View the Meeting Slides here: 2.6.2019

Hello, Diversity Champions!
Thank you for your participation in our team meeting on February 6. We had over 30 people join us from all around the state for this second monthly meeting focused on race and culture.

COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS FIELD GUIDE: PART 1

Part one of the Courageous Conversations About Race Field Guide (CCAR) is centered around the idea that passion is an essential characteristic of racial leadership. The chapter provides guidance around how to have effective conversations about race: We need to exercise passion, practice and persistence. Courageous Conversations offers a protocol and strategy for school systems to eliminate racial achievement disparities. By utilizing this strategy and learning the protocol, we will develop racial understanding, participate in interracial dialogue about race, and identify/address racial issues in our systems. A courageous conversation is one that engages those who don’t want to talk, sustains the conversation when it gets uncomfortable or diverted, and/or deepens the conversation to the point where authentic understanding and meaningful action occurs. We will exercise our use of the CCAR thorough our Diversity Champions journey, so please continue to read the book at your own pace.
During this session, participants shared their experiences with the concept of race around the following prompts:
1)  How did you become aware that you had a race?
2)  Describe your relationship with race in the past? More recently?

TEAM COMMUNICATION

In addition to commenting on this blog and participating in team meetings, we want to encourage all of you to connect with each other in your day-to-day work. The listserves below were made with this in mind, so please use them to share ideas, events and opportunities as you see fit!

• Email your 2019 cohort: diversitychampionteam@lists.oregonstate.edu
  • This email list contains ONLY those who signed up for the current, 2019 program. Use it to share articles, events and anything relevant to our meetings. You can also comment on these blog posts to share thoughts and ideas.
• Email your community: diversitychampions@lists.oregonstate.edu
  • This is a broader contact list that includes past Diversity Champion members, as well as current members and others who have shown interest, but haven’t participated in the DC program yet. Use it to reach a wider audience of people in our division who are interested in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

COMING SOON/NEXT STEPS

• Feedback from this meeting let us know it would be helpful for everyone to have a contact list of their fellow Diversity Champions. We are working on this and will let you know when it’s posted to the website. IMPORTANT: If you would prefer not to be listed, please let us know! If we don’t hear from you, we will include your information on the contact list.
• Our next monthly meeting will be Wednesday, March 6 at 10am. Please keep an eye out for calendar invites coming your way soon, and be sure to view the media below before the meeting:
  • Robin DiAngelo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=DwIx3KQer54
  • Chimamanda Adichie TED talk “The danger of a single story”: https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transcript?language=en
• Keep reading your Courageous Conversations Field Guide books. There will not be other formally assigned readings, but the content will be very valuable as you continue this program.

Thank you for your participation!

Ana Lu, and the DEI Team