Chancellor Eloy Otiz Oakley Welcome Video

California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Otiz Oakley welcomes attendees

of the 2nd CCC + LGBTQ+ Summit on November 23, 2019.

Workshops Announced for 2nd CCC + LGBTQ+ Summit

Below is the Summit concurrent sessions workshop schedule. Click here to read the full program descriptions.

Session 1 - 11:15am to 12:15pm

• Anything a Lesbian Ever Touched
• The ARC Campus Climate Study
• Deconstructing Gender
• Protesting Blood Collection Drives on Campus
• Show Me the Numbers: How are colleges collecting and using data on LGBTQ+ students?
• Transferring to UC and Paying for It

Session 2 - 1:30pm to 2:30pm

• Creating a Lived/Chosen/Preferred Name Program in Your District
• I’m Affirming, Now What? Best Practices for Working with Trans and Gender Expansive College Students
• LGBTQ+ Cultural Competency: Supporting and Understanding LGBTQ+ Youth
• Making the Case for Universal Locker Rooms: An Equity Perspective
• Spectrum Caucus
• Supporting LGBTQ+ Students in the CCC System: Practical Strategies and Opportunities from an Institutional Research Perspective   

Session 3 - 2:45pm to 3:45pm

• Gay For Pay: Findings From a Spring 2018 Sabbatical Focusing on LGBTQIA+ Student Equity
• How to Strategically Use the Campus Pride Index--National Benchmarking Tool for Assessing LGBTQ-Friendly Policies, Programs and Practices
• It IS a Big Deal: Anti-LGBTQ Microaggressions in the Classroom
• Navigating Academia while Queer
• A Way Forward: A Possibility Model for Implementing the Gender Recognition Act on Your Campus
• We can do it!: Getting LGBTQ+ programs & services started

Summit Call for Programs Deadline Extended

It's not too late to submit a program proposal for the 2nd CCC + LGBTQ+ Summit, to be hosted by UC Riverside on Saturday, November 23. Summit planners have added a workshop session to the schedule so we can host additional workshops. We are particularly seeking student presenters to share their voices or to organize with other students; as well as any programs related to LGBTQ+ curriculum development. Click here for the Call for Programs.

Check out the kinds of workshops already accepted for the Summit:

• The ARC Campus Climate Study  
• Conciencia Raising: Building Safer Zones Training  
• Creating a Lived/Chosen/Preferred Name Program in Your District  
• Deconstructing Gender  
• How to Strategically Use the Campus Pride Index--National Benchmarking Tool for Assessing LGBTQ-Friendly Policies, Programs and Practices  
• It IS a Big Deal: Anti-LGBTQ Microaggressions in the Classroom  
• Navigating Academia while Queer  
• QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) A Suicide Prevention & Awareness Training 
• Show Me the Numbers: How are colleges collecting and using data on LGBTQ+ students? 
• Supporting LGBTQ+ Students in the CCC System: Practical Strategies and Opportunities from an Institutional Research Perspective  
• Transferring into UC and Paying for It
• A Way Forward: A Possibility Model for Implementing the Gender Recognition Act on Your Campus  
• We can do it!: Getting LGBTQ+ programs & services started  

Progress addressing LGBTQ+ needs on CCC campuses?

What are the most pressing needs for LGBTQ+ people on CCC campuses and what are the next steps to meeting these needs? Students, staff, faculty, and administrators attempted to answer these questions in caucus spaces and at the closing plenary of the inaugural CCC + LGBTQ+ Summit in 2017.

Everyone registering to attend the 2019 CCC + LGBTQ+ Summit is given an opportunity on the online registration form to share their thoughts on the current most pressing needs in 2019. We will report back the results on this blog and at the Summit on November 23.

What has changed since 2017? What is the path forward with new action steps and how will the CCC community be held accountable?

Check out the shared wisdom from 2017 below.

CCC + LGBTQ+ Summit

November 11, 2017 @ UC Riverside

Closing Plenary Results

Most Common Themes:

1.  Create new Pride Centers

2.  Mandate LGBTQ+ trainings

3.  Offer more mental health counseling, that affirms LGBTQ+ people

4.  Create more gender inclusive restrooms

5.  Support preferred names and gender pronouns in information systems and in common usage

6.  Collect SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) data after student enrollment

7.  Continue to hold meetings/conferences such as the Summit

8.  Establish CCCCO-supported communication on LGBTQ+ issues

9.  Develop more LGBTQ+ curriculum and raise visibility of courses

Most Common Next Steps:

1.  Mandatory to create a center – pair a CCC with a center with one that does not. Process for students to have a voice in spaces that are built. Not just a professor’s office but a space that exists separately that is designated for LGBTQ+ students. Every CCC should be required to start a committee to develop a center. Use the Center as a place to address issues of homelessness and food insecurity. The Center should give students access to formal governance and to informal network of friends and supportive acquaintances. (Proposed 6 times.)

2.  Annual LGBTQ+ mandatory safe zone training for FT and PT staff, student leaders, Board members, classified staff at all sectors. How can we normalize the LGBTQ+ community, focus attention on curing the community and not just focus on the problems of LGBTQ+ people? (Proposed 5 times.)

3.  Availability of mental health counseling for students from these communities, and other supportive services affirming of LGBTQ+ identities. Trained therapists and psychologists trained in LGBTQ+ issues. (Proposed 4 times.)

4.  Gender neutral (all gender, gender inclusive) bathrooms. Not just one stall but a whole restroom like the ones at this Summit. They need to be available to students, not locked up in someplace inaccessible, clearly marked. “I’ll go with you” or “I’ll Go Too” program. Include single use restrooms. (Proposed 3 times.)

5.  Need for education and process to support LGBTQ+ issues, including preferred pronouns and names. Administrative and IT procedure to get student’s preferred name, gender, pronouns. (Proposed 3 times.)

6.  Add questions to survey that is filled out in order to register for the following semester. (Proposed 2 times.)

7.  Establish CCCCO-supported communication network for promotion of these issues like IEPI and CSN, continue to have these gatherings in regional locations. Remove burden on attendees to have legitimacy for these gatherings. (Proposed 2 times.)

8.  More classes on LGBTQ+ issues for CCC’s, increase awareness of the courses, inclusive curriculum in all fields of study. (Proposed 2 times.)

9.  Queer Month Celebration in October. (Proposed 1 time.)

10.Have a way to identify faculty who are inclusive and are safe zones. Use social network and other campus resources like the website to help students to know where to go to find services. (Proposed 1 time.)

11.Annual informational panels to educate the community. (Proposed 1 time.)

12.Add the “plus” to “LGBTQ.” (Proposed 1 time.)

Report Back

Most Pressing Needs

Faculty, Staff, Administrators, Community Advocates:

1.  Safety – how do we create safe spaces inside/outside the classroom?

2.  Training –intentional, participants really using what they learned.

3.  Representation: seeing someone who looks like you.

4.  Things need to be mandated by the state, and they need to be funded (administrators may ignore without funding), need to have funded mandates – permanent categorical funding: e.g. more safe zone training, talking about pronouns to create safe spaces on first day, calling last names on first day.

5.  Bathrooms.

6.  Mandatory safe space training for everyone.

7.  Continue to talk with each other – repository for best practices, Facebook pages (MtSAC Pride Center and LGBTQ+ Alliance at Miramar College).

8.  Annual event.

9.  Wellness training/programming for LBTQ students.

10.Mentorship programs.

11.Creation of learning communities for LGBTQ+ students – weave in why they are in CCC, and other supports.

12.Engagement – how to get more people engaged and see LGBTQ+ issues as an issue.

13.How far up the chain does the advocacy go?

14.Confusion – need to clear up and disseminate to campuses about state laws re LGBTQ+.

15.Technical obstacles – outdated technology that becomes an obstacle in itself – engagement of IT professionals in this work.

16.Next Steps: mandating liaisons, mandating policies and regs such as gender neutral restrooms.

17.Engagement with CSU and UC partners (for example faculty partners there have claimed Queer Studies at the upper division but we want to teach these subjects here, classes are difficult to transfer for credit at CSU and UC).

18.Individual faculty need help with the technical and functional aspects of generating new courses, getting them approved.

19.Creating inclusive curriculum, creating inclusive programming.

20.Creating real funding streams (per AB 1018) that can support clubs, scholarships, etc.

Students:

1.  Mentoring

2.  Annual LGBTQ+ mandatory safe zone training for FT and PT staff, student leaders, Board members, classified staff at all sectors. How can we normalize the LGBTQ+ community, focus attention on curing the community and not just focus on the problems of LGBTQ+ people.

3.  Gender neutral (all gender, gender inclusive) bathrooms. Not just one stall but a whole restroom like the ones at this Summit. They need to be available to students, not locked up in someplace inaccessible, clearly marked.  “I’ll go with you” or “I’ll Go Too” program. Include single use restrooms.

4.  New student queer orientation.

5.  Increasing resources and awareness of diversity in hiring.

6.  Need for education and process to support LGBTQ+ issues including preferred pronouns and names. Administrative and IT procedure to get student’s preferred name, gender, pronouns.

7.  Add questions to survey that is filled out in order to register for the following semester.

8.  Queer Month Celebration in October.

Obstacles

Faculty, Staff, Administrators, Community Advocates:

1.  Conservativism.

2.  Homophobia/Transphobia – Colleges need to develop zero tolerance policies about these

3.  Safety.

4.  Students who are not LGBTQ+ need more knowledge, ways to learn about differences between sex and gender, for example. (AB 396 mandates sexual identity training in workplace).

5.  Avoid boring, ineffective training like has been done around sexual harassment.

6.  Training needs to be done by people with experience with sexual identity issues, not by the same trainers on contract.

7.  Attitudes that LGBTQ+ issues are not topics that are relevant to STEM instruction. Lack of inclusiveness of STEM Center spaces. 

8.  Capacity issues in implementation (e.g. DSA has only 2 secretaries to answer the phone and field our calls, and pass along issues that have been brought up by callers, such as gender neutral restrooms).

9.  Lack of data, questions about design and evaluation of questions that generate the data

10.Isolation of advocates on their campuses (advocates do not even know each other on the same campus).

11.Lack of inclusiveness or homophobia in spaces that are supposed to be designed for inclusion such as multicultural centers.

12.Challenges with curriculum development and approval process.

Students:

1.  Lack of funding.

2.  Lack of staff support to create committees.

3.  Lack of LGBTQ+ Centers in CCC’s.

4.  Ignorance of outside community.

5.  More classes on LGBTQ+ issues for CCC’s, increase awareness of the courses, inclusive curriculum in all fields of study.

6.  Need trained therapists.

Best of all possible worlds

Faculty, Staff, Administrators, Community Advocates:

1.  Dedicated positions for LGBTQ+ access and diversity.

2.  CCCCO advertise and promote the existence of the Social Justice ADT Program.

3.  Bring in graduate students, adjuncts who are interested in working to promoteinclusiveness.

4.  Visible, accessible, physical location for LGBTQ++ communities – should be automatic.

5.  Establish CCCCO-supported communication network for promotion of these issues like IEPI and CSN, continue to have these gatherings in regional locations. Remove burden on attendees to have legitimacy for these gatherings.

6.  Have a way to identify faculty who are inclusive and are safe zones. Use social network and other campus resources like the website to help students to know where to go to find services.

7.  Ally Network: institution visibly supports these networks.

8.  Availability of mental health counseling for students from these communities, and other supportive services affirming of LGBTQ+ identities. Trained therapists and psychologists trained in LGBTQ+ issues.

9.  Anonymous support groups with educators and peers for LGBTQ+ students.

10.Available health center with trained and sensitive counselors.

11.LGBTQ+ focused career counseling.

12.Create spaces for LGBTQ+ students to exercise their creativity.

13.CCCCO should take ownership that goes beyond words and expectations. It should spearhead actions that can be impactful across the system.

14.Board and cabinet level leadership buys into these issues at the college level.

15.Institutions need to focus on healing along with organizational change.

16.CCC’s care about students as whole people.

Students:

1.  Having funding for staff to run the centers.

2.  Funding for Housing.

3.  Open transparency and accountability for all.

4.  Healthy food bank for LGBTQ+/open kitchen.

Specific Next Steps

Faculty, Staff, Administrators, Community Advocateswaited until students returned for the Closing Plenary before collectively sharing their proposed Next Steps.

Students:

1.  Mandatory to create a center – pair a CCC with a center with one that does not. Process for students to have a voice in spaces that are built. Not just a professor’s office but a space that exists separately that is designated for LGBTQ+ students. Every CCC should be required to start a committee to develop a center. Use the Center as a place to address issues of homelessness and food insecurity. The Center should give students access to formal governance and to informal network of friends and supportive acquaintances.

2.  Spaces for QPOC (Queer People of Color)

3.  ASO resolutions.

4.  Disability resources and other resources for LGBTQ+ students.

5.  Organize data and capture data.

6.  Annual informational panels to educate the community.

7.  Add the “plus” to “LGBTQ.”

Process:

1.  63 people met in the Student Caucus space. 101 people met in the Faculty, Staff, Administrators, Community Advocates Caucus space.

2.  Everyone wrote down individual responses about the most pressing needs for supporting LGBTQ++ people at CCC campuses; obstacles to addressing those needs; in the best of all possible worlds, what resources and support should be available for LGBTQ+ people at CCC campuses; and what next steps should be taken to make that vision a reality. (All individual handouts have been scanned into shareable PDFs.)

3.  Individuals then joined a circle to share their ideas, and each circle reported out their themes in each Caucus space.

4.  The two Caucuses came together for the Closing Plenary, and these themes were recorded in this document.

5.  The Common Themes and Common Next Steps at the top of this document represent collective wisdom from all participants after everyone came together for table discussions during the Closing Plenary.

Find more documentation from the 2017 CCC + LGBTQ+ Summit here.