History is not set in stone and archives are not objective repositories of records. Understanding the interpretive role of archives in producing historical narratives will unveil the emerging importance of college archives in co-creating a more equitably informed future. This panel will feature speakers who will discuss how we can accurately and comprehensively document CUNY’s legacy of social activism and upward mobility. Annie Tummino and Obden Mondésir will discuss the civil rights archives and SEEK History Project at Queens College, and Cynthia Tobar will discuss Raising Ourselves Up, an effort to document the stories of first-generation college students at BCC. In developing these initiatives, the panelists centered participatory and collaborative approaches to archival documentation, working in partnership with students, faculty, staff, and alumni to create rich new collections which highlight the experiences of low-income, immigrant, Jewish, and BIPOC students. Overall, the panelists will discuss the role of archivists as facilitators of liberatory memory work in CUNY.

The murder of George Floyd made a searing and indelible impression on the entire world. In the wake of an international demand for more just systems, during 2020, students at Hostos Community College challenged the institution to take a stand in support and defense of Black Lives. Student leaders voiced their hopes, fears, and demands of the College to ensure that Hostos is an affirming institution for its Black students. Students demanded to be seen, acknowledged, and affirmed. In response, President Daisy Cocco De Filippis spearheaded a working group to address the concerns. From the students’ righteous cries, Black @ Hostos was birthed. During this interactive workshop, presenters will share the intentionality behind and sustainability of programming, and the cultivation of a shared understanding of struggles, past and present, as well as the triumphant spirit of a people who continually call for America to live up to its highest ideals.

In this workshop, we will examine linguistic discrimination in the classroom. Conscious or unconscious biases against speakers of “nonstandard” varieties of English are often reflected in our teaching practices, to the detriment of students. Do your syllabus or grading rubrics reference use of “standard English” or “appropriate grammar”? Have you ever deducted points of an assignment due to the presence of linguistic structures that are considered acceptable in a non-standard dialect? If so, what are the consequences for your students? Are there any alternatives? In this workshop, participants will learn about linguistic discrimination and identify ways to move away from approaches that unfairly penalize speakers of “nonstandard” varieties of English without sacrificing academic rigor. Instead, we recommend an asset-based approach which recognizes the value of all language varieties.

This presentation addresses recent activities at Queens College and Queensborough Community College (QCC) which are focused on faculty, student and community engagement around understanding and acknowledging Indigenious survivance. The presenters take the living Land Acknowledgements and engagement with shared authority as it has been practiced in collaboration with the Kupferberg Holocaust Center at QCC as two starting points towards allyship relationships and a centering of Indigenous Knowledge at CUNY. Through this presentation we hope to connect and co-ordinate with other colleagues working on decolonial projects within the CUNY community by sharing information, ideas and resources.

The unique challenges faced by college students as it relates to mental health throughout this pandemic, have shined a spotlight on the lack of a comprehensive infrastructure for supporting students. These vulnerabilities are amplified by the fact that the academic pressures of college can cause its own set of issues. The pandemic has created an environment that leads to elevated rates of suicidal ideation, anxiety and depression. The stigma of a positive COVID status may exacerbate risk for harm experienced by students with mental health issues. The systemic flaws highlighted by the pandemic can be addressed from a standpoint that sees the merit in implementing comprehensive reforms. Raising awareness about the realities of mental illness among college students is crucial. Offering presentations for students and reimagining all that is possible, will position students for success, and make administrations more capable of helping their students.

The Zicklin School of Business has identified three initiatives aligned with our diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. The first is a partnership with the PhD Project to facilitate the development of a pipeline of diverse full-time faculty. The second, the BMCC-Baruch College Business Academy, creates appropriate processes and support structures to facilitate a seamless transition pathway for students in the business administration program at BMCC to complete a BBA degree at the Zicklin school. Finally, to attract more underrepresented students to Zicklin’s graduate programs, the Zicklin School would like to partner with select HBCUs to enroll students in its MS Accountancy and Finance degree programs as well as the full-time MBA program.  Diverse student recruitment is a step in the right direction. However, considerable research has revealed that there is a gap in the ability of business faculty to teach concepts that fully address racial inequities in the classroom. This dilemma begs the question: Are business faculty complicit in  mythologizing business concepts by ignoring historical precedence, due to a practice of white supremacy? Cutting-edge research suggests that business curricula must be demythologized using a symptomal reading practice. This will allow business faculty to dismantle white supremacy in their pedagogy and classroom management by scrutinizing the history of discrimination and racism in American business.

The Power of An Antiracist Academy: Reimagining Systems & Structures, considering the current political and intellectual climate, is a very provocative and challenging topic that can be objectively discussed by intellectuals deeply committed to the creation of a better world, beyond void rhetoric. I wonder, how are power relations currently articulated within CUNY? Who dominates who? In the relations ‘agents’ vs ‘structures,’ who are those responsible for the maintenance and reproduction of systems that have prevented systemic changes within our public institution? As it is articulated, is CUNY’s institutional dynamic compatible with heterogeneity, ‘diversalité’ and ‘pluriversality’ of its actors? This proposal attempts to answer those questions while offering an interpretive approach helpful to advance towards the decoloniality of power and knowledge, as well as the demolition of discourses and practices anchored in soft segregation, and systemic and institutional racism.

As three teachers working to challenge systemic racism in adopting a translingual approach, we have experienced in our classrooms various degrees of success and failure. In addition to facing a barrage of constraints, including institutional expectations of and policies about student writing, we continue to struggle to chip away at racialized attitudes that are held about language much less adequately dismantle the racist practices and systems in which we participate. In this panel, we examine the affordances, challenges, and limitations of working to challenge dominant attitudes about language held by students. While the classroom is the only or even ideal space to combat racism, we believe we, as teachers of writing, can and should work to combat raciolinguistic ideologies in the classroom and beyond. This panel provides three different pedgogical accounts showcasing strategies for antiracist translingual pedagogy.

In her essay, Audre Lorde “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” Audre Lorde asks, “What are the words you do not have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? …. Because I am myself -- a Black woman warrior poet doing my work -- come to ask you, are you doing yours?” This panel features the work of four women of color, all junior faculty and organizing members of Lehman Envision ARC -- a coalition of faculty and students working toward an anti-racist university attuned to the community of scholars it serves in the Bronx. Each presentation demonstrates the importance behind women of color organizing together: they create the solidarity and support necessary to thrive and survive not otherwise offered by the university. LEA serves as a platform to envision a college campus that demands equity for its students, faculty, and staff, free of hierarchical divides and injustices. It represents the grassroots formation of a university community unto ourselves, providing resources in lack, including: mentorship, interdisciplinary promotion of one another’s research, collaborative grant writing, curriculum design, and Union and OMBUDS representation for and by us. The members of this collective offer one another support and energy that the university & college, due to systems of structural racism, have failed to provide.

Immigrant students from diverse countries, and experiences can be shocked at the racism and sexism they encounter in curricula, and in their lives in New York City, especially if they have not learned about these issues in their first country. Therefore, a framework that provides information and perspective built on student’s personal experiences helps them prepare for their academic texts, critical analysis, and writing. Furthermore, with increased confidence, students are more likely to contribute to dismantling racism and sexism in their personal lives and their communities. Join former CUNY Language Immersion Program (CLIP) students, and their instructor, Caryn T. Davis, in this interactive workshop which they have presented at ESOL conferences and graduate classes in New York City.

Transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) students deserve safe learning environments. In this workshop, participants will explore personal and societal biases that may negatively affect the learning experiences of their TGNC students. Working with other faculty and staff, participants will co-create tools they can bring back to their classrooms and campuses to include and empower TGNC students. This presentation is a result of a collaborative project beginning when Raz Edwards was a student in Dr. Spring Cooper’s class. Participants will receive informational media materials developed through this classroom experience.

We will present preliminary findings on the association of socioeconomic discrimination and depression among young people of color in NYC. People of color and those living in poverty are especially vulnerable to discrimination and microaggressions, particularly when multiple identities intersect with one another. Data were collected from 317 CUNY Freshman (average age 18 years old, majority reported household incomes below $50,000 per family unit, 98% of the participants were students of color) from CUNY campuses in Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and Manhattan. Socioeconomic microaggressions were associated with depression, somatic complaints, and difficulty concentrating. Participants who were food insecure reported more experiences of socioeconomic microaggressions, depression, and difficulty concentrating. We will present findings and lead an open discussion about potential implications surrounding SES microaggressions for CUNY students, including but not limited to social mobility, needs for support, and the intersectionality of discrimination for CUNY students of color who are also food insecure.

National statistics are clear—historically, the academy has long been made up of mostly white men and women. Approximately six percent of full-time faculty at flagship universities is currently Black or Latino; the numbers specific to Black and Latino male faculty are even more abysmal and represent less than three percent. Members of underrepresented groups (including faculty of color) are desperately needed in higher education not just to increase representation, but also to act as role models for the next generation of students and professionals. Panelists will examine faculty recruitment and retention through a gendered and intersectional lens that considers the intertwining role of race, gender and immigrant status in shaping academic careers. The challenges experienced by racial and ethnic minorities in seeking tenure and promotion will also be discussed, including the most common fears and myths that are often institutionally reproduced. The critical role of mentoring and peer support will also be addressed toward truthfully cultivating diversity and inclusiveness in academia.

CUNY Unlimited, an inclusive model for students with intellectual disabilities (ID), opens educational and career opportunities for citizens typically denied access to college. “Belonging” is thought to be particularly important to the success of student communities that have historically under-participated in higher education (Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Strayhorn, 2012). Yet, little is known about perceptions of belonging by this student group. Understanding belonging by students with ID, and other stakeholders, allows faculty, program designers, and administrators to grow best practices, programs, processes and systems that support inclusion in higher education. Quantitative and qualitative data collected over five years was analyzed using student affairs, inclusion and adult learning frameworks. Findings identified artifacts of belonging, as described by these various groups, that are used in the construction of belonging, whereas language highlights symbols of belonging and systems that emphasize nonbelonging. Recommendations for how to resolve systemic barriers to inclusion will be discussed.