For Your Information | March 18, 2021

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Dear Friends, 

#StopAsianHate. Today, I will start there. The tragic murders of eight women, among them six Asian women, causes us to pause and call out both racism and sexism that has resulted in a senseless loss of life. We mourn their lives. We seek to raise awareness, and we seek action. 

In this message, I am asking for all of us here at UC Davis to make a conscious decision to do more. Lives are at stake.The first thing that all of us can do is increase our awareness. Sophie Barbu, one of our Assistant Directors in DEI, highlighted a discussion by Amanda Nguyen, 2019 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, which discusses countering silence on the issue of violence against the Asian community. Chancellor May also said in his statement, “I condemn the increased racism and xenophobia directed at the Asian Pacific Islander community,” and he shared  resources available through our Asian Pacific Islander Retention Initiative. 

In my own tweets, I’ve noted that Anti-Asian racism and anti-Asian sentiments can't be ignored. To our students, we also reiterate that if you have been impacted by the senseless killings in Atlanta, other hate crimes, or are in crisis, you can speak to a counselor by calling 530-752-0871 and pressing 0.  You can ask to speak to a Crisis Counselor. Please know that you are not alone.

In a tweet posted yesterday, I highlighted a graphic developed by our D&I Education team, that reminds us that in addition to raising awareness and speaking out, we can stand up. 

Thank you for your attention. Let’s be a campus of action. We can determine to increase awareness and understanding, reconfigure our own thoughts and words so that they uplift rather than dehumanize and oppress, speak out against injustices, and continue to focus on actualizing our Principles of Community as we work to uphold our four words: Respect, Equity, Learning, Community.

Warmest Regards,
Renetta

APPLY to be a 2021-22 AB540 and Undocumented Student Center Community Advocate!

The center is excited to open the search process for next year's Community Advocate interns. All application materials can be found here, the deadline to apply is April 5. They seek a diverse, talented applicant pool that reflects the knowledge, experiences, and skills of our undocumented immigrant community at UC Davis. This internship disburses an inclusive fellowship stipend (i.e., scholarship) to students with demonstrated financial need and does NOT require work authorization. Please consider applying and forwarding this to students and peers who'd be interested in this prestigious opportunity! Questions after taking a look at the applications materials? Email ab540-undocumented@ucdavis.edu with the subject line “2021-2022 Community Advocate Application.”

Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program - 2022-23 Competition is Open!

For those interested in opportunities through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, please note that the competition for 2022-23 is open! The Fulbright U.S. Scholar program offers diverse opportunities for U.S. academics, administrators and professionals to teach, research, do professional projects and attend seminars abroad. To identify potential opportunities, visit the Catalog of Awards for details of over 400 awards offered across 130 countries.  The deadline to apply is September 15, 2021. Please note that U.S. citizenship is required. Our partners in Global Affairs have more information on their website including some upcoming webinars for potential applicants.

UPDATES & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Office of Academic Diversity | Interim AVC Lorena Oropeza

ADVANCE Scholar Award | Call for Nominations

The ADVANCE Scholar Award is available for mid-career and senior Academic Senate or Academic Federation faculty who advance diverse perspectives and gender equity in STEM through their teaching, research and service. Two 2021 ADVANCE Scholar Awardees will be selected.The recipients will receive a small cash award. The intent of the ADVANCE Scholar Award is to encourage research, leadership, and outreach to underserved communities and/or mentorship of under-represented students, and to highlight and celebrate the contributions that STEM faculty at UC Davis have made to their fields through outstanding scholarship and mentorship. Nomination Deadline: June 1, 2021. Details about nominating a scholar for the ADVANCE Scholar Award can be found here.

CAMPOS Faculty Awarded “Grants for Advancing Sustainable Development Goals”

The Grants for Advancing Sustainable Development Goals facilitate faculty work on the economic, social, and environmental issues that are critical to humankind at the local, regional, national, and international levels. These challenges are complex and interlinked, and to address them requires multi-disciplinary, transdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder collaborations. UC Davis is committed to contributing to the achievement of these goals through research, teaching, and service.

Groundwater Quality and Water Security Under a Changing Climate
Jasquelin Peña, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering and her colleague Heather Bischel are teaming up with the Universidade Federal Fluminense in Brazil, to contribute to SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being and SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation.

Developing an Interdisciplinary Framework to Study the Sustainability of Marine Ecosystems in Chile and California
Fernanda Valdovinos, assistant professor of environmental science and policy and her colleague John Largier are collaborating with the Estación Costera de Investigaciones Marinas at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile to contribute to SDG 14: Life Below Water.

You can read the full announcement and list of recipients here.

P.L.A.C.E. with CAMPSSAH Scholar of the Quarter

We are delighted to announce the recipient of our inaugural Scholar of the Quarter award–Lisa Materson, Associate Professor in history! The Scholar of the Quarter award is a new initiative funded by a UC Office of the President “Advancing Faculty Diversity” grant designed to improve faculty retention and satisfaction through peer recognition. This award is designed to recognize faculty at the Assistant or Associate rank whose scholarship epitomizes scholarly or creative achievements that involve diverse communities with a commitment to social change. A specialist in U.S. women’s political history, Materson’s work focuses on women’s participation in social justice movements in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Currently, Professor Materson is completing her manuscript, Within the Regime, Against the Regime: Ruth Reynolds and the Battle for Puerto Rico’s Independence, which combines a feminist biography with a history of multiple activist communities to examine the gendered, transnational history of the Puerto Rican independence movement. Stemming from this research, she has been integral to what came to be known as the “Davis-Puerto Rico Initiative.” Since 2018, she has led a public speaker series centered on Puerto Rico and longstanding historical, political and environmental questions that forcefully came to the fore in the aftermath of 2017’s disastrous Hurricane Maria.

Office of Campus Community Relations | AEVC Rahim Reed

Author Ellen Forney Brings Campus Community Book Project to Virtual Stage 

On Monday, March 1, 2021, we welcomed Campus Community Book Project featured author Ellen Forney to UC Davis’ virtual stage in partnership with the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts and Downey Brand. Ellen’s graphic memoir, Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me, is the book project selection for 2020-2021 academic year, addressing the theme of “mental health.” We’re excited to welcome Ellen Forney back on Tuesday, April 13th at 11:00 am, when Ellen will participate in a panel discussion on mental health self-care, advocacy, and activism and her latest book, Rock Steady: Brilliant Advice From My Bipolar Life. Register here for this free virtual event—all are welcome. For more information about the book project and a complete calendar of events, visit the book project website here.

Office of Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion | AVC Hendry Ton

Latino vaccination initiative boosted by UC Davis Health partnership

A community partnership involving UC Davis Health is offering COVID-19 vaccines by appointment at the Consulate of Mexico in Sacramento. The clinic is open to anyone eligible under health guidelines to receive the vaccine, but organizers at a news conference Monday stressed the need for Latinos to get inoculated. “Latinos, unfortunately and tragically enough, have been disproportionately represented in that they are 40 percent of the population of California, they have over 60 percent of COVID infections and close to 50 percent of deaths of COVID-19,” said Mexican Consul General Liliana Ferrer. Read the article here.

UC Postbaccalaureate Consortium - Apply Now!

Are you seeking community, mentorship and an academic boost for medical school? Consider the UC Postbaccalaureate Consortium! Our programs assist students from disadvantaged backgrounds in gaining admission to medical school. We are seeking students committed to practicing in underserved communities in California. Our free application is currently open. Don't miss your chance and apply before our upcoming deadlines! First-time Applicant Deadline: Wednesday, March 24, 2021; Re-applicant Deadline: Tuesday, May 4, 2021. Learn more on our website.

EVENTS

March 20, Saturday

Leading with Justice: Speaker Series - Keynote Address - Dr. Bettina Love - 27th Annual Multicultural Education Conference | 9:00AM
Sacramento State is excited to host the 27th Annual Multicultural Education Conference virtually. This year our conference theme is "Lifting as We Climb" inspired by the work of the National Association of Colored Women founded in 1896 to support education and women's suffrage by fighting racism and sexism. We see these ancestors as guides to help us build a path towards collective healing from the complexities of our trauma and grief over the double pandemics of COIVD-19 and anti blackness. Thank you for registering! Register here.

March 25, Thursday

The Race to Vaccinate: Protecting the most vulnerable Californians from COVID-19 | 5:00PM
Developing safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in less than one year ranks among the greatest achievements of modern medicine. Now our challenge is ensuring that the people and communities who have been hardest hit by COVID-19 are willing and able to get vaccinated. Join a panel of esteemed health care heroes on the front lines of this pandemic for a discussion on the entrenched inequities in our health systems, the science behind the development of the COVID-19 vaccines, and the medical community’s role in building trust with communities of color. This virtual event is free. Registration is required. Closed captioning and Spanish interpretation will be available. Register here.

April 13, Tuesday

Book Project: Panel with Author Ellen Forney - Mental Health Self-Care, Advocacy & Activism | 11:00AM
A panel with book project featured author Ellen Forney on mental health self-care, advocacy, and activism and her latest book, Rock Steady: Brilliant Advice From My Bipolar Life. Register here.

April 22, Thursday

Manetti Shrem, Art Studio Visiting Artist Lecture Series, Arnold Joseph Kemp in Conversation with Sampada Aranke | 4:30PM
The materials employed in Arnold J. Kemp’s interdisciplinary practice absorb or reflect light while mirroring likeness, becoming haunted and ghostly metaphors for absented and obfuscated black bodies. Kemp will give a poetry reading, then discuss the relationship between language and the aesthetics presented in his paintings, photographs and sculpture with Manetti Shrem Museum scholar- in-residence Sampada Aranke. Kemp’s exhibition Arnold Joseph Kemp: I would survive. I could survive. I should survive, curated by Arnanke, is on view through April 25, 2021. Register here.

RECOMMENDED READING

john a. powell, “Asians must be a part of our story, too,” Othering & Belonging Institute, U.C. Berkeley, March 10, 2021.
Director john a. powell published a new piece addressing anti-Asian violence and bias. The piece offers historical context to frame the recent attacks on Asians widely reported in the media, and cautions against adopting an overly simplistic tale of a racial conflict pitting the Black community against the Asian community. 

Center for Reducing Helath Disparities, “Trauma-Informed Care and Services for Immigrant Families: A Three-Part Symposium, Proceedings Report,” February 2021.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, in 2018 one in seven U.S. residents was an immigrant, constituting approximately 14% of the national population (44.7 million people). The number of immigrants in the U.S. continues to increase and makes immigration policy one of the most controversial political topics of debate. During the Trump administration, changes in immigration policy heightened the importance of the need to look at trauma-informed care and services for immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The administration used executive orders and administrative policies to create and perpetuate an environment in which racism and xenophobia are maintained and even intentionally exacerbated.The Center for Reducing Health Disparities and the California Health Care Foundation partnered to put together a three-part symposium to better understand the impacts and effects of anti-immigrant policies on immigrants and their families, and to focus on trauma-informed care and services for immigrants.The report along with all the slides, programs, and video recordings can be found on our Center’s website.

Caitlin Patler, University of California, Davis; Jackie Gonzalez, Immigrant Defense Advocates; and Hamid Yazdan Panah, Immigrant Defense Advocates, “Immigrant Detention and COVID-19: A Tragic Call to Action for Federal and State Officials, Policy Brief” Immigration Initiative at Harvard, February, 2021. 
In this issue brief, we review research on immigration detention, with a particular focus on conditions of confinement and the pains of imprisonment experienced by detained people in the United States. We then discuss federal and state actions to save lives and uphold human dignity in both the shorter-term timeline (of the pandemic) and the longer-term.  

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Reporting Concerns of Harassment and Discrimination
The Harassment & Discrimination Assistance and Prevention Program (HDAPP) supports the University's commitment to a harassment and discrimination-free work and learning environment for all members of the UC Davis, UC Davis Health, and University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR). 

If you are interested in reporting concerns of Harassment and Discrimination, please contact HDAPP to file a report and/or speak with a representative to better understand your options. Learn more about HDAPP here or go to HDAPP's website for more information.

Counseling Services Mental Health Resources Webinar [requires Kerberos log-in] One of the things we hear frequently from instructors about teaching in Spring 2020 is the extent to which they encountered students in their courses experiencing significant stress or crisis, yet they felt unequipped to help or direct students to resources. To help, Student Health and Counseling Services provided a Mental Health Resources Webinar. If supporting students in crisis is a concern for you, please watch this previously-recorded webinar. Webinar topics include an overview of mental health services on campus, how to make referrals, signs of distress and how to respond, and how faculty can support students in the classroom (remote or on-campus). Student Affairs has also provided this folder of faculty resources.

UC Davis Office for Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion COVID resources page In English and Spanish to reach our communities and we are actively updating with new resources.

Content Submission Form

Do you have a DEI-oriented event, announcement, or article that you would like us to help promote through our DEI communication channels? Did your unit/department or a member of your unit/department receive recognition that demonstrates your commitment to DEI? If so, please send us your information through this online form.

We invite you to share and submit your thoughts and items for our newsletter (either current or future news and events) at diversityinclusion@ucdavis.edu

Thank you for your dedication to diversity, equity and inclusion!

#ThinkBigDiversity
https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/