Campus Equity Week is a time of education and activism that draws attention to the working conditions of faculty working on temporary, low-paid contracts, who now constitute the majority of college instructors. The theme for CCFT’s local CEW campaign is: BELONGING. Below is a list with links to posters and publications.
- CEW Google Folder with educational and support resources
- Campus Equity Week Poster
- Campus Equity Week Info. Graphic
- CFT – Faculty Wellness = Student Success
- Take Action Poster
- Who Needs Faculty?
- Faculty Health Care
Belonging and Why It Matters
by Rachel Mitchell, CCFT Associate Faculty Chair, with excerpts from Wise, Susie (2022). Design for Belonging: How to Build Inclusion and Collaboration in Your Communities. California: Ten Speed Press.
In our work at the college, we rightly focus on and center the student experience. One of the most important components of student success is feeling a sense of belonging–in academia, in the campus community, and in the classroom community, with one’s peers and instructors. We know that learning is relational, and to establish a strong foundation of trust, support, and foster a sense of belonging, we, as instructors, need to feel a sense of belonging at our institutions as well. It’s not a coincidence that so many of the things that students need to be successful in their learning are what faculty (and particularly associate faculty) need to be successful in their teaching because faculty working conditions are student learning conditions.
The nature of ‘adjunctification” in higher education undermines this crucial element in both student and faculty success. The two-tier system that creates a class of academic “gig workers,” deprofessionalizes the very essential professionals on which it relies. This is why and how a change in title from “adjunct” to associate faculty is an important step in both reasserting and emphasizing our valuable role as partners in the mission of our college.
Belonging and Othering
There are many definitions of belonging and its insistent opposing force, othering. Belonging is being accepted and invited to participate; being part of something and having the opportunity to show up as yourself. More than that, it means being able to raise issues and confront harsh truths as a full member of a community. Othering, by contrast, is treating people from another group as essentially different from and generally inferior to the group you belong to. (Wise 2022:3)
This is why any Diversity/Equity/Inclusion/Anti-Racism/Accessibility (DEIAA) work must address othering and belonging and critically examine the important nuances of individuals’ and groups’ felt experiences of both. As Susie Wise notes,
…belonging [is] the ultimate goal in DEI work. After all, a huge part of this work is to address the feelings of othering and lack of belonging that people have every day and take steps to recognize the damage it does when allowed to fester in our systems and institutions. (2022:14)
= Campus Equity Week: An Invitation =
“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.” ~ James Baldwin.
Campus Equity Week gives us an opportunity to share the associate faculty experience through education, empathy, and activism. It allows us to recognize and value the identities and experiences of associate faculty.
Noticing what is working and for whom, who belongs and who doesn’t, and when and under what circumstances gets you ready to design to change culture, to craft everyday acts of intentional design toward belonging and away from othering. (Wise 2022:28)
I invite you all to enter into Campus Equity Week and participate in whatever way works for you. Just know that you being here and being a part of these efforts matter, and that any and all contributions you are able to make, big or small, are meaningful. Be a domino for change…
“Belonging means more than just being seen. Belonging entails having a meaningful voice and the opportunity to participate in the design of social and cultural structures. Belonging means having the right to contribute to and make demands on society and political institutions.”
~ john a. powell (Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at UCBerkeley)
With love and in solidarity, Rachel 💙