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CC’s Antiracism Implementation Plan provides a framework to guide the college’s progress toward becoming an antiracist institution.
Every step we take toward antiracism will make us better, and prepare our students to push for progress in the world. This commitment to antiracism is impacting our work and our lives as members of the CC community.
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CC Adds Caste to Nondiscrimination Policy
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As an institution of higher education founded on the principles of equitable access and inclusion, Colorado College is committed to providing students, faculty, and staff with an environment conducive to learning and working where all people are treated with dignity and respect. CC now includes caste in its Notice of Nondiscrimination Policy and Equal Employment Opportunity Statement. “Recognizing ‘caste’ and prohibiting caste-based discrimination are critical to the college’s mission to become an inclusive and antiracist institution and to its commitment to ensuring that all students and employees are treated with dignity,” says Purvi Mehta, assistant professor of history, who reached out to the Office of Human Resources, the Diversity and Equity Advisory Board, and Faculty Executive Committee to request this change in CC’s policy. Learn more about how this change supports AIP Goals 2 and 7.
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Assessing Student Conduct Policies
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During the 2019-20 academic year, Takiyah Amin, Ph.D., a scholar, educator, and consultant, completed an examination of student-conduct policies (known to many as The Pathfinder) through an antiracism and anti-oppression lens and recommended changes. Amin, Dean of Students Rochelle Dickey, and Community Standards and Conduct Specialist Josh Isringhausen then redrafted the conduct policies based on feedback from internal reviews and campus focus groups. “One of our major goals in rewriting these policies was to make them easier to understand and to provide clearer expectations for all students about what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior at CC,” says Isringhausen. Revised policies went into effect in the 2020-21 academic year. A Student Conduct Advisory Group was formed to review the policies annually. Find out more about how this supports AIP Goal 2, to establish antiracism, equity, and inclusion as foundational to our community expectations.
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For the work of antiracism to be successful, all faculty and staff must see it as part of their responsibilities to the college, and as something for which everyone must be held accountable. Two faculty members recently published scholarly work advancing key antiracism values, as laid out in AIP Goal 4.
Manya Whitaker, associate professor of education, recently published “Public School Equity: Educational Leadership for Justice,” which takes a new approach on eradicating educational disparities. “So often we ask leaders to do things they are unprepared to do because what we want is ‘new’ and a product of current sociopolitical dynamics that were not present during their training. This book is an attempt at an intensive course (think Block Plan) on how to live up to current expectations,” s ays Whitaker.
Associate Professor Rebecca Barnes co-authored a perspectives piece in Nature Geoscience highlighting the systems of oppression inherent within STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine) for historically excluded groups. The article, “Scientists from historically excluded groups face a hostile obstacle course,” reframes the discussion of diversity in STEM from one that is passive (i.e., a “leaky pipeline”) to that of a hostile obstacle course, exploring the causes and consequences of underrepresented scholars.
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Completion of Communications Diversity Audit
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Colorado College recently conducted a communications audit to examine communications on diversity, inclusion, and antiracism, as well as discourse — the way community members voice their opinions and become informed. This is a key initiative in AIP Goal 7, The complete Communications Diversity Audit conducted by Consultant Jess Pettitt is available here. Log in with your CC credentials.
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