ASU Equity Online Info Brochure

ASU ONLINE
Equity Institute Informational Brochure
Building Equity in Education Leadership
January 15 – April 29, 2018
“Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve
the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he/she sends
forth a tiny ripple of hope…and crossing each other from a
million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples
build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of
oppression and resistance.”
– Robert F. Kennedy

ASU Online Equity Institute Goals
This asynchronous (online) professional development will
enable participants to eliminate the barriers created by race,
class, gender, and other forms of bias, where faculty and staff
will change practices that impede the learning of students from
underrepresented groups.
The ASU Online Equity Leadership Institute is an online
professional development opportunity for faculty and staff.
Full participation and commitment is expected during the 11
week Institute beginning on January 15th through April 29th,
2018. Faculty and staff participating will be eligible for a $1,500
stipend paid on May 31st, 2018 and an opportunity to submit a
proposal for a $1,000 Equity Engagement Grant. This incentive
is available upon successful completion of the ASU Online
Equity Institute.
Participants (faculty and staff) will increase their understanding
of leadership and their capacity to:
• support their colleagues in the transformation of educational
policies and practices that results in powerful teaching,
advocacy for students, high student achievement, and equity.
• build relationships and alliances across and within race,
class, gender, role and other forms of difference in order to
identify and eliminate injurious practices and policies in
educational settings.
• use methods that increase understanding of the role of
emotional intelligence and emotional healing in
achieving equity.
• facilitate meaningful and productive conversations that
explicitly address issues of institutionalized oppression and
individual bias that impact teaching, learning, and change.
• support ASU to fully integrate diversity and educational
quality efforts and embed them into the core of academic
mission and institutional functioning.

What to Expect
Topic groups will give participants the opportunity to discuss
race, class, gender, and sexual orientation in depth, in an
inclusive and online safe environment.
Discussion groups will focus on articles and research that will
be available electronically, prior to the retreat. The online
Professional Development Facilitator will provide the
opportunity for participants to learn from the research
literature and from each other.
Goal setting and planning sessions will provide a structure for
participants to set goals, develop strategies and make
specific plans to implement learning gleaned from this
online professional development.
Online support groups will be used to deepen understanding
and exchange emotional support. Meeting in virtual support
groups provides participants the opportunity to talk about
their beliefs, successes and challenges, to strengthen
collegial relationships, and to reflect on how their own
learning experiences and their experiences with prejudice
and discrimination affect them as people working in higher
education.
Reflection writing will provide participants the opportunity to
respond to specific prompts related to issues raised during
the online professional development. Through reflection
writing, participants will have the opportunity to have their
voices heard and opinions shared in a safe online
environment.

About the ASU Online Equity Facilitator
Elliott Cisneros is the Co-Executive Director
of The Sum, a non-profit he founded in 2006
to offer experiential learning to support and
challenge us to cultivate our individual gifts
by co-creating real community--non-violent
and deeply democratic--honoring and
celebrating our differences and our common
humanity. The Sum’s vision is a just and
thriving world where no one stands alone.
Formerly, Elliott has directed the Human Right Office for the City
of Fort Collins, taught classes in diversity/social justice at Naropa
University in Boulder, Colorado, he worked as a school principal
in an “Expeditionary Model” in the Poudre District, and taught
special education on the Dineh Reservation in New Mexico. He
comes from a bi-racial bi-cultural background with strong roots in
the San Luis Valley though he now lives in rural New York where
he is developing a study center to carry on the work of The Sum
in a retreat setting.

Jan 15 – 21, 2018
Module 1: FOUNDATIONS
“There is a true yearning to respond to the singing River and the
wise Rock. So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew, the African,
the Native American, the Sioux. The Catholic, the Muslim, the
French, the Greek. The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheik.
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher. The privileged, the homeless,
the Teacher. They hear. They all hear. The speaking of the
Tree.” ~ Maya Angelou
Jan 22 – 28
Module 2: FRAMEWORKS
“The function of freedom is to set someone else free.”
~ Toni Morrison
Jan 29 – Feb 4
Module 3: IDENTITY and INTERSECTIONALITY
“The first principle of non-violent action is that of noncooperation
with everything humiliating.” ~ Cesar Chavez
Feb 5 – 11
Module 4: INSIDE/OUTSIDE
“I am the dialogue between myself and el spiritu del mundo.
I change myself I change the world.” ~ Gloria Anzualdua
Feb 12 – 18
Module 5: SOCIO-ECONOMIC CLASS
“You can only become truly accomplished at something you
love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things
you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take
their eyes off you.” ~ Maya Angelou

Feb 19 – 25
Module 6: ETHNICITY
“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to
recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”
~ Audre Lourde
Feb 26 – Mar 4
Module 7: RACE
“As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry,
so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.”
~ Chinua Achebe
Mar 5 – 11
Module 8: GENDER
“Understanding the shadow masculine or shadow feminine in
oneself is crucial not only for enhancing one’s own wholeness
but for championing justice between genders and all diverse
groups in the community. If the shadow is not recognized and
dealt with, it will dominate an individual or . . . community,
resulting in untold suffering.” ~ Carolyn Baker
Mar 12 – 18
Module 9: SEXUAL ORIENTATION
“Fear is the intended result of codifying homophobia into law.”
~ DaShanne Stokes
Mar 19 – 25
Module 10: RACE, GOING DEEPER
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new
landscapes, but in having new eyes.” ~ Marcel Proust

Mar 26 – Apr 1
Module 11: RELIGION/WORLDVIEW
“Everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb
to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory
of existence.” ~ Mourning Dove, Salish Tribe
Apr 2 – 8
Module 12: DIS/ABILITY
“Part of the problem with the word ‘disabilities’ is that it
immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do
other things that many of us take for granted. But what of
people who can’t feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage
their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren’t
able to form close and strong relationships? And people who
cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost
hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life
no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.”
~ Fred Rogers
Apr 9 – 15
Module 13: CURRICULUM, ENVIRONMENT, PEDAGOGY
“You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be
at peace unless he has his freedom.” ~ Malcolm X
Apr 16 – 22
Module 14: SCENARIOS and SOLIDARITY
“I raise up my voice-not so I can shout but so that those without
a voice can be heard...we cannot succeed when half of us are
held back.” ~ Malala Yousafzai
Apr 23– 29
Module 15: PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER
“Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt