Helping Students Succeed
Black Student Success Week is a daily webinar series with different topics each day directed towards Black students and their success in community college.
The California Community College's Chancellor's Office invites faculty, administrators, and staff to the second annual Black Student Success Week to inform them how to further help Black students succeed. The web series will have daily webinars called "The Black Hour" from Monday, April 26, to Friday, April 30, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. on Zoom.
Illustration by Allie Leeds | The Corsair
Dr. Keith Curry, President and CEO of Compton College is leading the effort for Black Student Success Week. According to Dr. Curry the event started off as an idea to have one single workshop. "We were planning to have an advocacy day in April then COVID-19 hit," Curry said. After that, he and the organization developed the idea of having a Black Student Success Week in April to commemorate Community College Month.
The event is in collaboration with students of color support groups including African American Male Education Network and Development (A²MEND), Umoja Community, The Education Trust-West, and the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, and will feature speakers who can offer insight and resources.
To kick off the workshops, on Monday, "Follow the Money: Unapologetically Supporting Black Students," examined the Follow the Money report, a publication created by The Campaign for College Opportunity, a nonprofit organization, that works with the support groups. It was released in February 2021 and states how "higher education investment does not fall equitably across racial/ethnic groups... Black students are systematically underinvested by the state when it comes to higher education funding." The speakers included Chancellor Eloy Oakley, Dr. John B. King, and Pamela Haynes.
On Tuesday, the workshop "The ADT Journey for African-American Students," focused on alumni of the community college system sharing the benefits and challenges they experienced as they transferred from a community college to a Historically Black College and University. According to Dr. Curry, "ADT [Associate Degree for Transfer] has been a model for Black student success and we want to encourage Black students to take advantage of it."
On Wednesday, "Equity and Black Representation in Higher Education Leadership," featured panelists from Cosumnes River College, Cal Poly Pomona, Whittier College, and San Diego City College. They discussed diversity in higher-level jobs in the education field and explored the systematic racism that comes with hiring Black people for a CEO or President position.
"A Legislative Briefing: Actively Advocating for Black Student Success," on Thursday, was a day of advocacy where state legislators and community college leadership came together to talk about how to properly support Black students and their success.
Lastly, on Friday, "Speaking Up to Diversify the Faculty Ranks" is presented by the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. In this workshop, Black faculty and staff will share their challenges in trying to ensure positive representation in the academy.
There are 2,193 Black students enrolled at Santa Monica College (SMC), according to Tableau Public. SMC's Black students can look forward to Black Student Success Week and all that it has to offer. To register for the workshops, those interested can visit San Diego Community College's website.
