Enacting Equity by Design

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Estela Mara Bensimon discusses the five principles for achieving equity by design.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 18, 2024

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This video video discusses the concept of equity-mindedness, which was developed to address disparities in educational outcomes for minoritized students at colleges and universities in the United States. The speaker highlights how initial reactions to data on inequities often led faculty to blame student deficiencies rather than institutional failures. Thus, equity-mindedness shifts the focus from students' perceived shortcomings to examining how institutions can better support all students, especially those from marginalized backgrounds.

Key points include:
1. **Shift in Perspective**: The speaker emphasizes changing the narrative around educational success to focus on institutional practices rather than student readiness or motivation.
2. **Awareness of Racial Identity**: Faculty must recognize how their racial identities can affect students who have faced marginalization throughout their lives.
3. **Use of Data**: Equity-mindedness involves institutions using data to reflect on their practices and student outcomes by race and ethnicity, rather than only focusing on overarching institutional data.
4. **Tools for Change**: The speaker describes developing a syllabus review tool and other resources that help faculty modify their teaching practices to be more inclusive and supportive.
5. **Long-term Commitment**: Effective change requires sustained effort and engagement within institutions, as opposed to quick fixes or superficial initiatives that often arise in response to social justice movements.

Overall, the text argues that for meaningful progress towards racial equity in education, changes must come from an acknowledgment of institutional practices, commitment to deep and sustained changes, and a thorough examination of how these practices disadvantage minoritized students.

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Let me tell you how I came to the concept

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of equity mindedness.

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When I started working with colleges

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and universities throughout the NI United States,

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when I would, show them data that,

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described inequities in outcomes, graduation rates,

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passing grades, participation in honors program,

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African American and Latinx students,

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and also Native Americans always

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showed disparities they were doing less well.

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So when I would show that to the faculty,

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they would blame the students.

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They would say, the students are not prepared,

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they are not motivated, and so on.

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So I decided that, that we needed

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to change the paradigm to explain the,

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the, the lower rates of success

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for minoritized populations.

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So I came up with the term equity mindedness to,

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to focus not on the students deficiencies,

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but to focus on institutional, deficiencies.

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What, what institutions didn't know how

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to create successful outcomes for minoritized students,

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because their, their, their focus

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or their, their perspective comes usually from

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a white perspective.

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And that is because the majority of faculty members

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in the United States are, are white.

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And so that's how I came up with equity mindedness as a way

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of saying, first of all, that one principle is

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that if you are a white faculty member,

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or, or you, you are even

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a faculty member from another country like me,

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who often come with our own prejudices, that you have

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to be aware of how your racial identity impacts

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students who have been marginalized their entire life.

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So a lot of times, faculty don't think in that way.

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They, they think that their experience

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is the experience of everyone.

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So equity mindedness, at least part of it is

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to be aware of your own racial identity

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and how that mediates learning

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for minoritized students.

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I showed faculty

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and others leaders, data for their own institution.

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And I had created this equity scorecard,

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which I believe

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That, that would alert leaders

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and faculty, that their practices are

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creating inequities, that their p that, you know,

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they don't teach as well, to minoritized populations

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as they do to white students.

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So the scorecard was intended to show those, the,

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the data for graduation,

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for participation in honors programs for,

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retention.

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And it was, it, it has four quadrants.

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I, I was kind of naive.

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Uh, I thought that if institutions saw

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the inequities in their data, that they would respond

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and that they would want to do something about it.

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But that's not really what happened.

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So the scorecard was my first entry into the use

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of data to, to, to call attention

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to racialized, practices.

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So, I don't use the scorecard as much anymore,

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but many of the, the tools that we created,

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to help faculty members

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and others examine their practices come from the scorecard,

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which is 20 years old.

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Um, so what I should tell you is

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what the theory of change is.

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And, in our work, most,

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most interventions in education, in higher education

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focus on how to remedy the student, you know, how

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to make the student, fit better

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into the way that we have organized higher education.

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So our theory of change is that,

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that doesn't work.

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And that what we have to do is work with,

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with faculty members, with leaders,

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and teach them how to interrogate their own practices

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and why their own practices feel these students.

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So for example, I mean, I'm sure you have been in college,

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university, you know, the faculty member has a syllabus,

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and that, that syllabus often can be very intimidating.

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It can be about all the ways that you can feel the course,

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and that oftentimes you don't see

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yourself in the syllabus.

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Let's say that it's a literature, syllabus.

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You know, most of the, books that are included,

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at least here in the United States, are by Anglo authors

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or by western authors.

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So the students don't see themselves at the syllabus.

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Uh, they don't see that they're welcome in the class.

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They don't, they, they, they can't establish a connection

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with the faculty member.

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So one of the tools that we created is how to

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interrogate your syllabus and,

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and change it, to make it a tool not of,

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of, of failure,

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but to make it a tool of success, of welcoming and so forth.

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That tool has been extremely successful for us

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and faculty who go through it, typically

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just about 90% or more, change their syllabus

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because they can, until they had our tool,

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they couldn't see that.

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They couldn't see that their syllabus wa

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that the syllabus can be a pedagogical tool,

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and that it doesn't have to be just about providing

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where we're gonna do chapter one, where we're do chapter two

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and, and so forth.

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So that has been very successful,

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and we have created other tools that enable,

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like math faculty to, to study

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how they teach mathematics

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and why the way that they teach mathematics

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results in grand failure.

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Uh, for most students, you know, math is one

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of the biggest obstacles to racial equity.

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One is, I already mentioned you have to, to be cognizant

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of your own racial identity

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and how your identity might be

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off putting or might intimidate

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marginalized students.

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So that's one. Uh, another one is,

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using data to, examine who,

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who does well in your classroom and, and who doesn't.

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And by race and ethnicity,

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unless you look at your data for your own classroom,

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not even for the whole institution, for your own classroom,

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then you will see that,

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that certain groups are not doing as well.

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And then you have to ask yourself, okay, why not?

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I have to investigate, right?

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So, for instance, one of the exercises that we do

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with faculty is faculty have a grade book.

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And in this, that grade book that the names of the students,

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you know, usually a column

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and then their grades in the first exam, in the quiz,

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their absences and so on.

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So what we have done is we,

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Um, we have created,

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we have converted the grade book instead of having names,

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have the racial and ethnic background of the student,

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and that way, the faculty member can see

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who is not doing well, who is not coming to class.

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So we have, for instance, a math faculty member in Colorado

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who did this exercise, and was transformative for him

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because he saw that Latinos were failing his scores,

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but they came to class, they came to class every week,

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they were never absent.

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And so he realized that the reason why

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they were not submitting their homework was

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because he was not providing enough scaffolding.

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So he changed, he changed how he did the homework.

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He has them start the homework in class.

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Then he said, I decided to get to know them better.

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And so his success rates in his class

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with Latinos went from 40%

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to 85%.

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But so we all want to be recognized.

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We all want to be valued.

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And those students suddenly established a relationship

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with this, with this instructor, just

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because he did that simple exercise with his grade book

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where he saw that these students were not absent,

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they were coming to class.

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Um, so that's the second principle, around,

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around data.

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The other one is, and I, I hope I can remember them all.

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The other one is that you have to make equity,

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racial equity pervasive.

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It, it has to become part of the fabric of institution,

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the fabric of your, of your practice.

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And what happens often with, initiatives like diversity,

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I, I don't talk about diversity so much.

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I, I, I typically talk about racial equity, is

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that often we think of them as add-ons.

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You know, they're kind of ad hoc to the,

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to, to what goes on.

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So what we are saying is equity has

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to become the dominant narrative, the dominant paradigm,

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and that leaders and faculty members

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and student service staff need to think about

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what they're doing in terms of who's benefiting

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by race and ethnicity.

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Who am I using as the model for this practice?

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So making racial equity pervasive and,

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and institutionalized, that has not happened.

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Uh, it, you know, a lot of times institutions do this work

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because, others are doing it, or

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because there is a racial crisis,

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like there was here in the United States with George Floyd

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and Breonna Taylor.

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And so then institutions feel guilty

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and they start new initiatives, but they soon drop them.

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And, and nowadays we are in an environment of

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antiquity, and I'm sure you, you are aware of it.

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Well, you're in Florida, you're in the middle of it.

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Uh, so, so it's hard to sustain it.

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And,

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another one is a principle.

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I'm not sure if this one is listed in the ones

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that you have, but, is to not to deny, you know, a lot

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of people say, I don't see race.

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I only see human beings.

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Uh, and, I don't see color. And that's not true.

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It's impossible to not see.

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Uh, and so that another principle is that you have

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to be able to, to talk about race.

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You also have to be able to talk about whiteness,

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because whiteness is also a color.

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And, and often we talk about blacks and Latinas,

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but we don't talk about how whiteness manifests itself

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in the culture of our institutions of higher education.

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Um, and, I'm trying to think of

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what other PR principles we have.

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You know, another one is opportunity Institutions

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of higher education like mine, USC.

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We have, honors programs, we have special fellowships,

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we have all kinds of things that lead to

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increased social and cultural capital and economic capital.

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And, we need to look at those in terms of the criteria

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for access to those programs

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and how they leave out anyone who is,

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has not had an education and an experience

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and a home life that conforms to the, to the dominant,

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paradigm.

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And so we disadvantage

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minoritized students in many different ways

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that we don't realize through our everyday practices.

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So, to come around, institutions

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of higher education that are not benign institutions,

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they're racialized institutions,

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and everything that they do in one way

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or another has racial consequences.

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So my work is about showing that and,

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and, resources, the way that we distribute

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Resources is very racialized, that it's very hard,

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that it's hard and it is slow,

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and it takes a great deal of patience and commitment.

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And so most, one of the dysfunctions, I think

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of our societies, that we want things to be quick

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and we want things to be able to be scaled up, you know,

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and, and multiplied this work that I do is not like that.

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It's not scalable, in the typical sense.

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I don't have a prescription, that I can give

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to the institutions and say, do this.

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Uh, so it takes time

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because we work with the institutions, with, you know,

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with teams of faculty and others to educate them

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and to engage them in examining their own practices.

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Because I don't believe that I can tell you to change.

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I cannot tell you to become equity minded.

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So what our approach is, one,

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where you achieve your own self change

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through the interrogation of something like your syllabus,

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your great book, the way that you hire faculty.

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Uh, so I would, that takes time.

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And most institutional,

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most institutional actors have not been educated

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to be racially conscious,

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to be critically racially conscious.

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So all of that takes a lot of work.

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Uh, most people that we work with often believe

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that they are equity minded.

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They believe that they're good people,

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therefore they don't do harm to others.

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But they don't realize that the harm is not, that racism

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is not about overt racism.

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Racism is about how it is institutionalized

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in the way in what we value, in who we think about when,

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when we want to hire someone.

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Hiring is a big, big problem of faculty.

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It's very racialized.

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And, so what, in order

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to help people become race conscious,

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it takes a lot of time.

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And so our work does not lend itself to the,

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to the notion of best practices.

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I mean, you know, the syllabus review is a best practice,

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but it's, it's much more individualized.

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And that is a big challenge for us.

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Um, it's a big challenge for us with funding agencies

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because funding agencies want, want,

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they want, scaling up and replication, and,

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and that's not what we do.

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Okay.

Understanding Equity Mindedness in Education

00:00:00 - Let me tell you how I came to the concept of equity mindedness. When I started working with colleges and universities throughout the NI United States, when I would, show them data that, described inequities in outcomes, graduation rates, passing grades, participation in honors program, African American and Latinx students,
00:00:33 - showed disparities they were doing less well. So when I would show that to the faculty, they would blame the students. They would say, the students are not prepared, they are not motivated, and so on. So I decided that, that we needed to change the paradigm to explain the, the, the lower rates of success
00:01:06 - So I came up with the term equity mindedness to, to focus not on the students deficiencies, but to focus on institutional, deficiencies. What, what institutions didn't know how to create successful outcomes for minoritized students, because their, their, their focus or their, their perspective comes usually from
00:01:38 - And that is because the majority of faculty members in the United States are, are white. And so that's how I came up with equity mindedness as a way of saying, first of all, that one principle is that if you are a white faculty member, or, or you, you are even a faculty member from another country like me,
00:02:11 - to be aware of how your racial identity impacts students who have been marginalized their entire life. So a lot of times, faculty don't think in that way. They, they think that their experience is the experience of everyone. So equity mindedness, at least part of it is to be aware of your own racial identity
00:02:43 - for minoritized students. I showed faculty and others leaders, data for their own institution. And I had created this equity scorecard, which I believe That, that would alert leaders and faculty, that their practices are creating inequities, that their p that, you know,

Examining Racial Inequities in Higher Education

00:03:16 - as they do to white students. So the scorecard was intended to show those, the, the data for graduation, for participation in honors programs for, retention. And it was, it, it has four quadrants. I, I was kind of naive.
00:03:48 - the inequities in their data, that they would respond and that they would want to do something about it. But that's not really what happened. So the scorecard was my first entry into the use of data to, to, to call attention to racialized, practices. So, I don't use the scorecard as much anymore,
00:04:21 - to help faculty members and others examine their practices come from the scorecard, which is 20 years old. so what I should tell you is what the theory of change is. And, in our work, most, most interventions in education, in higher education
00:04:54 - to make the student, fit better into the way that we have organized higher education. So our theory of change is that, that doesn't work. And that what we have to do is work with, with faculty members, with leaders, and teach them how to interrogate their own practices
00:05:27 - So for example, I mean, I'm sure you have been in college, university, you know, the faculty member has a syllabus, and that, that syllabus often can be very intimidating. It can be about all the ways that you can feel the course, and that oftentimes you don't see yourself in the syllabus. Let's say that it's a literature, syllabus.
00:05:57 - at least here in the United States, are by Anglo authors or by western authors. So the students don't see themselves at the syllabus. they don't see that they're welcome in the class. They don't, they, they, they can't establish a connection with the faculty member. So one of the tools that we created is how to interrogate your syllabus and,

Transforming Syllabi for Inclusive Education

00:06:28 - of, of failure, but to make it a tool of success, of welcoming and so forth. That tool has been extremely successful for us and faculty who go through it, typically just about 90% or more, change their syllabus because they can, until they had our tool, they couldn't see that.
00:06:57 - that the syllabus can be a pedagogical tool, and that it doesn't have to be just about providing where we're gonna do chapter one, where we're do chapter two and, and so forth. So that has been very successful, and we have created other tools that enable, like math faculty to, to study how they teach mathematics and why the way that they teach mathematics
00:07:27 - for most students, you know, math is one of the biggest obstacles to racial equity. One is, I already mentioned you have to, to be cognizant of your own racial identity and how your identity might be off putting or might intimidate marginalized students. So that's one. another one is,
00:08:04 - who does well in your classroom and, and who doesn't. And by race and ethnicity, unless you look at your data for your own classroom, not even for the whole institution, for your own classroom, then you will see that, that certain groups are not doing as well. And then you have to ask yourself, okay, why not?
00:08:32 - So, for instance, one of the exercises that we do with faculty is faculty have a grade book. And in this, that grade book that the names of the students, you know, usually a column and then their grades in the first exam, in the quiz, their absences and so on. So what we have done is we, we have created, we have converted the grade book instead of having names,
00:09:05 - and that way, the faculty member can see who is not doing well, who is not coming to class. So we have, for instance, a math faculty member in Colorado who did this exercise, and was transformative for him because he saw that Latinos were failing his scores, but they came to class, they came to class every week,

Transforming Education through Racial Equity Awareness

00:09:34 - And so he realized that the reason why they were not submitting their homework was because he was not providing enough scaffolding. So he changed, he changed how he did the homework. He has them start the homework in class. Then he said, I decided to get to know them better. And so his success rates in his class with Latinos went from 40%
00:10:06 - But so we all want to be recognized. We all want to be valued. And those students suddenly established a relationship with this, with this instructor, just because he did that simple exercise with his grade book where he saw that these students were not absent, they were coming to class. so that's the second principle, around,
00:10:37 - The other one is, and I, I hope I can remember them all. The other one is that you have to make equity, racial equity pervasive. It, it has to become part of the fabric of institution, the fabric of your, of your practice. And what happens often with, initiatives like diversity, I, I don't talk about diversity so much. I, I, I typically talk about racial equity, is
00:11:09 - You know, they're kind of ad hoc to the, to, to what goes on. So what we are saying is equity has to become the dominant narrative, the dominant paradigm, and that leaders and faculty members and student service staff need to think about what they're doing in terms of who's benefiting by race and ethnicity. Who am I using as the model for this practice?
00:11:41 - and institutionalized, that has not happened. it, you know, a lot of times institutions do this work because, others are doing it, or because there is a racial crisis, like there was here in the United States with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And so then institutions feel guilty and they start new initiatives, but they soon drop them.
00:12:17 - antiquity, and I'm sure you, you are aware of it. Well, you're in Florida, you're in the middle of it. so, so it's hard to sustain it. And, another one is a principle. I'm not sure if this one is listed in the ones that you have, but, is to not to deny, you know, a lot of people say, I don't see race.

Understanding Race and Whiteness in Education

00:12:46 - and, I don't see color. And that's not true. It's impossible to not see. and so that another principle is that you have to be able to, to talk about race. You also have to be able to talk about whiteness, because whiteness is also a color. And, and often we talk about blacks and Latinas, but we don't talk about how whiteness manifests itself
00:13:22 - and, I'm trying to think of what other PR principles we have. You know, another one is opportunity Institutions of higher education like mine, USC. We have, honors programs, we have special fellowships, we have all kinds of things that lead to increased social and cultural capital and economic capital.
00:13:56 - for access to those programs and how they leave out anyone who is, has not had an education and an experience and a home life that conforms to the, to the dominant, paradigm. And so we disadvantage minoritized students in many different ways that we don't realize through our everyday practices.
00:14:29 - of higher education that are not benign institutions, they're racialized institutions, and everything that they do in one way or another has racial consequences. So my work is about showing that and, and, resources, the way that we distribute Resources is very racialized, that it's very hard,
00:14:59 - and it takes a great deal of patience and commitment. And so most, one of the dysfunctions, I think of our societies, that we want things to be quick and we want things to be able to be scaled up, you know, and, and multiplied this work that I do is not like that. It's not scalable, in the typical sense. I don't have a prescription, that I can give
00:15:32 - so it takes time because we work with the institutions, with, you know, with teams of faculty and others to educate them and to engage them in examining their own practices. Because I don't believe that I can tell you to change. I cannot tell you to become equity minded. So what our approach is, one, where you achieve your own self change through the interrogation of something like your syllabus,

Challenges in Achieving Racial Consciousness

00:16:08 - so I would, that takes time. And most institutional, most institutional actors have not been educated to be racially conscious, to be critically racially conscious. So all of that takes a lot of work. most people that we work with often believe that they are equity minded.
00:16:36 - therefore they don't do harm to others. But they don't realize that the harm is not, that racism is not about overt racism. Racism is about how it is institutionalized in the way in what we value, in who we think about when, when we want to hire someone. Hiring is a big, big problem of faculty. It's very racialized.
00:17:08 - to help people become race conscious, it takes a lot of time. And so our work does not lend itself to the, to the notion of best practices. I mean, you know, the syllabus review is a best practice, but it's, it's much more individualized. And that is a big challenge for us. it's a big challenge for us with funding agencies
00:17:48 - they want, scaling up and replication, and, and that's not what we do. Okay.

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