More Progress and New Grants for Our Immigrant Students
Dear Brooklyn College colleagues,
On July 18, the world said goodbye to Congressman John Lewis, a giant of the Civil Rights Movement. As CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez said, we must make Lewis’ “struggle our struggle, and carry on his fight for freedom and equality because that’s what he would have wanted from us.” We will take these words to heart in the coming academic year.
We continue to make progress on the Brooklyn College anti-racist agenda. This week, Provost Anne Lopes held meetings about faculty lines with deans, chairs, the Master Planning Committee, and program directors. Our Strategic Plan highlights the goal of enhancing the diversity of our faculty, and we are working to do so. In the spring of 2019, we hired 50% tenure track faculty of color, and this spring we were able to hire 2 out of 3 tenure track faculty of color before the hiring pause. For the coming year, the Provost mentioned the possibility of interdisciplinary or cluster hires and underscored the importance of aligning faculty hiring with the principles outlined in my July 14 e-mail.
The Roberta S. Matthews Center for Teaching and Learning is expanding its training to complement the College’s anti-racist agenda, moving forward with professional development offered to faculty who are assigned to teach classes with disparities in outcomes. We are pleased that Prof. Donna Granville has just been named the Assistant Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Because students and faculty have voiced concerns about the rise in race-related discrimination while they are working and studying remotely, the Office of Diversity and Equity is developing an online anti-discrimination training, which it plans to pilot in late August. If faculty are interested in participating, they should contact our Chief Diversity Officer at Anthony.Brown@brooklyn.cuny.edu.
Last year, we developed a new training on inclusion, harassment, and bullying and offered it to more than 60 faculty and staff. We are scheduling a full-scale launch of the training in the coming academic year. Dates will be posted on the webpages of the Office of Diversity and Equity and the Office of the Provost.
Finally, I am pleased to report that the poverty-fighting organization Robin Hood has awarded Brooklyn College a grant of $150,000 to support our immigrant students. We all know what a challenging time this has been for our students and their families, especially our many immigrant and undocumented students who received no federal stimulus relief. We are grateful to the Robin Hood Foundation for this new grant, which will provide $500 in emergency assistance to 300 immigrant students at the College who have lost wages or had other COVID 19-related emergency expenses, such as food, housing, and technology for remote learning. For more information, contact Jesus Perez in our Immigrant Student Success Office at JPerez@brooklyn.cuny.edu, and eligible students may apply here. We are committed to doing whatever we can to ensure that our students can continue their studies.
When we struggle with unprecedented and challenging times, we are heartened if we can bring out the best in one another. The Brooklyn College community is more powerful when united. I look forward to working with you to ensure that our collective efforts result in a better and more just College environment.
Yours,
Michelle J. Anderson
President
