These past few months have been out of control. In August, I moved across the country from my home city of Philadelphia (speaking of which, go birds 12-1!!) to California. Our new apartment had an insulation issue which led to a huge mold issue which, once it cleared up, turned into a bug infestation in the kitchen. On top of this, in June, I started experiencing some minor health issues which rapidly worsened over the course of a few months resulting in the need for a major surgery, which I received just a week ago on December 9th (I'm currently living on the couch for a few weeks until I can stand and walk for more than a few minutes at a time). Did I mention I've also been applying for Computer Science Ph.D. programs?
If life hasn't been hectic enough, I recently undertook a project that's exponentially grown in size. I have not be able to speak about it publicly until today (by my choice), so I'm incredibly excited for this update.
Separately from my work as a DEI Council Coordinator for CCI, I have also been working alongside many students at Drexel to organize the Coalition of Identity-Based Organizations (CIBO), an organization formed to advocate for systemic support in the university. Today, on December 16th, 2022, we have published our petition to change.org to collect signatures from the entire Drexel community.
I never planned on writing a petition for over 30 identity-based student organizations or releasing it to the public. This journey has been unprecedented. There was no way for me to prepare for what would come at each turn. I'm incredibly thankful for this journey and I am so proud of what we've accomplished regardless of the outcome of this petition.
On May 4th, 2022, the Director of the Student Center for Diversity and Inclusion (SCDI) announced his departure from the position. Four months later, on September 8th, 2022 Drexel's Office of Equality and Diversity (OED) announced they were rebranding into the Office of Institutional Equity and Inclusive Culture (EIC) and aquired the SCDI and Spiritual and Religious Life (SRL). These offices used to be a part of the Office of Student Life due to their service to the student body and their connection to student organizations. In my work with oSTEM, the Queer People of Color (QPOC), and the Queer Student Union (QSU) student organizations, I've done a lot of research into the history of the SCDI and its connection to these organizations.
As a quick sidebar, before the SCDI, there existed the Student Center for Inclusion and Culture (SCIC). In 2012, the Foundation of Undergraduates for Sexual Equality (FUSE) petitioned for the creation of an LGBTQA Student Center which opened in 2013. In 2015, QPOC was created by SCDI student worker and LGBTQA Center staff member Chantanae Singletary. In 2017, the SCIC and LGBTQA Student Center merged to form the SCDI. Also in 2017, FUSE was rebuilt into QSU with the help of the SCDI to address FUSE's history of exclusion. In 2018, I started oSTEM which was formally recognized in 2019. This started an incredible 6 month period where the SCDI student employees and oSTEM, QPOC, and QSU executive boards collaborated on events and fundraisers. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, many executive board members needed to prioritize their personal lives and stepped back. While online for nearly 2 years, generations of executive boards went by and this history of collaboration was nearly lost; leaving the organizations to struggle alone. Prior to the EIC announcement, I was working with the queer student organizations to learn this history to build a stronger future.
When the EIC announcement hit, immediately I was concerned how the move of the SCDI from Student Life to EIC would impact this important connection between the SCDI and the queer student organizations. I researched the history of OED. As an active student advocate on campus, I worked with a lot of offices on campus. I hadn't worked with OED much. In my research, I learned that OED has longstanding connections to Human Resources (HR) and has historically been focused on compliance. OED had started to branch into more supportive services, but these were primarily focused on faculty, professional staff, and university employees. I also found the job posting for the replacement of the Director of the SCDI that had been posted on September 2nd. What used to be a Director had now become an Associate Director.
This history and the demotion of the SCDI's leadership was worrying. As a student, I relied on the services the SCDI provided. The Ball served as a Lavendar Graduation for queer seniors to receive their [rainbow cord] for graduation. I've spoken before about the how important the Transgender Day of Remembrance services are to me. Even beyond specific events and resources, the SCDI was a place where students could simply exist and find community. I wouldn't be "Charlie" without the connections I made in the SCDI. Other students deserve to have this resource and these opportunities.
I wrote an [extensive letter] covering the history of the offices and how the current restructuring presented many concerns for the future of the SCDI and the student organizations that rely on it. I sent it to EIC administration and scheduled a meeting for a month later.
In the meantime, Luis Benitez reached out to me regarding his concerns with the restructure. He's an SCDI student worker and on the executive board of multiple student organizations. He'd been experiencing many issues after the restructuring. He looked to University of Pennsylvania's structure for student support and proposed a list of short-term and long-term goals to the Undergraduate Student Goverment Association (USGA). After his initial proposal, he started reaching out to other student organization leaders for support which led him to me. We ended up meeting and realized our concerns and goals overlapped.
Since then, we formed CIBO to provide support for identity-based student organizations that are frequently called upon to act as the voice of their communities. We organized conferences with all the student organizations and had more meetings than we can count. After months of research and planning, we created a [petition] to create systemic support for student advocacy in EIC.
This petition was circulated amongst the executive boards of the identity-based student organizations. In just one week, we collected 92 signatures from representatives from 32 identity-based organizations. The signed petition was sent to administration on December 8th. We set a deadline to start negotiations of January 20th, 2023. Otherwise, we'd make the petition public to collect signatures from the entire Drexel community. We also set the condition that the appointment of an Associate Director of the SCDI would result in the publication of the petition regardless of the original deadline as we believe it's unethical to bring in a new employee to a position where the office they will preside over and the organizations they will partner with are actively petitioning against their role.
On December 13th, we were told the hiring round would continue as planned and offers would be extended shortly. This demonstrated an intent to appoint an Associate Director of the SCDI without petition negotiations. We made this clear to administration and told them our plans to publicly post this petition on December 16th at 12pm EST unless they alerted us otherwise.
We're now entering the public phase of this petition process. It's posted on change.org and being circulated across Drexel. We still plan on starting negotiations in January, but given how this journey has gone so far, there's no way to plan for what comes next. I'm excited for the future of CIBO and I'm so thankful that I've been able to be a part of this process.
![[rainbow cord]](../../activism/files/rainbowcord.jpg){kind=link}