Workshops

If SUNY intendents to continue to be the premier destination for higher learning, campus leadership needs to recognize that efforts around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are imperative to this goal. As progressive institutions of post-secondary education, colleges and universities must understand that the education of our student body is enhanced through the promotion and support of a spirited community of people from various backgrounds and lived experiences. In creating a vibrant campus community for students, faculty, and staff, making institutional alterations to address long-needed reform directed at increasing the diversity of the campus community, and ensuring that equity, inclusion, and social justice need to be at the forefront of such efforts. The purpose of this presentation is to outline strategies for addressing DEI from a holistic perspective. Specifically, the presenters will provide strategies and tactics focused on recruiting and retaining students, faculty and staff. This includes using concepts of universal design and social justice principles to inform curriculum and instruction, communication and marketing materials, and the design of physical spaces. The presenters will provide examples of both of successes and failed attempts aimed at fostering an inclusive college environment.

Participants will be introduced to a Systems Change and Action Research process that values diversity both as an intervention and desired outcome as a primary means to sustain a thriving and effective institution. Higher education is generally viewed as being embedded in a disruptive context, and its current status is portrayed as a wicked problem. Application of this approach at an institution of higher education focuses on creating the requisite context (vision, mission and values) to operationalize an inclusive campus-wide process that embeds diversity in the strategies, management processes, and action plans to address Wicked Problems. Participants will gain insight on using shared governance as a primary tool to breakdown elitism, and create structures supporting transformative initiatives guided by the context. Through a group exercise, participants will apply this model to their institutions, with the intent to create a business case for diversity on their campuses.

This session is designed to be both a workshop and a panel where the presenters-a Dean, a Department Chair, a Chief Diversity Officer and a Coordinator of Intercultural Initiatives, will showcase through their multiple lenses, how academics and student affairs collaborate to enhance and improve Underrepresented Minority (URM) student retention. The presenters will discuss the need to change how we are constructing, instructing and assessing the college experience, and approach student success/retention in a more holistic way. Presenters will explore their content area and talk about ways they have been more hands on/collaborative to yield success with this student population—this includes students of color, veterans, LGBTQ+, women in STEM, different religious identities, and other historically disenfranchised populations. A healthy portion of this session will include, in a structured panel format, adequate time to answer questions, share tips and best practices.

NYC Men Teach is the nation’s boldest effort to diversify New York City’s teacher pipeline by recruiting and retaining men of color to work across NYC's 1800 public schools. The initiative impacts policy, builds individual leadership capacity, and promotes educator effectiveness through professional development, personal growth, and a village of support to help male educators of color thrive. The NYC Men Teach workshop session will highlight the initiative’s impact, as told by staff and members of our program through interactive exercises and conversations to discuss best practices for diversity recruitment. During our time together, we will discuss the impact male educators of color can have in the classroom while discussing strategies to develop diverse pipelines. The purpose of this workshop is to highlight best practices for diversity recruitment and support for first-year male educators of color. The NYC Men Teach team will discuss the importance of university partnerships, establishing opportunities for current undergraduate & graduate students, and preparing diverse candidates for the next steps in their teaching journey.

The SUNY Student Assembly is a state-wide student government that represents over one million students in the SUNY system. For this organization, different thoughts and perspectives are essential to properly represent and support students across New York State. Unfortunately, many colleges struggle with retaining underrepresented students in their student governments, which in turn hinders their ability to represent the marginalized identities on their campuses. In this interactive workshop, leaders of the Student Assembly will share the importance and value of diversity and inclusion in student government and what they are doing to promote it in their own organization. They will also discuss their thoughts on how faculty, staff, and administrators can encourage the inclusion of underrepresented students in student government. With this support, student governments can be a flourishing example of what of our organizations should look like– a space where all are welcome to partake in important discussion and initiative to better SUNY campuses.

SUNY New Paltz has a stated commitment to ensuring that students from backgrounds historically underrepresented in STEM thrive in our programs. Despite this, it is clear that the graduates of our programs do not currently reflect the full spectrum of diversity seen in the population of New York. In order to address this issue, we have begun the process of identifying the recalcitrant institutional barriers that preclude student inclusion and retention. The results of this analysis will be shared and discussed. Our investigation highlights the central role played by faculty as classroom instructors, research supervisors, and advisors/mentors. In addition, the critical role of programs that build community among students from groups historically underrepresented in STEM was identified in our analysis. In the second part of our presentation, we will provide an overview of our AC2 program (funded through NSF LS-AMP and NYS C-STEP) which has been instrumental in these efforts for several decades. In addition to describing the program’s successes, we will reflect on how it has changed over the years. One of the areas of recent emphasis has been to intentionally engage a wider range of faculty in AC2 programming. Thus, AC2 also serves as a critical venue for faculty development on our campus, as participating faculty deepen their capacity for positively impacting students within and beyond the AC2 program.

In this workshop, participants will explore how their identity, values and culture impact the manner in which they exercise their leadership. Participants will explore research on the six traits that distinguish inclusive leaders from non-inclusive leaders. Participants will learn tools and strategies in how to become more inclusive in the changing landscape of the work environment.

Different leaders face different challenges. Yet, as the challenges facing higher education evolve and intensify, all leaders within academia need to understand the Six Domains of Knowledge for Higher Education Leaders. These are timeless domains that are important for anyone working at a college or university to master- from department chairs to presidents. In this session, SAIL’s Executive Director and Professor of Higher Education at the University at Albany, Dr. Jason Lane, will share the Six Domains with participants and leave them inspired to lead their organizations through the current environment.

Through the work of SUNY's SAIL Institute, we have identified six domains of knowledge that we believe are critical for any leader in higher education to be successful in their role.

As colleges and universities strive to meet the wellness needs of their student populations, there is no shortage of work to be done. Federal legislation, political climate, student activism, and media attention are often drivers of urgency for a variety of issues that impact students. For decades, the bulk of focus on well-being efforts has been placed on groups such as student athletes, first-year students, and those involved with Greek organizations. But what about campus populations with unique needs and identities? Built upon the notion that the vulnerability and emotional trust of students is a critical element of inclusive excellence, this session will explore the role that intersectional identity plays in creating equitable student well-being programs on campus. Using research from the field, data from EVERFI’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Students course, and utilizing a public health framework, attendees will leave this session with the following:

• A deeper understanding of intersectional identity, as related to their student’s wellness needs;
• Clarity about the role that a holistic and institutional approach to inclusive excellence plays in this process;
• Specific strategies that institutions can apply to integrate inclusive excellence within their well-being efforts.

The recent emergence of a global #MeToo and #Blacklives Matter movements have given rise to a critique of racialized institutions and toxic masculinity and their articulations in organizational mismanagement, insensitivity to oppressed groups, and missed opportunities in responding to sporadic crisis and patterns of abuse of power. Our focus will be on effective diversity and inclusion leadership and dealing with gender and racial crises in academic institutions in the United States. To that end, we interrogate the transactional approach frequently associated with business models of leadership and suggest a social change model that rests on the pillars of transformation, supported by the combined metaphoric forces of the leadership qualities of the eagle and the crow—powerful vision, fearlessness, nurturing, strength, adaptability, intelligence, and inclusion.

This presentation will introduce the SUNY community to this newly funded NSF Alliance model bringing together three universities: Farmingdale State College, Stony Brook University, and Suffolk County Community College with the goal of developing, implementing, studying, institutionalizing, evaluating and disseminating a model focusing to train and support historically underrepresented minority (URM) doctoral degree students in STEM, for transition onto early career STEM faculty positions at predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs). The Alliance works with URM doctoral degree students, postdoctoral scholars and early career faculty to provide them with mentoring, professional development training, and the teaching pedagogy skills necessary to succeed in academic faculty positions at PUIs. The AGEP was created in response to the NSF's Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program. In this presentation the Alliance will present the social science theories and data that informed the model development, the process through which the Alliance developed its intervention activities, and materials which will be used as the alliance implements its model in the coming years. Opportunities will be included to discuss potential mechanisms for testing, modifying and scaling the model in future years to serve SUNY’s efforts to diversify the faculty system-wide.

Access and inclusion for global engagement is an important consideration for higher education institutions in developing students for the 21st century workforce including the digital, knowledge and gig economies. Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) courses provide a method for global engagement, digital inclusion and supports SUNY initiatives such as Global Learning for All and Prodi-G among others. An independent study was conducted on the SUNY system and the Role of the Chief Diversity Officer in Virtual Exchange through the University of Southern California (USC). The findings speak to a range of actors such as organizational leadership, program administrators, advisors, students and coordinators. The study focused on the role of the Chief Diversity Officer as a key stakeholder and innovator in the strategic increase of COIL course implementation on SUNY campuses. The study explored developments in staff support and program administration. By the end of this session, participants will understand the intersection of COIL, equity and inclusion with focus on digital inclusion. Participants of the session will receive strategic materials in support of using COIL as a modality for campus and global community engagement.

In the Age of Big Data, diversity professionals—whether you are in student affairs, admissions, human resources or the institutional equity office—are challenged to “quantify impact,” establish baseline measures, understand dashboards, and know when the “n” is too small. In this interactive workshop, expert data analysts will define terms for you, walk you through the basic concepts of diversity metrics for both faculty and students, discuss how legislation changes may affect the diversity data collections and reporting, and answer your questions. You will leave better prepared to set targets and program goals, track progress, and report diversity metrics to your unit and across your campus.

In August 2017, SUNY New Paltz President Donald P. Christian charged the College’s Diversity and Inclusion Council with leading the process to review the names on six buildings in the residential Hasbrouck Complex on our campus. The buildings were named for original Huguenot patentees who were the first European settlers in New Paltz in 1678. The earliest generations of these families in America owned slaves. In New York, slavery ended in 1828, the same year that the precursor institution to SUNY New Paltz was founded. Many viewed these building names as perpetuating the legacy of slavery, and some students, particularly students of color, expressed their discomfort about living, eating and sleeping in halls with these names. Others felt that to remove the names would be to erase history. We also needed to understand our full history in the context of the region’s indigenous people as well as the history of the Huguenot descendants who no longer practiced slavery. Our presentation discusses our process and outcomes, our approach to internal/external partnerships and communications, creating spaces for educating the campus and encouraging viewpoint diversity, a tool kit for approaching similar initiatives that set the stage for more inclusive institutional culture and values.

In 2016, Farmingdale State College launched its innovative Research Aligned Mentorship (RAM) Program designed to ensure that minority, low-income, and first-generation students stay on track, succeed academically, and graduate in 4 years. This comprehensive 4-year program now serves 900 students. The program includes placement of RAM Scholars in serious mentored research experiences on or off campus. FSC students had never previously been accepted into NSF REUs or other off campus research in the past. But RAM Scholars have been accepted into funded summer research programs, internships, and study-travel programs at Montana State U, the University of Nairobi-Kenya, Rutgers, Stony Brook, CUNY, U of Nebraska, Cal State Chico, U of Miami, Bowie State, Brookhaven National Labs, Morgan Stanley, JFK Airport, UC Berkeley, U Florida, and sites in England, Antigua, Guatemala, and Iceland. This is not an honors program nor do RAM Scholars receive any special scholarship aid. As a serious randomized control study, all evaluation measures demonstrate that RAM Scholars perform better than both the control group and the overall FSC population.
This presentation will (1) highlight the high-impact practices of the comprehensive 4-year RAM program, (2) identify effective assessment measures, (3) review student outcomes, achievements, and other evaluation results to date, and (4) suggest lessons that might be adopted by all SUNY institutions.

For women, members of the LGBTQ community and persons of color, microaggressions can be an irritating part of everyday life. Defined as “commonplace indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative slights and insults to a target person or group”, microaggressions are often the result of our implicit biases and stereotypes, and can be exhausting to face day, after day. This workshop will define implicit bias and the three types of microaggressions that targeted groups often face in the workplace and the classroom. Participants will be asked to consider various scenarios and share their strategies to deal with the microaggressions highlighted in these situations. Finally, the workshop will suggest and solicit strategies to deal with microaggressive behavior and discuss what policy reforms individual campuses and SUNY could implement to make our work environments and classrooms more inclusive.

The director of UB's Center for Diversity Innovation will present some tools and techniques for leading cultural change that can be applied at the department, unit, and campus levels. Recognizing that SUNY's PRODiG and other initiatives require all leaders to make efforts to proactively retain and include, as well as recruit, a more diverse faculty, this presentation will focus on the ways in which even challenging cultures can be altered and how unexamined mindsets around diversity, equity, and inclusion that might otherwise derail change can be explicated and modified. Participants will leave this session with ways to more effectively champion diversity and inclusion as the path to institutional excellence.

The Days of Reflection: Education for Racial Equity and Justice is an innovative initiative started in Fall 2016 that is intended for education and conversation necessary for moving our campus, community, region, state, nation, and world toward greater racial equity and justice. This initiative resulted from a number of racialized incidents on campus and a recognition that conversations about race, ethnicity, and culture must be sustained and grown in a society which breeds racial illiteracy and cultural incompetence. Here, we will provide some insights and advice gained from the past seven semesters of work at SUNY Potsdam on the Days of Reflection in the hopes that other campuses around the SUNY system could use this to start similar events. Some of the topics we will discuss include best practices for bringing together stakeholders from across the campus (e.g. faculty, staff, and students), for soliciting timely topics, for ensuring the events are appropriate for intended audiences, and for creating opportunities for engagement in dialogue across difference.

Trauma-informed care is one of the latest emphases in clinical arenas, and deservingly so. A significant portion of students attending institutions of higher learning are impacted by trauma, suggesting the need for a wider circle of informed individuals in both academic and student affairs. In this lecture/discussion session, we endeavor to broaden your understanding of trauma as well as trauma-informed care with diverse and other student populations. This will increase conversation and shift the thinking about trauma when it enters academic spaces.

Having meaningful, challenging, positive dialogue about personal identities can be difficult. Add in the cultural backdrop of a small, rural community college with a diverse student body where a third of the students are new to our campus and those conversations about personal identity can be even more difficult. In this presentation, we will share our experience in encouraging student dialogue while navigating complex and evolving identities in an environment of safety and support through a campus-wide initiative. With the support of the SUNY Explorations in Diversity grant, Corning Community College was able to implement the Every Story Counts initiative, 2018-2019. The goal of the initiative was to provide positive, engaging and inclusive experiences that value and honor diverse stories. The initiative utilized: (i) voluntary personal stories to recognize under-represented identities in the public campus sphere, (ii) story telling reciprocity to build community trust, coalitions, and allies, (iii) personal stories to open difficult conversations particularly when identities are evolving, dynamic, and complex, and (iv) student leaders as the voice of the initiative. During the session, we will provide an interactive opportunity for the audience to tell their story using the prompts used in the campus initiative.

During this panel discussion, presenters will share experiences and reflections working with undocumented students at Dutchess Community College (DCC) and Finger Lakes Community College (FLCC). Both college communities share an understanding that immigrants and refugees enhance the diversity of our campuses and enrich the educational experience of our learning communities. Recognizing the obstacles and lack of access to educational opportunities faced by immigrant youth, particularly undocumented students, supporters within the Colleges created networks of champions focused on intentional advocacy, educating their campuses, offering training and professional development on immigrant rights, and strengthening collaborations with community-based organizations in support of student access and success. In particular, presenters will reflect on the journey they took to create a Consortium for Undocumented Students at Dutchess Community College. The first meeting took place in 2015, with a membership that included cross-departmental representation, community representatives as well as student engagement. The panel discussion will outline the framework used to facilitate connection that led to successful formation of the consortium, goals achieved so far, barriers/roadblocks and future goals.

The Office of Inclusion and Cultural Enhancement at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences develops and nurtures research, mentoring, career and professional development programs to strengthen STEM and diversity pipelines across the University at Buffalo. Beginning with undergraduate students during summer sessions (CLIMB UP: 62% URM) and continuing through graduate (PhD: 21% URMs; MS: 18% URMs) to postdoctoral fellows, the Collaborative Learning and Integrate Mentoring in the Biosciences (CLIMB) and the Institute for Strategic Enhancement of the Educational Diversity (iSEED) programs offer research training opportunities designed to develop and strengthen professional and scientific skills for all Scholars. As Scholars transition to postdoctoral and junior faculty roles, the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) offers institutional KL2 (KL2: 25% URM) and BTC (Buffalo Translational Consortium) mentored career development awards aimed at developing an excellent and diverse workforce in clinical and translational sciences. Trainees at all levels from undergraduates to seasoned faculty are invited to take advantage of CTSI core competency educational programs and professional development opportunities that award digital badges, and micro-credentials upon completion of several units. These diversity pipelines positively impact workforce development in all Schools involved across the University at large.

Popular technology applications such as video games, animations, and digital stories can easily attract children from different backgrounds and impact their attitudes toward learning and their achievement. Flocabulary is one such appealing technology program that fuses hip hop music into various content area learning. As an educational hip hop music program, Flocabulary brings hip hop culture to the classroom. It offers students at all grade levels and backgrounds many opportunities in learning math, language, science, and history. According to an ABC News report, (“Who We Are”, 2019) learning through Flocabulary helped students in a Virginia high school to raise their average SAT scores by nearly 60 points. Another research study, conducted by Dr. Roger Farr, former president of the International Reading Association, shows that The Word Up Project of the Flocabulary program, significantly increased vocabulary proficiency among students of diverse backgrounds, and students who used the program had higher scores on state reading tests. In this presentation, we will demonstrate how Flocabulary works and how it may help create a cultural responsive curriculum that engages students from diverse backgrounds and with different learning styles.

In efforts to support an increasing number of Latino leaders in higher education, the State University of New York (SUNY) took action to create the SUNY Hispanic Leadership Institute. This was a partnership between Governor Cuomo, Assembly member Marcos Crespo and Assembly woman Maritza Davila from the New York State Assembly Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force. The Institute provides individualized support, awareness, education activities. search committee training and resource opportunities. To reach these goals, it was lead by Dr. Ricardo Azziz, SUNY's Chief Officer of Academic and Hospital Affairs. The program aimed to increase both recruitment and training for Latino leaders to achieve leadership positions at the highest levels throughout the SUNY System. This panel will have participants from the first and second cohort as they reflect on their experience and future plans. At the SOMOS Conference in November 2019, Governon Cuomo announced the appointment of University at Albany President Havidan Rodriguez as Executive Director of the SUNY Hispanic Leadership Institute.

From 2000 to 2015, the student population of SUNY Potsdam shifted dramatically, attracting a more diverse and urban student population to our small, historically white campus in New York’s North Country; undergraduates self-identifying as students of color nearly quadrupled, going from 8% to 29%. By 2018, approximately 35% of the student population consisted of students of color, and surveys also indicated a significant population of LGBTQ students (between 25-35 percent, according to survey data). This shift in the student population emerged in the context of a highly polarized state and national climate regarding race relations and the resurgence of activism among many students of color. In 2015 and 2016, a series of bias-related incidents rocked the campus, leading students to feel unsafe both on campus and in the surrounding rural, predominantly white community. SUNY Potsdam responded with a multifaceted approach to working with students and the campus community. Through a comprehensive strategic planning and assessment process, the campus was able to mobilize a broad coalition of stakeholders to work on inclusion and diversity. By implementing a comprehensive approach to training and professional development, a robust bias incident response process, and an inclusive faculty search process, the campus made dramatic improvements in campus climate. Days of Reflection, a weeklong series of workshops and educational events held each semester, provide opportunities for the campus community to reflect on key topics. By 2019, survey results showed a marked improvement in the campus climate regarding diversity and inclusion, with significant decreases in reports of bias crimes.

With the support and guidance of the Association of American Indian Physicians (AAIP), SUNY Upstate Medical University is embarking on their second year hosting a Pre-Admission Workshop (PAW) for Native American students this October 2019. In its first year of the program, 2018, the PAW attracted 20 Native students from across the nation interested in pursuing a variety of graduate degrees in health professions including physician assistant, physical therapy and medicine. This presentation will discuss the PAW in-depth as well as additional recruitment strategies to increase enrollment Native American students into health professions programs. Ideally, increasing Native enrollment in the health professions can reduce health disparities in native communities.

As part of the 2019-2020 SUNY Empire State College (ESC) Provost's Fellows Program, we are currently measuring the extent to which diversity and inclusion are embedded in the curriculum and how we serve underrepresented minority students in science, math, and technology (STEM). SUNY Empire established the need to enhance of diversity, inclusion and equity as one of its strategic priorities, especially in the STEM area. Consideration needs to be given not only to the teaching and learning of STEM content, but also how the curriculum promotes awareness of the diversity and inclusion of individuals, cultures, and communities in the U.S. and globally. This project consist of two parts: 1) A review of STEM courses in ESC’s college catalog; and, 2) An analysis of student enrollment and retention with a focus on underrepresented minority students in online courses. An examination of current practices by other SUNY campuses and best practices in higher education for inclusion of diversity issues in their curriculum served as the foundation to evaluate our current practices. In this presentation, we focus on the process used to conduct the assessment, preliminary findings, and lessons learned from the undertaking of this project.

The SUNY Empire State College Black Male Initiative (BMI) has served a diverse student body since 2009 https://www.esc.edu/bmi/. BMI is “a safe space for black male students where they can freely discuss their problems and issues in an open, familiar and understanding environment without reproach or fear of embarrassment. Through sharing experiences, discussing problems and crafting solutions, the BMI bolsters confidence, supports its community and keeps black male students actively engaged in the journey to graduation and future success” as described to students on our website. BMI consists of a number of activities, including coaching by peers and faculty, support group meetings, career counseling, opportunities for networking with students and alumni, and panel discussions and events. Our latest innovation, the “fortified classroom” has been pilot tested over several semesters. The fortified classroom includes academic supports for students built right into the course. Success rates for this pilot have been impressive. Where normal course completion rates favor BMI students over non-BMI students by 16.3%, the percentage of students getting a grade of “C” or higher in the fortified classroom is 96.9% versus 56.4% for African American men in regular classes.

The purpose of this workshop is to explore past and present paradigms that impact how SUNY, facilitators and learning communities may be designed to react the needs surrounding inclusiveness of a robust and diverse student population. Reacting successfully can yield rich outcomes such as improved student motivation, connectivity, and ultimately, retention of those we aim to inspire and educate. Possession of Unconscious Bias may actually be the fuel that allows us to drive the Diversity and Inclusion Bus. Paradigms such as free speech laced inclusive practices, may be positively manipulated to assist SUNY’s ability to be a driver and contributor of upwards economic mobility. Through a high energy and interactive presentation, I will explore relevant data points from 25 years of working with those deemed at-risk, experiencing mobility hindrances, & from an incarcerated populous. Through a supported dissertation which crosses race and gender, I will provide examples of paths participants may consider to positively impact the inclusion of targeted areas i.e. veterans & those with disabilities through an empowerment lens.

In the spring of 2018, with generous support from the SUNY Diversity and Inclusion Performance Improvement Fund (SUNY PIF), Genesee Community College set out to build a new level of inclusion on their campus. Like many rural colleges, GCC recruits in urban areas, as well as internationally (welcoming students from 29 countries in 2018-19). Diversity became one of GCC’s greatest assets and one of their greatest responsibilities with navigating how to best serve, support, and retain all of their students. Equipped with these opportunities in mind, Provost Dr. Kate Schiefen envisioned three projects which included an implicit bias awareness video shown to all who serve on a hiring committee, the Open Door Internship Program which invites historically underrepresented professionals to receive professional development, mentoring, and a stipend while serving as adjunct instructors or Student Affairs personnel, and the Urban Exchange Program to allow faculty and staff to visit SUNY campuses in urban settings (FIT and Monroe Community College Downtown Campus in spring of 2019). Please join Provost Schiefen, Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator, Sara Vacin, and Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President of Student and Enrollment Services, Dr. Shelitha Williams as they discuss the process, challenges, and results of their work and perhaps most importantly - how they plan to sustain it once the funding has ended.

With the adoption of the SUNY Diversity and Inclusion policy in 2015, SUNY campuses were required to position chief diversity officers in leadership roles on all of the systems 64 campuses. Five diversity officers who were working in the SUNY system during the time of the adoption of the policy have since left and are working in different capacities at other institutions. The panel has returned to join us at the conference to discuss their roles since leaving SUNY. They will share their observations of the similarities and differences that they have encountered in their work since leaving their posts in the SUNY system. The panelists will also discuss the impact and role that their experiences as CDO’s in the SUNY system has on their present work. This session is intended to be interactive and an opportunity for the panelists to share their insights while also learning from conference attendees.

Men of Color programs are essential to fostering the success of Men of Color collegians. This presentation will highlight three Men of Color programs within the SUNY System while providing key components of each. This presentation will also discuss a new initiative being developed by the three programs entitled, the Southern Tier Men of Color Achievement Consortium. The Consortium, or network, is designed to provide support to the SUNY System and K-12 educational environments regarding Men of Color achievement. Presenters will share goals of the Consortium, along with strategic pipeline opportunities. This presentation will also include time for attendees to engage in asset-based, rather than deficit-focused, reflection activities around the ways in which they/their institutions can foster Men of Color-ready living and learning environments.

Since 1994 TAP and Pell eligibility has been rescinded to the incarcerated population. Since 1994 college programs in NYS prisons have been implemented and sustained by mostly private funding. There have been discussions regarding the reinstatement of eligibility for state and federal funding to the incarcerated population. SUNY is currently working on two college in prison specific initiatives. This presentation will depict the landscape of college in prison in New York State coupled with the mission and vision of the University System moving forward.

Support for Undergraduates at the Community College Engaged in STEM Studies (SUCCESS) is an NSF S-STEM project at Suffolk County Community College (SCCC). The goal of SUCCESS is to increase the number of low-income community college STEM students receiving annual S-STEM scholarships from an average of 33 students per year to 45 students per year, by improving.retention, success, and transfer to four-year institutions through new and enhanced high-quality academic support. The program offers need-based scholarships, research opportunities, advising and mentoring, and an on-line research methods course. Over 30% of SUCCESS students are URM’s. Two of the questions SUCCESS is designed to answer are: (a) Do students remain engaged when working on authentic research projects? and (b) Is a research experience more beneficial when complemented by an introductory research methods course? Evaluative results indicate that SUCCESS students demonstrate higher GPA's retention and graduation/transfer as compared to Suffolk's STEM students. In addition, students remain engaged through the science research course, as evidenced by their posters, online discussions and results from the administration of SENCER’s (Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities) Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG).

After experiencing a hate speech incident in spring 2018, the campus struggled to find constructive ways to have dialogue related to racism and oppression. Community members identified a lack of forums for the campus community to engage in challenging conversations around racism, and equity, particularly opportunities that involved conversation between individuals occupying different roles, statuses, and homes on campus and in the wider community. The semester-long project involved approximately sixty multi-constituent community members; including students, staff, faculty, and external community members--working through the Circle Way processes and engaging with the texts "Killing Rage: Ending Racism" by bell hooks and "White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism" by Robin DiAngelo. The Circle Way is an evidence-based art of hosting (AOH) that enabled participants to build a space for trust, intimacy, goodwill, belonging, generosity and reciprocity. The process is based on an indigenous methodology, and served as a powerful process to hold authentic dialogue, rejuvenate and heal the systemic social justice spirit of the community while creating meaningful opportunities for everyone involved to do their own inner work to challenge racism. This workshop will demonstrate how this innovative project can be replicated at other SUNY institutions.

Higher education has a deliberate role in advancing equity and inclusion for the LGBTQ+ community. Presenters will provide a brief overview of the current national and state climate for the LGBTQ+ community and implications for college campuses. This interactive workshop will provide participants with tools, resources, and other takeaways to make their community and space more LGBTQ+ inclusive. It will include an intersectional approach for any campus, department, or individual to make big (and little!) strides towards cultivating an environment that further empowers LGBTQ+ identified people.

The Jose Peralta New York State Dream Act is finally a reality. This workshop will explain what the NYS Dream Act is and identify who is eligible. It will cover laws and terminology. It will walk you through the application and discuss the application process. You will learn how to counsel families and students to complete the application and how to share this information with other college administrators. This workshop will help you understand the roadblocks that undocumented students may encounter while applying for college and how you can assist.

This presentation is based on preliminary data gathered from a qualitative study to better understand the experiences of Afro-Latinx collegians’ racialized identity and perceived impact of colorism and intragroup marginalization on their intentions to persist. Afro-Latinxs are Latinx individuals of African ancestry. Scholars argue that despite their fast-growing presence in the U.S., and in higher education specifically, there is a tendency to treat Latinxs as a monolithic group, which masks the complexities of within-group differences. This study examines the academic and social experiences of 15 self-identified Afro-Latinx undergraduate students to learn how they negotiate their ethno-racial identity among faculty, staff and peers, particularly peers of color. To date, there have only been two studies that focus on Latinxs’ iskin color and education and literature on Afro-Latinx collegians is sparse. The findings of this study are timely given the SUNY-wide Latinx enrollment growth, many who self-identify as Afro-Latinx/Caribe. In addition, the information gathered will help enrollment management and student affairs units to develop strategies to better serving this growing student population relative to sense of belonging and building community. This study is part of a dissertation undertaken by Alfredo Medina, Jr., a PhD candidate in Educational Policy and Leadership at the University at Albany.

This interactive workshop aims to offer a space in which participants (re)write learning outcomes and assignments of courses they teach, supervise, or are developing. Given the academic, societal, cultural, political, and economic implications linked to one’s identity, it is necessary for faculty to rethink how diversity-specific learning outcomes and assignments communicate an urgency to students, administrators, and the community. By exploring how diversity- and inclusion-focused learning objectives can be articulated and infused into curricula across disciplines, participants will be encouraged to connect outcomes to specific course assignments. Workshop participants will engage in hands-on exercises aimed at developing assignments that encourage students to explore diverse groups or groups that have been historically marginalized within any discipline. Curricula can be enriched and students’ perspectives broadened, while shifting the power to students to pursue topics that are meaningful to their academic and professional development, by focusing on diversity and inclusion. To demonstrate the value of such changes to learning outcomes and associated assignments, assessment practices and reports will be discussed in detail. Participants will examine ways in which courses can be enhanced to infuse diverse perspectives that offer direct benefits to undergraduate and graduate students, the campus climate, and universities’ strategic plans.

Participants will be trained in community-art theories to develop their own creative responses to campus conflict while also being inspired to lead hands-on, multiple-modality programming which fosters an inclusive community. Most importantly, the Art Force 5 is JOYOUS - an experience which can utilize fun, play, and imagination while addressing important issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

In 2015, the SUNY Board of Trustees passed a statewide policy that required all 64 schools to appoint a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO). This policy marked a tremendous opportunity to advance diversity, equity and inclusion across the System. The presence of a CDO on every campus helps to navigate issues of diversity while understanding the nuances of leadership and organizational change. However, not all CDO roles are the same, nor do all CDOs have the experience or the capacity to address the needs of every institution. There are many factors that can contribute to the success of these senior leadership roles including institutional type, institutional and campus climate, size of the institution, proximity to urban and regional centers, etc. This interactive workshop will explore the various roles and structures of CDOs as published by the NADOHE Standards of Professional Practice for CDOs in higher education. Further, this workshop will introduce an assessment tool developed by the presenter in order to predict the success of CDOs and the institutions they serve. This workshop should benefit current and aspiring CDOs, senior leaders, and anyone interested in learning more about the role of the CDO at their institutions.