Lauren Muller: An Honored Faculty and True Champion for Social Justice

By Leslie Simon lsimon@ccsf.edu

“She took a sleepy department and built it into something magnificent.” That was what Don Griffin, former City College of San Francisco chancellor, said about Lauren Muller. He knew what he was talking about.

Initially hired in 2000 to teach “Poetry for the People,” a course instituted at City College in the 70s, Lauren became department chair of Interdisciplinary Studies in 2002. She proceeded to foster new courses and then entire programs–in Critical Middle East Studies/SWANA, Critical Pacific Islands and Oceania Studies, and Trauma Prevention and Recovery. She transformed the department into an incubator for innovative, cutting edge multicultural and social justice classes. Along the way she mentored faculty and helped them realize their dreams.

Lauren took the cluster of introductory anti-oppression courses and turned them into the Diversity and Social Justice Certificate. She did the same for the Design Collaborative Certificate, and she sheltered Groundswell, the college’s architectural literacy program. With other faculty, Lauren worked to bring college classes to the local jail so that incarcerated people could find focus, along with hope for a productive life after serving time. She initially taught Museum Studies and then facilitated its success when she passed it on to colleagues. Always generous with her time, her knowledge, and her vast resources, she led interdepartmental Ethnic Studies and Social Justice meetings with compassion and humor.

Lauren loved working with students to create celebratory poetry readings at the end of each semester, and during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, she inspired survivors to craft powerful poems for the annual “Speak to Me” reading.

One of her favorite, though deeply challenging, courses to teach, “Trauma and the Arts,” stirred students to heal from their own wounds through the lens of contemporary art and literature. Her gentle and brave approach to analysis of works of art motivated by grief and loss prepared students for careers in violence prevention and intervention. She encouraged her students to move forward as wounded and grounded healers.

Fearless, Lauren stood up to the occasional unfriendly administrator. Gracious, she forged collegial friendships with administrators who supported her visionary approach to teaching and learning.

Lauren’s legacy at City College is immeasurable. It will continue to grow in classrooms and the larger City College community to which she was devoted.

Continued from page 1 - Sanctuary Voices pieces of my existence in this way, the lost pieces that I have left in different lands.” She continued, “I want to talk about unattainable dreams, of small and big dreams that suffocate, burn in the fire, their blood spilling on the roads.”

Listening to these individual stories, Mayers said, “is the heart of the exhibit; when you hear people's stories, then you really care.”

At City College, Mayers is an English Professor as well as co-coordinator of City College’s Puente Program at Mission Campus. The Puente Program utilizes a three-pronged approach of writing instruction, counseling, and mentoring to support underserved students in transferring to a four year university. The two Puente classes were present for the opening day of the ASV exhibit on Jan. 25.

Mayers got involved in the ASV project through an oral history project he did with VOW. Mayers writes and conducts oral history research. He had co-written a book in 2019 with Pulitzer Prize Author Jonathan Freedman called “Solito, Solita: Crossing Borders with Youth Refugees from Central America.”

“Solito, Solita” is part of the VOW book series on human rights.

City Dream is another sponsor of the exhibit at City College. City Dream works with undocumented students at City College. The students from City Dream will be conducting an oral storytelling workshop at the exhibit in March.

The ASV exhibit invites the viewer to open their hearts to the artform of these authors who are brave enough to tell their stories. In the author’s own words they tell their story of the migration process, feelings of loss combined with feelings of hope once they gained Amnesty, Citizenship, Temporary Permanent Status (TPS) or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

A metamorphosis is witnessed once when they can legally participate in the United States wholeheartedly, leaving the shadows of a country that has always not welcomed them.