EdSource

CSU June 19 Inaugural Symposium

At California State’s first biennial symposium June 19, the nation’s largest public university faces the need for societal change that uplifts black students, faculty and staff.

The symposium, which was hosted in-person and virtually by CSU Dominguez Hills on Wednesday and Thursday, featured Princeton University professor and author Cornel West, Grammy-nominated singer and actress Angie Stone, professor of University of Southern California Shaun Harper, UC Irvine Professor Michele Goodwin, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, and other academics and student advocates from across the state.

The symposium went beyond higher education and covered reproductive health, medical disparities and voting rights.

“We want to set the standard for what all of higher education in this country should be thinking in celebrating this June 16 holiday,” said Thomas Parham, president of the Dominguez Hills campus, located south of Los Angeles. “I want us to start with the fact that there’s a lot of people looking at diversity, equity and inclusion in the context of demographics…we kind of tick the boxes and say we’re doing progress in diversity.”

But it’s a “very basic” way to measure progress, Parham said.

“The question we want people to ask is, given these demographics, how have the policies and practices of our institutions and agencies changed?” he said.

People who spend time on campus see more people from different ethnic, racial or religious backgrounds, but the policies and practices remain the same, Harper said.

“Until we do good for black people, anything we do in the name of racial justice will fail. he goesI will be incomplete,” Harper said.

Ed Bush, president of Consumes River College — one of California’s 116 community colleges — said part of the problem is that more racially equitable changes don’t always benefit the status quo.

“Even when we bring black people into the system, you don’t feel capable of being black, so you’re not leaning into your authentic self that will allow you to have the greatest advantage for black students,” said Bush. , adding that California’s master plan for higher education needs to be redesigned to more closely improve education for black people.

During the symposium, Secretary of State Shirley Weber, who began her career as a professor at San Diego State University, said that as a graduate she would never have thought that she would fight the same battles for education and the right to vote as her grandfather.

“Juneteenth was never a celebration, but rather a stark reminder of our nation’s continual struggle to align its civil rights laws and decrees with delivering freedom, opportunity and justice. social mandates,” she said, adding that educators need to better prepare citizens for their role in understanding our democracy.

“It’s not OK when only 37% of the population voted in the last two years,” Weber said.

Weber, who lobbied for ethnic studies requirements in higher education sectors across the state and was a supporter of eliminating standardized testing, said she told Gov. Gavin Newsom that if he wanted to fight against institutional racism, the first place to start was the “ivory tower”. from academia.

Besides the state’s community college system, CSU reaches nearly every student in the state, Weber said. And with that power, the system has a “unique opportunity to move forward, not with the same rules and regulations we’ve had for years to produce the same old people, but for so many people left behind and left behind.”

The system also has a responsibility to the K-12 system, as the greatest trainer of future teachers and educators, Weber said, adding that California has the fifth largest economy in the world but consistently ranks in the 40s and 50 for K-12. education and funding.

“It’s embarrassing,” she said. “I deal with members of the Assembly who refuse to enroll their own children in public school. Why? Because they want them to succeed. It is a reality that we have to face. »

Parham said there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the issues or problems addressed by the symposium, but he hopes the folks at CSU will truly examine their own campuses and policies and make intentional improvements.

“How can the system, the largest public higher education system in all of America…develop programs that overwhelmingly affirm the dignity, worth, and humanity of people, staff, faculty, and students of African descent?” He asked.

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