Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

On December 17, 2020, the SDSU Senate and the Office of Student Affairs and Campus Diversity approved the College of Education Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan that will guide DEI initiatives through 2025.

Update Spring 2025: In alignment with the next phase of our campus-wide strategic plan, We Rise We Defy: Transcending Borders, Transforming Lives, the College of Education will spend the next several months evaluating progress toward the goals outlined in its 2020 diversity plan. We will also be planning the next iteration of the plan to align with the university’s second phase of the strategic plan, for the 2025-2030 period. Watch this space for updates and connect with our Diversity Council or Diversity Liaison to get involved!

On September 3, 2019, the SDSU Senate passed a resolution to establish an official SDSU Kumeyaay Land Acknowledgment. The two versions below (a full version and an abbreviated version) were written by Michael Miskwish (Kumeyaay):

We stand upon a land that carries the footsteps of millennia of Kumeyaay people. They are a people whose traditional lifeways intertwine with a worldview of earth and sky in a community of living beings. This land is part of a relationship that has nourished, healed, protected and embraced the Kumeyaay people to the present day. It is part of a world view founded in the harmony of the cycles of the sky and balance in the forces of life. For the Kumeyaay, red and black represent the balance of those forces that provide for harmony within our bodies as well as the world around us.

As students, faculty, staff and alumni of San Diego State University we acknowledge this legacy from the Kumeyaay. We promote this balance in life as we pursue our goals of knowledge and understanding. We find inspiration in the Kumeyaay spirit to open our minds and hearts. It is the legacy of the red and black. It is the land of the Kumeyaay.

'Eyay e’Haan. My heart is good.

The College of Education at San Diego State University is a vibrant community of scholarly engagement and professional practice where diversity, equity, and inclusion drive innovation across our teaching, learning, counseling, research, and community service endeavors. We draw on our strengths as a college within a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) — uniquely positioned in the San Diego-Tijuana transborder region and ancestral land of the Kumeyaay Nation — to effect educational and social change at local, regional, national, and international levels.
 
As a diverse and interdisciplinary community of educational researchers and professional practitioners, we are committed to sustaining a responsive and supportive teaching, learning and working environment for all members of our community, and to establishing collaborative partnerships with local, regional, national and international universities, community agencies and organizations that embrace this mission, particularly with regard to educating, serving, and supporting students, faculty, staff, and community members across the spectrum of races, ethnicities, cultures, social classes, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, linguistic identities, body identities, religious or secular beliefs, spiritual traditions, creeds, political views, ages, abilities, citizenship, and veteran status.
 
We intentionally acknowledge the value of the diverse backgrounds from which we approach our work and endeavor to advance personal, educational, and social well-being drawing upon the variety of human experiences, perspectives, identities, and positionalities that enrich our university and college community.
 
We critically recognize that educational institutions and other related service organizations often function within extant neo-colonial structures of racial-ethnic, socio-cultural, and socio-economic oppression that systematically function to reproduce social injustices and inequality. In the same way, we also acknowledge the power and responsibility of these institutions to serve the ethical imperatives of social transformation.
 
As such, we commit to working to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, belongingness, and social and racial justice through the identification and implementation of democratic, transformative, and anti-racist practices in all our endeavors. In addition, we commit to harnessing the creative dynamism and power found in true participatory and democratic approaches to institutional engagement.
 
As a reflective and supportive community committed to social and racial justice, we strive to be socially aware, collaborative, mindful, and fearless in our inclusive, equitable, and democratic pursuits. 

• Invisibles No More! Dismantling Anti-AAPI Hate and Racism in Education
• Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• I Can't Breathe: A Message to the College of Education Community
• COMMENTARY: Anti-Asian Hate in Light of COVID-19 Hurts All of Us
• CFA Statement of Anti-racism and Social Justice Demands in the Wake of Anti-black Racism, Violence, and Murder
• Open Letter from Commission on Teacher Credentialing to help move forward the dialogue on combating racism in teacher education

DEI Planning

• School and Department Committee Members
  These department-specific committees support the implementation of the College diversity and inclusion action plan and advance DEI goals (i.e. assessment of disproportionality in student achievement, curriculum review, among other tasks) at local levels.
• Diversity and Inclusion Planning for Schools/Departments
• Resources for Student Academic Achievement and Curriculum Review

DEI Planning

• Committee to Promote Diversity, Equity and Outreach
  The Committee to Promote Diversity, Equity, and Outreach (CPDEO) serves to support the College of Education in all its DEI endeavors, particularly, CPDEO serves to review, advise, and provide feedback to COE leadership regarding matters related to students, staff and faculty diversity, equity, and inclusion; provide guidance and support for the development, implementation and on-going assessment of unit diversity plans; and may be involved in coordinating DEI initiatives within and across units and contributing to campus DEI initiatives. For current CPDEO members, see College Committee Representatives at COE Policy Council and Committees.
• COE Diversity and Inclusion Planning Committee
  The COE formed a temporary committee to carry out the work of diversity and inclusion action planning design as per specifications of Campus Diversity and the University Senate. The committee served in this function from fall 2019 until fall 2020.

DEI Development

• Diálogos Virtuales: A Lecture-Discussion Series (2020-2022)
  Through this series, the College of Education promoted the continued development of a visible culture of intellectual advancement, critical dialogue, and community engagement and activism amongst education students, faculty, staff and other allied service professionals interested in advancing diversity, equity-justice, and inclusion in higher and PK-12 education at local, regional, national, and international levels.

• SDSU Strategic Plan: We Rise, We Defy
• Division of Student Affairs and Campus Diversity
• Diversity Initiatives
  • Diversity and Inclusion Planning, Campus-wide Initiative
  • Diversity and Inclusion Planning for Colleges & Divisions
  • Diversity Resources
  • Center for Inclusive Excellence
  • Equity-Minded Hiring Practices
• Division of Faculty Advancement
  • Initiative for Inclusive Leadership (Faculty Futures Lab Podcast)
• University Senate
  • Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

CSU

• CSU Diversity
• CSU Inclusive Excellence
• CSU Black Lives Matter, Social Justice, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Resources
• CSU DEI Teacher Toolkit

CA Department of Education

• CDE Diversity

Other DEI Resources

• Harvard University Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Library
• Remote DEI Toolkit
• Wheaton College Becoming an Anti-Racist Educator