As the work study student for the Women’s Resource Center, I plan to stock several unisex and gender neutral bathrooms with free maxi pads for students who get their periods, but don’t use the women’s room.

Implementing the Preferred Name Policy! This has been a yearlong process with a statewide taskforce to ensure that all the CC in MA welcome students with the same policy.

I’m working with students on forming a Neurodiversity club, to foster connection between and education about folks who identify as neurodivergent. All are welcome, as neurodiversity is the human condition.

Adding an optional preferred gender pronoun field to the Disability Services intake form.

I’m working on a grant (Bridges to Manufacturing) that hopes to expand on the work of the very successful Bridges to Health Care work that we’ve done at GCC with community partners The Literacy Project (TLP) and the Center for New Americans (CNAM) since 2006. We’re working again with TLP and CNAM to create “Bridge to. . .” curriculum at their sites for their Adult Basic Education (ABE) and second-language learners to more successfully transition to our Foundational Manufacturing curriculum and beyond. Similar efforts in Health Care have led to making the Certified Nurse Asst. class at GCC (non-credit) among the most diverse of all of our offerings. We hope to expand these efforts to ServSafe Food Protection manager training and others in the near future.

I’m adding Into the Beautiful North to the material we’ll read in the course I teach. It explores issues such as leadership, independence, violence, race, class, gender, sexism, homophobia, and immigration.

In honor of the approval of our preferred name policy and beginning implementation we have posted this sign in the Office of Admission, encouraging students to inform us of their preferred pronouns and first name.

Bringing personal experiences into the classroom as examples when appropriate.

As a woman of color, and being over 40 years of age, I feel that my presence at this campus serves to demonstrate that GCC is an inclusive and safe space for women like me to attend. I hope to see more students of color, women, and working people attend GCC. This is a wonderful campus; it is small, but has a big campus feel to it. Also, the staff, faculty and students are very kind and down to earth, making this a great place to belong to.

Each Monday we are creating a “Monday Motivation” post on Instagram using quotes from a variety of people. The intention is to represent a large range of people from different backgrounds, educational level, race, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, ability, etc. throughout the year.

I have been serving on the Western Mass Task Force to end hunger since January. It has been a real eye opener on topics related to class, food insecurity and poverty. This summer I committed to more fully integrating what I’m learning and who I am working with into my life at GCC. I formed a coalition that includes students, staff, faculty and community members to begin meeting to discuss ways we can be part of the solution at GCC and strategies for collaboration. Among other programs, we are planning to hold a spring conference on the topic of food insecurity at GCC in the spring.

When selecting books to use, in addition to paying attention to gender, race, and ethnicity, I am now being intentional about being attentive to sexual orientation as well.

I am working with a handful of others to create the immigrant protection project of Western Massachusetts and have endeavored to bring the student ACLU Club as well as certain faculty members into our fledgling group to assist those targeted by the administration’s anti-immigrant policies

In my early childhood education courses I use a lot of images and videos of children and families to illustrate and support the content of the class. I am being conscious of, and taking the time to, find images that represent the wide diversity in children, families, genders, cultures, ethnicities, etc.

I am collecting best practices and provocative literature to share with faculty in support of teaching and learning discussions which extend diversity and inclusion priorities in the classroom. These items focus on the value of learning through different socio-cultural lenses. I am also establishing time for faculty to come together to share questions and practices for expanding syllabi to reflect diverse experiences, creating applied projects for students to enhance understanding of diverse perspectives, and improve assessment on diversity priorities.

To increase diversity and inclusion at GCC, I assign Open Education Resources (OER), including a US History textbook I co-authored with Rice University’s OpenStax College. https://openstax.org/details/books/us-history
OER helps to make higher education affordable to everyone. With OER, all our students can more easily attain their education/employment goals and be spared the burden of student debt. A full list of free OpenStax texts can be found at: https://openstax.org/

Adding my gender pronouns to my email signature AND taking the time to explain why I am doing that and what it means whenever someone asks about it.

I am working with a student assistant about ways to promote inclusion amongst students at GCC, with the goal of establishing an inclusion center on campus, a physical space that will support traditionally underrepresented groups.

I have included using case studies in our flipped classes that include diverse populations including: sexual identities of all sorts, and varied gender identies, and races of all kinds. I include the value/belief functional health pattern which includes culture specific questions- requiring them to compose questions to elicit a better understanding of how the patient needs can be met through understanding the patients spiritual and cultural beliefs.

My BUS 111 course has been revised to spend two full weeks examining business models that address needs in underserved groups, including the homeless, HIV positive, and developmentally disabled populations.

I am piloting a four-part unit for my ESL Reading classes on local U.S. history, starting with the voyage of the Mayflower and the colonists’ first encounter with the Wampanoag tribe on Cape Cod, continuing to King Philip’s War and the reconciliation agreement created in 2004 in Turners Falls. The emphasis on activities of tribes in the Valley since before King Philip’s War serves as an example of inclusion of our indigenous residents and their contributions to the society we now share.
Some of our students have and/or come from indigenous groups in their countries and are eager to talk about their customs vs. the majority cultures they are surrounded by at home. In addition, the departure of the colonists from England foreshadows some of the same struggles faced by today’s bilingual students at GCC and provides a compelling connection to U.S. history (called a “new country” by one student). These language-culture connections are intended to serve as part of a newcomer’s foundation for civic engagement.

When teaching, I’ve worked to include a broad spectrum of reading materials–across genders; geographic borders; racial, ethnic, and class groups; etc. This semester, I’ve added a reading by a trans author who writes about transgender experiences.

For incoming nursing orientation, I included a column for preferred name and pronoun on the sign-in. This is the same sign-in that they would update their address etc, so it begins all things off on an open foot. Second, I have a safe space poster on my office window. This sends the message to all that they can be who they are in my office.

I am working with colleagues to increase the visibility of our diverse student body through student video testimonials on the website, inclusive décor in my office, pronouns on my signature line and a sign over my nameplate that says “All Are Welcome Here.” I joined the Community College Statewide Taskforce to work collaboratively on Preferred Name, Gender Inclusive bathrooms and other LGBTQAI+ projects. I raised concern at a statewide meeting with Secretary of Education, Commissioner of Higher Education and our legislators about the need for collaborative work on wraparound services for our students including hunger, homelessness, and transportation to name a few.

Focusing my attention in work with students faculty and staff on #MeToo through the empowerment of voices other than my own.

I think it’s important in this #MeToo movement to be able to tell the difference between fake feminists who want to shame men and real feminists who want equality for anyone. In any rape case, be open to knowing both sides before assuming. Online a lot of articles on Buzzfeed and Twitter say things about rape, and all the comments always agree, but I wonder if some of these are truthfull. I think some people believe anything they hear. in terms of real rape cases it isnt ever okay what happened, but its totally not fair to have these two things be mixed in together. Please be cautious and dont spread social justice for the wrong thing ❤️

My focus this year will be on the Preferred Name Policy. This is being taken up on a state level and I am hopeful that this interest will help move us from a place of discussion and philosophical support to action and practical change.

I have included a place to specify name and pronoun preferences and any trigger warnings on the first day survey I give to all students. Completing this survey is an optional exercise, but I’ve never had a single student not turn it in. This gives them a simple tool to communicate pertinent information with me, so that I can use their preferred name/pronoun from the first day of class.

I have added PGP (preferred gender pronoun) to my email signature as a way to signify my openness to different gender pronouns.

As part of the ongoing work of the Bridges to Manufacturing grant with community partners The Literacy Project and The Center for New Americans, we featured a second-language learner, Dmitriy Dariy, in our annual focus on manufacturing article for the Greenfield Recorder GCC page. These efforts helped to drive great turnout at Manufacturing Day at Eastworks (Easthampton) on Thursday, October 6th, where a contingent of Center for New Americans students and staff and Literacy Project students and staff attended and met local manufacturing employers and educators.

I will use various reading and texts that are diverse and inclusive in their content and when doing presentations to the class, use pictures that also show diversity and inclusion.

I am the staff assistant to the Peer Tutoring Program. Students seeking peer tutoring fill out an information card about themselves. This semester we added the question, “What is your preferred gender pronoun?”

I regret to say that I haven’t done any particular thing at GCC to promote diversity. I do, however, live my life amongst an extremely diverse collection of folks. I intend to be an open-minded and caring Addictions Counselor and in that way be certain to experience, enjoy and educate myself about any particular client I may see. I believe that if our intent is good, and our ethics are strong then we can be compassionate toward others in many diverse ways.

My question back is, “What can I do as part of the whole to help the college to be more of the beautiful melting pot that is supposed to be America?

sorry for the political tone. i haven’t had enough coffee to turn the election results on until an hour ago.