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How can the at ����̽̽ be consistently welcoming and supportive of students of all backgrounds and perspectives? How can education in the environment and natural resources open itself to the full spectrum of humanity?

The School has been grappling with these vital questions for three decades — and they came to the fore with new urgency during the 2017-18 academic year.

In July 2017, the Rubenstein School commissioned a yearlong, in-depth assessment by Shadiin Garcia, an Oregon consultant of Chicana and Native American background whose work centers on helping educational institutions achieve “community-driven, systemic change.”

“We had been pushing for this equity assessment,” said Associate Dean Allan Strong, who had organized conversations within the School on environmental justice and environmental racism. “It’s not just the curriculum. We were really trying to look at the community holistically.”

Garcia began by talking with administrators, faculty, students and staff to co-create the goals for her work, which would seek to build on the School’s strengths even as it pinpointed the challenges. She built relationships, organized conversations and focus groups, and conducted a School-wide survey. Her firm, , delivered Garcia’s report in late summer 2018 — and this article summarizes her findings and recommendations.

But first, a short summary of the student activism that captured the campus’s attention in early 2018, plus the School’s response, and a conversation with several students at the School who were closely involved.

“I Share Their Concerns”
Early in the 2017-18 academic year, a ����̽̽ student group, NoNames for Justice, issued a set of demands. The group called for increased hiring of diverse faculty, annual diversity and inclusion training for faculty, staff and administration, and stronger response to incidents of bias on campus.

In February, after a threat against students of color was reported and racist posters and flyers appeared on campus — apparently as part of a nationwide alt-right postering campaign — students rallied for action and positive change. They briefly blocked Main Street and occupied the Waterman Building on campus, then met with the deans of each ����̽̽ internal college to press for the NoNames demands.

“I have listened to their stories, and I share their concerns,” Rubenstein School Dean Nancy Mathews declared after she became one of the first two ����̽̽ deans to endorse several of the NoNames requests. In a spring 2018 statement titled “Prioritizing Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity in Our School,” Dean Mathews outlined the School’s history of efforts toward that goal.

“In 1988, we established the Diversity Task Force and ... we began an effort to reach out to high schools to promote multicultural scholarships," she wrote. “We developed two key undergraduate courses: NR 6 Race and Culture in Natural Resources and NR 207 Power, Privilege and Environment. In 1996, Rubenstein School faculty and staff formally endorsed our first Diversity Plan. And, in 2017, in collaboration with the ����̽̽ President's Commission on Inclusive Excellence, the School began work on an Inclusive Excellence Action Plan, based on a diversity assessment, to address inclusivity within academics, community, environment, and operations in the School.”

But, the dean added, “in February, it became apparent that these efforts were not enough.”

“Rubenstein School students took a leadership role,” Dean Mathews noted, “in bringing to the forefront continued concerns about diversity, equity, and inclusivity, both on campus and in our School.” She announced that the faculty had approved several immediate actions: the School would take a fresh look at NR 6, its required first-year course on racial and cultural issues in natural resources, and it would provide new training for its teaching faculty.

Dean Mathews also stressed “the expectation that all Rubenstein School faculty and staff participate in the school-wide diversity and inclusion professional development series.” And she created a permanent standing committee of deans, faculty, staff, and students to implement the recommendations of Shadiin Garcia’s equity assessment.

“I will end by expressing my appreciation to those students who courageously stepped forward to express themselves through the NoNames for Justice and the Black Lives Matter activist movements,” Dean Mathews wrote. “Their voices are powerful ... the School’s leadership team, faculty and staff look forward to continuing the conversations and working together to co-create our community to ensure that it is one where we all flourish and thrive.”

“We Have to Be Inclusive”
In a group conversation last May, four graduating seniors who had been involved in Garcia’s assessment and in the campus activism — Kunal Palawat '18, Sonya Buglion Gluck '18, Jennifer Alexandra Gil '18, and Kirsti Carr '18 — gathered to share some of their experiences and recommendations.

For students of color, said Gil, “We are so hyper-visible on campus. Every time I enter a space, the first thing I look for is to see if I’m the only person of color.”

Palawat agreed. If he’s the only person of color in a classroom or other campus space, he said, “I’ve got to code-switch and make sure I’m presenting a certain part of me that’s going to be acceptable.”           

Last year, Palawat helped to create a new campus coalition, the Black/Indigenous/People of Color Environmental Collective. He said he dislikes hearing well-meaning people say, “Let’s work regardless of race” — “because that erases the experiences people have due to their race and ethnicity. Why can’t we work inclusive of race, gender, sexuality, national identity? We have to be inclusive of all those identities, because they really do impact the way we’re interacting with the world.”

Carr, a white student, said she became closely involved with consultant Garcia’s conversations and assessment process after expanding her perspective at the Rubenstein School. “Something I’ve experienced, that I think a lot of white people experience, is the realization that I have dominant identities, that white supremacy is real.”

Gil reflected on what it will take to broaden and deepen everyone’s perspective at the School. “If the Rubenstein curriculum wants to include students of color in environmentalism, outdoor recreation and all aspects of ecology, you’re conditioning students to critically think about race, in every aspect,” she said. “It’s a matter of really implementing that, and having it run for long periods of time.”

Gil said she has experienced acts of environmental racism, such as illegal dumping and asbestos contamination in her own neighborhood. “That’s actively impacted my life,” she said. “For the environmental movement as a system, where did we miss the mark of including the fact that environmentalism, traditional ecological knowledge, is all rooted in people of color and indigenous beliefs?”

“That’s something we talk about all the time, at Rubenstein — how to build resilience, how to build sustainability, how to build adaptively managed systems,” Palawat said. “Part of that is creating frameworks in systems to heal ourselves from disturbance, and from harm. I think that needs to be a focus of more of what we do.”

Asked Buglion Gluck, who based her honors thesis on examining the racial climate at the School, “What does it fully look like to incorporate environmental justice and racial justice in every course in Rubenstein, even every aspect of the School? I don’t know what that looks like — there’s no formula you can implement.” 

Key Leverage Points for Change
There is indeed no formula. But “our experience in this field,” says the assessment by Shoreline Consulting, “teaches us that organizations make progress in the areas of equity, diversity, and belonging through concerted improvement in key areas including leadership and governance, faculty and staff capacity and competency, offerings and student services, and sustained partnerships.”

In her report, Garcia of Shoreline notes that she was “deeply embedded in Rubenstein in the 2017-18 academic year,” and finds that “the highest leverage activities for RSENR [the Rubenstein School] to focus on are those that concern the identities of race/ethnicity.”

“... The leadership at Rubenstein has gained a level of trust with students … and there are clear conditions for co-construction moving forward,” the Shoreline report notes. But “although the groups can construct solutions together, faculty and the school are responsible and accountable for creating a welcoming environment and meeting school goals with respect to equity, diversity, and belonging.”

The School’s faculty “represents the key leverage point for change ... faculty capacity has to come first for the other efforts to be successful,” the assessment declares. “Much of what was discussed in terms of climate is the classroom climate and what can faculty do to make it welcoming, which is often defined as faculty recognizing multiple ways of being and knowing in their curriculum and classroom practices.”

Shoreline’s assessment is strength-based — and among the School’s strengths to build on, it identifies personal leadership by the deans and other staff, “use of faculty retreats for professional learning about power and privilege,” gender-neutral restrooms and pronoun use, “consistently higher than average three-year retention rates,” and “students feeling empowered to speak out and partner with leadership.”

“Some of the most prevalent hopes participants expressed are for increasing the presence of staff, faculty, and students of color in the Rubenstein School and more community dialogue that welcomes diverse perspectives and positionality,” the assessment concludes. “Hopes also include an interest in more teaching, learning, and training, not relying on (and thereby causing more damage to) underrepresented/marginalized folks to teach about power, privilege, and race/ethnicity. An underlying sentiment of hope is for change that will be sustained and for action.”

“How Do We Hold Ourselves Accountable?”
“The School is looking into how we reward efforts to promote equity, access and empowerment, recognition of diversity, in all that we do — from teaching and service to research,” Dean Mathews said after Shoreline Consulting’s assessment was released. “Faculty need to be thinking about how we bring this into the classroom,” she said.

The dean appointed the new IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity and Action) Committee to look at faculty review, promotion and tenure. “It will,” she said, “be a permanent standing committee to implement the recommendations of this report and the commitments made to NoNames for Justice. The committee will include a minimum of three students, who understand the issues and have lived experience.

“To the School’s credit, I’ve had nothing but support, from faculty and staff, to move forward with these recommendations,” the dean reported. But, she added, “to have a gradual shift in the diversity in the community — it takes time. Our recognition and understanding of that is really important. It does take a community, not only to recognize a problem but to accept the length of time it takes to address the problem.”

With the equity assessment in hand, “We have the data now. We have the testimony,” said Rubenstein School Assistant Dean Marie Vea-Fagnant, who has been working at the center of diversity-related issues and student support. “I think the past year was pivotal, because of NoNames for Justice, the actions that were taken on campus, and the focus groups and convening around the assessment. So, there’s a paradigm shift in thinking, and in pedagogy, around what the community should look like now.

“My big question,” she said, “is how do we hold ourselves accountable? It’s not just leadership, or the dean’s office. This needs to be a collective effort.

“In other words, if you expect me to show up, I expect you to show up too.”