Anti-Racism Consultation Committee
Minutes
January 22, 2016 | 12:00-1:30 EST
Members Present
Rory Crath, Faculty
Cole Hooey, Alumni Association Executive Committee
Dri Huber, Student
Katelin Lewis-Kulin, Associate Director of Field Education
Irene Rodriguez Martin, Associate Dean, Graduate Enrollment and Student Services
Fred Newdom, Faculty
Peggy O’Neill, Associate Dean, Academic Affairs
Manuel Ortiz, Student
Denis Vidal, Student
Laurie Wyman, Staff
Marianne Yoshioka, Dean
Absent
Joanne Corbin, Faculty
Nina Gonzalez, Alum
Kai Lynch, Student
AGENDA
A.
Welcome, who is on the call, setting out goals
B.
Bringing other students on the committee
C.
Status Report re: changes to curriculum and hiring
D.
Designing a quick midterm evaluation tool
E.
Bringing the AR commitment into the classroom: brainstorming
A.
Setting our goals: We clarified the purpose of the ARCC and our goals a.
The ARCC has existed for many years. It was conceptualized to have two foci: i.
to be available to consult/commiserate with any SCSSW community member who wanted a place to think through how issues of race and other intersecting identity statuses and power were at play in some aspect of their role and activities associated with the School and possibly how they could move it forward. ii.
to serve as an accountability to the anti-racism commitment: b.
Over the years the accountability focus became dormant and most SCSSW members know it as a consultative body. We have now reactivated the accountability activity of the ARCC. Current members were appointed with this purpose and are not required to serve the consultation function although they may wish to c.
We will revisit membership- drawing on current members and/or recruiting new members to ensure that the consultative function continues

Anti-Racism Consultation Committee MINUTES
January 22, 2016 d.
More than just monitoring School activities, ARCC can envision new ways that the antiracism commitment can live in the School and provide leadership in advancing this work e.
Members identified their hopes for our work i.
That the work of the ARCC extend beyond the petition and includes how the anti-racism can impacts staff, alumni, and administrators ii.
To bring transparency to the School’s curricular work generally and in response to the student petition of summer 2015
1.
To improve communication of ARCC’s findings to the student body iii.
To work efficiently so that our work is not bogged down, and so that we can move through an active agenda iv.
To be action-oriented f.
A question was raised about power differentials across members and the importance of being reflective of those power differentials and how they might manifest in the ARCC’s deliberations and processes. We agreed that we wish to create a body that is welcoming and respectful to all members g.
It’s important for us all to represent our constituencies, seek out feedback as necessary
B.
We discussed bringing other students onto ARCC a.
Kai, Denis, and Manuel had requested that we add more student members. It is important to have active engagement with students on the ARCC, this can be achieved by increasing student membership b.
The Dean clarified that the committee has only 2 faculty members serving. The other members represent the other constituents of SCSSW: staff, administrative offices, and alumni c.
There is a proposal that the student members nominate other students whose voices are important to include in the ARCC because of other interest and commitment. In the early summer, we will identify a process where we can develop a more democratic process for bringing students on i.
Dri offered to share how E4 manages student elections if we decided to use an election process d.
We can open up ARCC meetings to anyone. At some point it becomes too inefficient to have a conference call with a large group e.
There has been outreach already to members of Council to participate in ARCC. They are welcome. We need a commitment from the group to participate in an ongoing fashion.
To continuously repeat discussions will become problematic if we don’t have a core that remembers where we left off and how we are proceeding. f.
Denis or Manuel will forward the names to Dean Yoshioka to include in the next call
C.
We discussed how the School is responding to the 11 item of the student petition of summer
2015 (see enclosed)
1.
40% of assigned readings in all courses written by authors of color.
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Anti-Racism Consultation Committee MINUTES
January 22, 2016
Context: the SCSSW curriculum is divided into five sequence areas, there is a chair for each sequence area, chairs are responsible for hiring for their area, the Associate Dean of Academic
Affairs, Peggy O’Neill, coordinates the chairs
Chairs

Field: Carolyn DuBois

HBSE: Dennis Miehls

Policy: Fred Newdom

Practice: Annemarie Gockel

Research: Marsha Pruett
All adjunct hiring is completed by December/early January. From now until the beginning of classes, the instructors within each sequence area meet to review syllabi and course instruction.
The questions about course readings are much larger than the syllabi this summer. They speak to larger issues of the curriculum. SCSSW adheres to values of academic freedom which preclude us from dictating what any given instructor must teach. Many times, adjuncts work to revise syllabi, consulting with the chair of their sequence area. It is a significant amount of work.
If new kinds of resources (e.g., readings, and other kinds of learning materials) are available, instructors are often open to including them a.
A group of faculty have proposed a new course that will allow us to identify and gather learning information that represents diverse voices and perspectives. The goal is to develop an archive of this content that students are actively involved in creating, for instructors’ use i.
Current idea: that students in the class work to identify 3-6 content areas to prioritize
2.
A student representative from the Council for Students of Color shall be appointed to the
Faculty Curriculum Committee to increase transparency and communication with the student curriculum committee. a.
A change to the membership of a standing committee requires change to the Faculty
Code, the faculty procedures and policies. The Personnel Practices Committee
(Professors Drisko, Pruett, and Corbin) will bring a recommendation forward for faculty vote b.
There are differing responses by the faculty to this proposal ranging from agreement, to concerns of students missing field hours to participate in meetings, to that students may have singular agendas rather than interest in the overall curriculum, to the difficulty of discussing confidential and private issues of salaries, review of specific individuals i.
One solution to the latter would be to have the Committee enter ‘in camera’ where student were not be present for that portion of the meeting ii.
If this happens, the reasons for this should be clear and transparent, on the agenda, and infrequent iii.
This remains a concern for students
3.
The course Racism in the United States will be two terms a.
The Racism course will remain 1 term this summer
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Anti-Racism Consultation Committee MINUTES
January 22, 2016 b.
A move of a required course to 2 terms necessitates the elimination of another requirement. This will require longer term review. Given the significant change to the curriculum this would represent it is tabled until we can assess the impact of the other changes.
4.
Practice courses will include at least 40% of case studies by a clinician who identifies as a person of color. a.
Annemarie Gockel, Phebe Sessions (Curriculum Committee Chair, and Chair of the 2 nd year practice course) and Katelin Lewis-Kulin have been working on identifying new cases; they have reviewed 150 case studies so far b.
Katelin reported that as a result there will be a significant difference in the kinds of cases used in both first and second year practice c.
We have asked that a member of the ARCC work with the field committee that is reviewing the instructions of the writing of the case to discuss how the student’s social locations/identities can be included in the study
5.
Hiring and search committees must include student representatives of color with the aim of increasing faculty, Faculty Field Advisors, Thesis Advisors, and Community Practice Project
Advisors of color. a.
For summer 2016: 121 faculty hired, 33% of who identify as a person of color b.
Total new faculty: 17 (65%) of whom identify as a person of color c.
This reflects a change to recruitment and hiring strategy, and placement of hires over the curriculum d.
Dean O’Neill will bring in trend data for next meeting
6.
All faculty will be required to attend at least one Pedagogy and Diversity meeting per summer for consultation on skillfully incorporating anti-racism into pedagogy. a.
We are approaching this a little differently having heard student voice for issues of facilitating classroom discussions b.
The faculty has agreed that we will be trained on the O’Neill & Kang Critical
Conversations model of group facilitation. i.
Our goal is to have all faculty, administrators, staff, FFAs, students will be trained through a train the trainer model ii.
We will need to discuss roll out c.
Pedagogy and Diversity will be continued this summer d.
The current online course on racism offered to instructors will continue and we need to find a way to increase visibility and usage. We have asked all instructors to attend
Pedagogy and Diversity and/or complete the online course
7.
Administration will work with students to design and implement a mid-term feedback form as an ''instant evaluation tool" to assess whether anti-racism pedagogy is adequately reflected in each course. a.
On agenda for next meeting
8.
Students will have access to qualitative and quantitative information from all evaluations of
Smith's Anti-Racism Commitment, including findings from course evaluation data on anti-racism. a.
On agenda for next meeting
9.
All instructors who teach the Racism in the United States course for clinicians of color must identify as people of color.
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Anti-Racism Consultation Committee MINUTES
January 22, 2016 a.
The commitment to the course has been to have the course co-taught by instructors of different races/ethnicity in order to have more representation in the classroom. Only in more recent years, has there been more sections taught by an instructor who identifies as white and one who identifies as a person of color. b.
Faculty have discussed and have agreed to assign co-instructors, both of who identify as a person of color and who are from different racial/ethnic communities to the course.
10.
Students of color will be offered additional consultation from faculty of color and an optional differentiated orientation for the second year Anti-Racism Assignment. a.
On agenda for next meeting
11.
Smith curriculum will demonstrate value for diverse and multimodal ways of knowing by including non-peer reviewed materials such as blog posts, multi-media, poetry, and visual m1s to include authors, m1ists, and creators of knowledge who are not based in traditional academic
D.
Other a.
We would like to have a half day meeting early in the summer for planning institutions. a.
See item 1
For next time: b.
We will continue with a review of action in response to the petition c.
Discuss trends of hiring and placement over the curriculum d.
Identifying the data we want to track e.
How to bring the AR commitment into the classroom f.
Please send additional items
Submitted
Marianne Yoshioka, PhD, MSW
Dean and Elizabeth Marting Treuhaft Professor
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Anti-Racism Consultation Committee MINUTES
January 22, 2016
Demands to Integrate Anti-Racism into Smith SSW Curriculum & Structures
1: 40% of assigned readings in all courses written by authors of color.
2: A student representative from the Council for Students of Color shall be appointed to the Faculty
Curriculum Committee to increase transparency and communication with the student curriculum committee.
3. The course Racism in the United States will be two terms.
4. Practice courses will include at least 40% of case studies by a clinician who identifies as a person of color.
5. Hiring and search committees must include student representatives of color with the aim of increasing faculty, Faculty Field Advisors, Thesis Advisors, and Community Practice Project Advisors of color.
6. All faculty will be required to attend at least one Pedagogy and Diversity meeting per summer for consultation on skillfully incorporating anti-racism into pedagogy.
7. Administration will work with students to design and implement a mid-term feedback form as an
''instant evaluation tool" to assess whether anti-racism pedagogy is adequately reflected in each course.
8. Students will have access to qualitative and quantitative information from all evaluations of Smith's
Anti-Racism Commitment, including findings from course evaluation data on anti-racism.
9. All instructors who teach the Racism in the United States course for clinicians of color must identify as people of color.
10. Students of color will be offered additional consultation from faculty of color and an optional differentiated orientation for the second year Anti-- Racism Assignment.
II. Smith curriculum will demonstrate value for diverse and multimodal ways of knowing by including non-peer reviewed materials such as blog posts, multi-media, poetry, and visual m1s to include authors, m1ists, and creators of knowledge who are not based in traditional academic institutions.
WHO IS PART OF THIS MOVEMENT?
• Over 184 students and 20 alumni have signed a petition to support the demands in less than I week
• Student Org: 90 students voted for student org to support the demands (1 abstained).
• Gender & Sexuality Alliance, Jewish Students, Council for Students of Color, Gender Non-Conforming
Students, QTPOC, Living Subjectively, Students Impacted by Ableism,
• Curriculum Committee- unanimous vote to support the demands
WILL THE ADMINISTRATION AGREE TO THESE DEMANDS
BY THE END OF THIS TERM?
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