Enrollment and Student Services ADEI Unit Update January 2023

This Fall, the ADEI Unit was busy putting our mission and goals into action. We began the academic year with Seeds: ADEI 101, a community-building and learning event centering new BIPOC, disabled, and LGBTQ+ students. Seeds sessions included mini workshops about building networks of personal and community care, interrupting microaggressions, disability etiquette, self-care at a predominantly white university, and healthy queer relationships. We plan to build on these mini sessions in future workshop offerings. We also welcomed students with the Ethnic Student Center (ESC) Block Party and LGBTQ+ Western’s interactive Queerientation.

Our Fall programs included regular Multicultural Center Community Lunches, a teach-in about the uprising in Iran organized collaboratively with fabulous students and the Munro Institute for Civic Engagement, workshops about intervening to stop bias incidents, community care spaces, and an event for World AIDS Day that included viewing and discussion of short videos and safe sex supplies from the Counseling and Wellness Center. At the end of the quarter, we held a small and joyful celebration for graduating students. 

In addition to our programs and services, the Unit’s work includes collaboratively facilitating improvements to policies and practices to serve students more equitably. Relevant work in Fall included the three Unit directors’ service on Western’s Bias Response Team, continued implementation of Western’s new policy on Using Lived Name Across University Operations, which was approved in September, the Director of Multicultural Student Services’ creation of an Undocu Support Team composed of Enrollment and Student Services staff, and achieving opening of the university’s first multi-occupancy gender-neutral restroom in Wilson Library.

The work of strengthening practices requires developing ourselves as an ADEI Unit. For all of us leading the ADEI Unit, this was our first full Fall quarter in our current positions. It is exciting to have the stability of a full leadership team and to be working with such dedicated staff and student colleagues. Student staff from all our departments came together for three days of learning before Fall began. Our permanent staff participated in Unit-wide staff meetings as well as extended planning sessions before and after Fall quarter to build relationships, develop shared understandings of our work, and begin more in-depth planning for how we’ll work across our departments to best serve students. 

Before Fall quarter, Chelsea Joefield joined us as the ESC club advisor and program manager, Nia Gipson moved from her position as a resident director to become the coordinator for the Black Student Coalition, and Amelia Flores and Charlie Flewelling jumped right in to their roles as access managers in the Disability Access Center. In November, we welcomed Tulea Enochs as the administrative assistant for the unit and Nolan Hansley as the DAC front desk manager.

We recently began searching for a program manager who will work across the Unit, with a focus on programming and advisement within LGBTQ+ Western. This quarter, we anticipate beginning the search for an undocumented student specialist who will lead the Blue Resource Center, a program of Multicultural Student Services.

With appreciation to faculty and students for generously sharing their time, AVP Litav Langley assembled a consult group who they will meet with periodically to think together about how the ADEI Unit can be most effective in furthering its mission. Faculty members of the group met for the first time in late Fall and students met with the AVP the second week of Winter quarter.

The Office of Multicultural Student Services coordinated the planning committees responsible for organizing and producing university-wide programming for Latine Heritage Month and Native American Heritage Month. Hundreds of students and colleagues attended the more than 20 events, which included keynote speakers, educational sessions, and celebrations. MSS collaborated with multiple offices to create this rich programming, including the Office of the Tribal Liaison, Office of Student Resilience, WWU Athletics, Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies, Woodring College of Education, the Center for Education, Equity, and Diversity, LGBTQ+ Western, DAC, Counseling, Health, and Wellness, College of Fine and Performing Arts, and more. You can visit the Latine Heritage Month and Native American Heritage Month websites for more information.

Our MSS programs provided ongoing support and programming for students. The Ethnic Student Center (ESC) is advising of over 20 clubs, providing guidance and development for many student leaders. The Collaborative Council, which includes members of the ESC student club leadership boards, met every Monday in Fall to build community, share updates, and discuss how to support each other. ESC also provided trainings for student staff and student leaders and held study spaces during finals week to support students in their academic success. 

In Fall, the Black Student Coalition further developed its space on the fifth floor of the Viking Union and initiated recurring programming including love spaces and Tea with the BSC. With the move of the Blue Resource Center under the Office of Multicultural Student Services, the Director of MSS created an Undocu Support Team composed of Enrollment and Student Services staff, recently hired student staff for the Blue Resource Center, and will be launching a search for a specialist position to support undocumented students and students from mixed status families. MSS also took on stocking the WHOLE food pantry, located and on the fourth floor of the VU; Winter quarter, management of WHOLE will return to the Viking Union organization.

This Fall the Disability Access Center updated its vision, mission, and goals. These changes reflect the DAC’s focus on determining eligibility for and implementing reasonable disability-related accommodations while also supporting disability-positive identity development, self-advocacy skills, community building, and equity for disabled students.

As usual, the core of the DAC’s work this Fall was facilitating accommodations for well over 2,000 Western students. To better support access to and implementation of accommodations, the DAC added significant content to its website, updating FAQs for faculty and adding resources for parents who are supporting their students in seeking accommodations. The DAC also provided training opportunities for faculty and staff, including sessions about working with neurodiverse students tailored for University Residences, the Tutoring Center, and the Hacherl Research and Writing Studio, and general sessions for faculty and staff with specialists from the University of Washington’s Autism Center. For Winter quarter, the DAC is providing in-person and Zoom office hours for students and faculty, which are listed online with each access manager’s contact information. The DAC will also be adding guidance to their website about how to apply the most common accommodations in multiple learning environments.

Consistent with the DAC’s goal of engaging in transparent communication about accommodation processes, Josef Mogharreban, DAC director, and Litav Langley, AVP for ADEI, began regular meetings with Faculty Senate leadership to share informational updates and engage in ongoing collaborative conversation about how the DAC and faculty work together to best support students. The DAC is also convening a Student Advisory Council and a Faculty Advisory Council, which will facilitate greater reciprocal communication and understanding of what disabled students need, the services and supports DAC provides, and the critical roles faculty play in the accommodation process and fulfilment of our shared goals of advancing holistic student development and inclusive achievement.

Fall marked the Disability Outreach Center’s first quarter as a program of the DAC. DOC student leaders organized an informative hybrid Disability and Sex panel with Jim Graham, Professor of Psychology, and Jenn Mason, owner of Wink Wink Boutique. The DOC also hosted virtual game night and stitch and bitch sessions and their detailed Accessible Events Training. With one of the DOC’s leaders graduating Fall quarter and the other stepping down from her position to focus on graduate school, the DOC conducted a search and hired three new student team members who will lead the DOC in 2023 with a focus on building community.

JoeHahn joined LGBTQ+ Western in August as our new LGBTQ+ Director. They jumped right in to collaborating with students on programming, building relationships with staff and faculty across campus, providing trainings for student groups such as residence hall staff, and supporting Pride Housing. JoeHahn is also working closely with Sanjana Satishkumar, the Counseling & Wellness Center’s LGBTQ+ Student Support Specialist, providing student workshops and contributing to the Gender Affirming Care Team. Room 723 in the Multicultural Center is the LGBTQ+ Western student staff office, where five student team members work during the week planning events, providing social space for students, and running the gender-affirming clothing closet.

In Fall, LGBTQ+ Western launched this year’s Queering Research Series, a partnership with Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, with a teach-in about abortion rights and activism. With the volleyball team, we hosted the third annual Pride Night. And with AS Productions, we hosted an inaugural Queer Horror Movie Night, which resulted in creation of a Queer Horror Movie Club! We also welcomed other new LGBTQ+ student clubs, Royal Gambit Drag Club, Queer Crafting Club, Queer Punk Club, and the restart of Queer EcoJustice Club. If you know any students interested in restarting the Queer & Trans People of Color (QTPOC) club, please let JoeHahn know!

For Trans Week in mid-November, LGBTQ+ Western hosted multiple programs including a clothing swap, open mic night, Black LGBTQ+ Thriving Collective Jeopardy, a workshop about setting healthy boundaries, and the Trans Day of Remembrance vigil and reading of names. This rich week of programming concluded with sadness, as we joined many people and LGBTQ+ organizations mourning the lives lost at Club Q in Colorado Springs. We hosted virtual and in-person vigils with powerful co-leadership from Western’s Students Demand Action club.