care and all this stuff. And the colleagues say you know what do you want me to do I'm, I'm a professor I'm not a social worker. Right that was the reaction. And some folks really have that perspective is like hey I am here to teach content. All this other stuff y'all are talking about. I'm not first of all I'm not trained to do it. Right. And second, I don't really think that that's what students need to be successful. And so, a big part of what we have to do is to help challenge this myth about, you know, being caring and being validating that that's only something that counselors do that's only something that social workers do. Right, and really sort of make direct and transparent connections between those behaviors, and that that eat those that you're creating a student success. And I think one thing that I think, you know I'm gonna make an assumption here bear with me. I think all faculty, regardless of what it is that they teach or do care about student success. Right. And so when we can make connections to student success, or sometimes they need to hear it from students, and we can provide opportunities for students to say yeah you know what. I did really well in this class, and part of why I did well is because the professor or the instructor really made it comfortable and easy not not not comfortable in the sense that you know they just made the content easy, but they created a climate in the context that made me feel comfortable to where I was able to learn. I was willing to speak up I was willing to ask for help. I was willing to take risk, right that helped me as a learner. That's where we have to, we have to do a better job of helping make those connections more transparent. And I, you know, and I say that we don't always do that. And in some ways we should kind of understand where they're coming from right, like if I'm a sociology professor. I mean, where where I have learned about authentic care and building relationships where would I have learned that I wouldn't learn it's not something I learned in graduate school. And so, I think in some ways we have to give them some grace, when they have that perspective, but we also have to be willing to bring resources and information and tell them, yeah I understand it's different from what you've been trained to do. Right, but let me tell you why it's important to do. And let me support you and being able to think about some ways that you can seamlessly integrate this type of working with students into your classes right. That's, I think that's a starting point but thank you house the great question. Alright I see Sharon Samson and Joe Friedman in that order so we'll take them in that order. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Harris. I do have a question. I appreciate new knowledge. This cohort this offer class has really promoted. I'm provided opportunity to kick it up a notch. I am a criminal justice or AOJ faculty. And so most students who are familiar with my style with the classes. With the courses that they've had to be introduced to you in cases like Trayvon Martin really looking at taking a deeper dive are accustomed to my mannerisms and the way I present those cases. This offer has allowed now to really focus on racism and anti racism my courses. And there's a lot of pushback for my students. Because apparently I'm the only one that's having them really take a deeper dive into the kinds of mindset because I'm concerned that they don't make it into law enforcement they'll eventually be a juror or vote for positive procedures are going to impact people of color marginalized communities. How do you continue to move forward in this work without having to I feel like I'm feeling to to move back a little bit and water down some of the things that I'm presenting because there's a lot of pushback you know gross month is a feeder from East County and the mindset unfortunately based on that community. Not to the fault of the students but the community itself is very conservative. So what recommendations you have because I'm laying it scaffolding you know to make sure that they understand where I'm coming from but at the same time they're feeling a little bit uncomfortable. Well I don't think it's our so when it comes to learning content that's new and difficult. Sometimes that's uncomfortable. So I don't think it's our responsibility to make difficult content comfortable to learn right as long as there's a learning is through the lens and from the perspective of learning and growth right now. People may say well. You know I'm not talking about the discomfort that comes with being microaggressed right or being I'm not talking about that I'm talking about this is challenging content. It's really pushing me is really making me you know think critically about my values and my experiences. I don't like doing that that's uncomfortable but it does help me. You know grow as a learner that's I'm okay with that type of right because that's that's we all need that. But to be honest with you Professor if they. If we if folks can't understand now why we need to infuse conversations about implicit bias and racism and law if they if we can do it now if it's not apparent now. What else is going to take. And so I don't think you should continue to work to convince people. Right. I think you need to continue to do what you're doing, but make sure there are transparent connections between what you're teaching and the learning goals and learning outcomes right the competencies and things that they're going to need as they enter the field of law enforcement if that's what they decide to do criminal justice and so forth, but it's pretty apparent, you know if you ask me. And so maybe it's just continued to come, you know, continuing to show real life examples of the implications of what happens when we don't do it. Right. That's what I would do. I know we're past time but I do want to take Joe's question I'll respond to it briefly and then I want to respect everyone's time and make sure we end, you know, not long after thank you. Thank you, Professor Harris I can be brief. I'm just interested in seeing my colleagues rethink traditional grading, which can be punitive, giving a student a zero for a non submission, and then averaging that into what they have. What they have achieved is going to disadvantage that student unnecessarily. It assesses that student for something that is not taught in the class. It's not the skills that are being taught necessarily in the class, and just tends to be punitive and problematic so I'm really interested in seeing a shift in the way traditional grading is has, which hasn't changed for hundreds of years to be reassessed and recalibrated. Or at least inquires to what's going on right. Yeah, and there are theories out there but I can't. Yeah, so you know as I hey I didn't I didn't submit it well what's, well why is it, you know, was it because you didn't have access to a resource you needed to do it. Was it, did you encounter, you know, a challenge where we guard to, you know, time or whatever it may be because those are things we could work through. But what I, what I like to say is this, we should try to build in build grace into the structure of the course. It's great to have a policy, or to intentionally inquire right, but what if you structure to court say okay this is our this is our this is what needs to be turned in. Right, and by this point or this time. Okay, and I'm going to give you some options as to when it's turned in what assignment right at this time in a semester, maybe it makes more sense for you to work on this assignment. Right. And so, you know, almost taking a little bit of a portfolio approach to it. And then if you do that then you give students a little bit more agency on, you know, when and how is best for them to do the work and submit the work. But even when you do that I still think it's important to inquire and ask what's going on, before you just feel a student, or before you just give a zero I agree. As opposed to what isn't accomplished. Right. Absolutely. Thank you all so much. I appreciate you I appreciate you having me. I know this was a very challenging week for a lot of people myself included. And so I just hope we can go into the weekend. So, you know, I'm not going to say feeling better but going to the weekend feeling like, you know, perhaps we made a difference in one way or another be a larger small this week and so thank you all I appreciate you. And I will make sure I send you the slide deck to share with anyone who would like to have it. I asked one thing. I am wanting to take that ally course. And I keep going on Cora and do you know when it's going to be available. There's two courses. I don't but follow up with me Cindy offline. I will put my email in the chat and then I'll, I can I can find out what's going on for you. Thank you. Great and thank you so much Dr Harris for joining us today and I know that this was not your first presentation of the day. So you were amazing. As always and thank you so much. The best and the most important one right. Of course, these are the teachers who work directly with the student. Thank you thank you for having me have me back if, if you're inclined I'd love to come back and continue to conversations thank you all. We will, we will definitely follow up on that. Thank you. Thank you take everybody. Take care. We just have a few more things before we finish out the and James I think you were going to finish this off for us. Thanks for sharing the slides and boy we I think we'd all like to spend the rest of the afternoon here with Dr Harris and with with one another after a heavy week. So thanks again to Dr Harris, and just to just to take us out of the session today will advance the slide reminder for those of you who were part of the offer cohort cohort. Well and for others who have been participating in our webinars this spring. We have two more webinars this spring, and they are both opportunities for our of our participants to showcase what they are doing and what they have been doing with their students. We do want to say to, to those of you who may be thinking about sharing what you've been doing. We know that some some projects and some some action plans have been easier to implement than others so we, it's perfectly fine to share the good the bad and the ugly. What you've learned, and we hope you know that this is a supportive audience. So watch for announcements about May 21 and June 18. And next slide. In the chat throughout Dr Harris presentation and number of us were pointing out the connection between culturally relevant pedagogy and equity minded practices and the tools of open educational resources and open pedagogy. You can as always you can learn more about about these things on the CCC OER website linked here and take note that here in the California Community Colleges are friends in the Statewide Academic Senate have a tremendous. OER initiative and you can find link here as well to all their resources. And if you want to keep up with everything that's happening in the Community College world of OER, join the CCC OER email list and with that back to you, All right, thank you so much James and I want to just let everybody. Thank everyone for coming today. It was such a pleasure of course to hear Dr Harris but the, the conversations in the chat were also really exciting. If, yeah, Robert, it looks like you have a question. Very quick question about the showcases. Are they going to be open for us to pick which date we would like to showcase or how would that work. Thank you Robert. You're a couple steps ahead of us. We know this is a super busy time, we'll be reaching out in the next week or so and giving people a calendar and letting them choose which date works best for them so thank you. Okay, sounds good. And really the only thing I would add to what James has said is that, you know, some folks had some very, you know, impressive action plans and so we also want to hear what you want to do in the future as well. And what you've what you've been able to do this spring and you know what your experiences have been that kind of thing with your students but also what what might be coming up next so did we have any other questions. Otherwise, I want to encourage you to take our, our survey here and Liz if possible if you could put that in the chat window. And this is just to give us feedback. We've asked you to do that after most of the webinars, and it's also an opportunity for you to give us suggestions for other speakers that might be for upcoming webinars. So, and this is James one more time one final note for our participants, you received a an email and a notice yesterday in the course about a whole host of evaluation activities coming up here so please do take a look at that email and help us document the tremendous impact that you're having. Thank you. All right, everyone have a great rest of your Friday afternoon and a wonderful weekend and we'll see you next month, if not before. So, take care.