Faculty Council Committee Corner: Racial and Ethnic Equity

Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing CU Connections series in which the Faculty Council highlights each of its committees and their efforts. See past installments here.

The CU System Faculty Council committee formerly known as the Ethnic and Minority Affairs Committee (EMAC) sought and received Faculty Council approval for a name change at the end of the 2018-19 academic year. Now the committee will be known as the Faculty Council Committee for Racial and Ethnic Equity, or CREE, for short.

There were a number of reasons for supporting this name change:

• Including both race and ethnicity in the name reflects the range of ways individuals identify, including individuals who are multiracial or multiethnic
• Including the term equity emphasizes our commitment to access and opportunity for faculty and students of color
• The term minority no longer reflects changing demographics in our country, where the largest growing demographics are Asian Americans and multiracial Americans.

The committee’s focus for the 2019-20 senate year includes reviewing and revising our charge to assess the cultural climate, foster academic success, ensure fair recruitment and retention, develop support networks, and recommend policy that supports students and faculty of color across the CU system.

In addition, this year the committee will support Faculty Council’s efforts in examining pay equity across the CU system; participate in the CU system Chief Diversity Officer hiring committee; advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in the CU system strategic planning process; and focus on building informal support networks for faculty of color through a chappy hour series (those interested in a Denver chappy hour in January 2020 may sign up here for news).

Let’s stay in touch

If you or your team, group, office or committee also incorporates racial and ethnic diversity in your mission, we would love to connect with you! We would like to put together an informal directory that lists individuals or groups that currently work to advance the university’s racial and ethnic diversity goals — who are you, what are you (or your team) working on, what kind of support are you looking for, what opportunities for partnerships do you have, and how can we get in touch with you?

To that purpose, we have prepared a Qualtrics poll: https://cuboulder.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ezZNYuyYtO01IBD

Here are our representatives from each campus. Feel free to contact any of us:

• Lindsay Roberts, co-chair, CU Boulder, University Libraries
• Jorge Chavez, co-chair, CU Denver, Education and Human Development
• Cerian Gibbes, secretary, CU Colorado Springs, Geography and Environmental Studies
• Debbie Carter, CU Anschutz, Medicine
• Regina Richards, CU Anschutz, Medicine
• Mileidis Gort, CU Boulder, Education
• Mark Knowlesm CU Boulder, CU Retired Faculty Association
• L. Kafia Roland, CU Boulder, Anthropology
• Kathy Prue-Owens*, CU Colorado Springs, Nursing
• Lei “Frank” Zhang, CU Colorado Springs, Sociology
• Adriana Alvarez, CU Denver, Education and Human Development
• Carlos Reali, CU Denver, Sociology
• Naomi Nishi, CU Denver, Educational Outreach

* non-voting member