TOCAR Collaborative

February 20, 2003

Northwest Technical College

Minutes

Present: Amy Phillips (MSUM), Michelle Stevier (CC), Brandon Richardson (NDSU), Larry Peterson (NDSU), Sandra Holbrook NDSU), Rebecca Vave (MSUM), James Addington (TCC), Carmen Valenzuela (TCC), Aya Reid (MSUM), Linda Palmer (MSUM), Lester Barahona-Gomez (MSUM), Jan Fiola (MSUM), Marcia Paulson (YWCA), Julie Kunka (YWCA), Raúl Ramos (MNSCU/MCARI), Josh Malnourie (NDSU), Yoke-Sim Gunaratne (MSUM), Prairie Rose (NDSU), Lysa Ringquist (YWCA), R. Veronica Michael (MSUM), Judith Spellman(YWCA), Kate Olson (CC), Olivia Altenburg (YWCA), Jonathan Judd (CC), Roderick McCall (NTC), Ted Guerrero (NTC), Tom Dubbels (NTC), Pablo G. Guajardo MSUM), Phyllis May-Machunda (MSUM), Tess Arenas (UWSA), Tom Faix (PCUR-Detroit Lakes), Jackie Neilan (MSUM), Claudia Simon (NTC)

             I.      Introductions

All present introduced themselves. Amy Phillips welcomed and thanked Tess Arenas and MCARI for joining us.

          II.      Upcoming Meetings Dates & Places

March 11^th at MSUM

April 8^th at NDSU

       III.      Organizational Updates

Concordia:

-         Jonathan Judd recently returned from an ELCA anti-racism facilitators training in Chicago.

-         March 19^th to be a forum “Community Conversations About Racism” inviting community leaders to come to the table and have discussion with those on the campus as well

-         Issues on recruiting and retention 

-         Grassroots team reorganization

NDSU:

-         Had a one day training with Carmen, Jim, and Raúl (MCARI) which was exciting

-         Working on the institutional history

-         Conducting SWOT analysis determining Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats at NDSU, determining priorities and long-term goals

-         Josh made an invitation for a couple of people from TOCAR Collaborative to come and speakat “Inspiring Creative Communities” an event with community leaders and “breakout sessions” to be held at the Memorial Union on February 27^th. Brochures were passed around.  Brandon Richardson and Roderick McCall volunteered to represent the Collaborative. Thanks guys!

-         Presentations on Diversity went well , encourage other campuses in hosting  presentations

-         Prairie rose attended a conference in Chicago

+    Yok-Sim asked about the diversity survey . NDSU has two Diversity Council sponsered surveys to be done after Spring Break.

NTC:

-         Claudia, Phyllis, Amy and Raúl presented at MNSCU conference introducing TOCAR to many from Minnesota.

-         Black History Cultural Diversity activities include sharing about TOCAR, Brown bag Lunches are provided

-         Ted shared about Student Senate and movie night incentives

+    Raúl shared about the conference stating that after the presentation much  interest was shown, especially by Mankato State and Winona State seeking a 3-day training; at the office of the chancellor 350 people have undergone anti-racism training; there is a lot of interest across the State

+   We were all happy to wish Raúl a Happy Birthday!

YWCA:

-         Group had a mini-retreat on “What is Caucusing?” which was successful

-         Gave a presentation to the staff at a mandatory meeting. Applause after the presentation was encouraging.

-         Lysa shared that they have six people who would like to go to a seminar on white privilege in Iowa, April 9-12^th , any others who would like to go are encouraged to e-mail Lysa at lysa@pep.org

-         The 30^th YWCA “Women of the Year” event is to take place Monday, April 14^th at the Fargo Holiday Inn. Nomination forms were passed around for anyone who would like to make a nomination.

MSUM:

-         Phyllis shared about the recent Anti-Racism Trainings; there was very good attendance on February 11, 12, and 13^th trainings. The scheduled attendance for the 21^st and 22^nd are full

-         An encouraging note, that 1000 people in the community have received these trainings, 200 of these are from MSUM

-         People are energetic about helping, there are four follow-up sessions to take place next week to continue the dialogues and answering questions

-         Happy to have Tess Arenas with us ; working with the Anti-Racism Team, joining in on the Student Affairs Session, and meeting with people from MSUM and the community.

-         The team is growing and taking ownership, getting people to the Trainings is encouraging

-         Working on team building and deepening analysis, institutional assessments, and campus forums.

-         Tonight, 20^th Feb., Student Forum (all four colleges) meeting together, deepening discussions.

-         Handouts on building allies and facing resistance, and used by team at MSUM were passed out to be shared with teams.

-         Amy and Phyllis were asked to UND Law School to talk about TOCAR. Some students will be coming down Saturday for the Anti-Racism Training.

-          Amy shared that on Sunday Larry, Phyllis, Deb White and she will be presenting on the institutional assessment tool (TOCAR) Survey at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Conference in Minneapolis, an opportunity to share it with people from around the country.

-         The Annual Unity Conference at MSUM will be on April 3-4^th

-         Linda talked about the policy problem with defining what a hate crime is. People are not wanting to help and and find problems with the wording. People need to know what to report and to whom.

-         Aya shared about “Generation Action” and their recent presentations at Oak Grove High School and Fergus Falls Community College. Their goal is to present at three more times this semester. They also have to present a curriculum to the Fargo District School Board before they will be able to present in Fargo public high schools.

        IV.      Tess Arenas – Anti-Racism work in higher education/Ally-building

-    Dr. Arenas shared about ally building.

-         She remarked that she has never seen anything on this scale, and that the Collaborative is setting the stage for others in the future.

-         Dr. Arenas shared about the Marcuse Principles for ally building and how they are useful in her training program; lead to “deep dismantling conversations”

-         One principle is to help people identify when they were in the “outgroup” and relate back to that experience and relate it to race issues

-         Two sets of frameworks: How to be an ally. How to let people be your ally.

-         Trainings can be emotional, but this is important and is a trust issue. It can be hard, but is important for team building.

-         Dr. Arenas ended her sharing with her familiar quote, “ We’re never done, never fixed, never whole when it comes to social justice.”

-         Ricky Sherover-Marcuse is on-line at ERIC (I was unable to find this, but the website “Unlearning Racism” http://www.unlearningracism.org/  has some of her writings, as does the “Marcuse” website http://www.marcuse.org/Herbert/SophieIngeErica.htm

-     Jonathon mentioned that there is sometimes a struggle to get support from the top down. Dr. Arenas stressed that that is why it can be good to be autonomous and work from outside the university at times, but someone is needed on the inside because only a limited amount of institutional change can be done from the outside.

-         Yok-Sim asked if we shouldn’t be having trainings in assumptions in      alliance building, i.e. Ricky Sherover-Marcuse Principles. Dr. Arenas responded that yes it is important because demographics change, but white privilege doesn’t we need allies. “Ally building is pivotal.”

-         Jonathon asked about the tools and trainings that Dr. Arenas uses, whether they would be effective here in Minnesota where “Minnesota nice” doesn’t seem to respond well to “in your face” communication styles. Dr. Arenas reminded us that if handled in a nice manner it can still be effective.

-         Phyllis mentioned that finding allies seems difficult in the institution that seems to say, “we want to do it OUR way”. We need to be open to criticism, but still get the job done. There are many approaches, we need to pick a path, ours is an analysis that “reaches places”, that is the systemic level versus the individual level only.

-         Dr. Arenas concluded with saying that to address this it is helpful to affirm before “lecturing” people. Let them know that you know their parents taught them well, but that hegemony is a subtle thing.

           V.      Discussion of Phase III Training with MCARI

-         Amy reminded us about Phase III Training, which we talked about at the last meeting and decided that early-June is too soon. We should prepare to discuss dates for this in August?

-         Amy then asked MCARI to share about what Phase III is, when should we have it, and how can we use it to move forward.

-         Carmen Valenzuela informed us that Phase III is part of the anti-racism team development training process that follows the historical research and assessment, which will be used in Phase III. The outcome of this Phase is a long-term strategic plan for moving the institution from where it is now to being a committed ant-racist institution or farther.

-          Carmen reminded us that this “farther” on the continuum of instutional change is Phase IV which focuses on Structural Change which is when an institution is transforming into becoming an anti-racist multicultural institution.

-         In Phase III, however, we 1) develop a long-term plan of “where we hope (our institution) to be in 20 years”, 2) base on that plan develop goals and objectives for a five year concrete plan to begin implementing the long-term plan. The five year plan lays out what to do in year one, year two, and so one through year five.

-         Carmen also stressed the importance of the education piece in this strategic plan and achieving the goals in the plan. It needs to be decided what kind of education and with whom in the institution in order to build allies and move the institution.  Pedagogically, what does it look like?

-          Carmen concluded that the strategic plan is then presented to the institution for approval, and signing off to implement the plan (“but they will probably want to tweak it a bit”)

-         Jim Addington said that the ideal time for Phase III training soon after Phase II because it feeds Phase III. However it was also pointed out that the research from Phase II needs to be completed before Phase III.

-         Phyllis pointed out that we are not all ready on that score

-         MCARI encouraged us to keep moving ahead so that we can move into Phase III as soon as possible, the next step is discussed in Phase III.

-         Veronica brought us back to the ally building issue, How to get over our frustration, and work together?

-         Yok Sim asked How do we bring more people on board?

-         Jim reminded us to hold our focus. Dr. Arenas has given a tool to use for that purpose, but we must also hold our focus towards our ultimate goal.

-         It was brought up that we need to bring the people together who have been through Phase II Training, but can we bring in new people to go through Phase III Training?

-         MCARI suggested that people who have not gone through Phase II Traing get up to that level before going through Phase III by attending another Phase II somewhere if possible.

        VI.      Other

-         Tom Fisk thanked Dr. Arenas. He gave an analogy from Reading Readiness, that we need to think in the terms of readiness of people in unlearning racism, and draw them in starting where they are at.

-         Amy asked the question “How do we as a collaborative want to use Dr. Arenas’ training?” and also “How will Phase III look for us?”

-         The meeting was adjourned with the announcement that dinner will follow next, and the Student Forum of the four colleges would meet after dinner.

Minutes taken by Rebecca Vave.