IDEA Mini Grant Spotlights Fall 2022

IDEA Mini-Grants Spotlights Fall 2022

Copyright © 2021 Arizona Board of Regents

Chandra Crudup (she/her) Associate Dean of IDEA

Mary Mathis Burnett (she/her) Manager of Inclusive Pedagogy

Cynthia Mackey (she/her) Program Coordinator

Trey Jenkins (he/him) Program Coordinator

The Office of Inclusive Design for Equity and Access would like to thank current and former team members for their support and hard work in coordinating the mini-grants program.

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Positionality Statement In the IDEA Office we recognize that our social identities and experiences, as well as our position in the Watts College influence our relationship to the work of advancing inclusive practices. Grant making comes with a high degree of power and responsibility. The IDEA Office is composed of faculty, staff, and students of varying identities including Black, white, queer, and neurodivergent identities. We have done our best to review the outcomes of the IDEA Mini-Grant process through multiple lenses in the Office and always welcome feedback as we continue to reflect on our own relationship to this work and the ways we benefit from, work alongside, and work to change traditional systems of power and oppression.

Office of Inclusive Design for Equity & Access wattsidea@asu.edu

What’s Inside

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IDEA Office Mini Grants

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Fall 2022 Awardees

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Indigenous Leadership Academy

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Institutionalizing Opportunity

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Seed Exchange

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ASU Charter

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Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions

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Office of Inclusive Design for Equity and Access (IDEA)

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Additional Funding Resources

Fall 2022 IDEA Mini-Grants The IDEA office supports the advancement of inclusive practice and Watts College’s commitment to being anti-racist (AR) and anti-oppressive (AOP) by putting the ASU Charter and Watts Aspirations into action. One way this is achieved is through the Watts IDEA Mini Grants, which provide modest seed funding to employees within the Watts community to support building a more inclusive, equitable, and accessible Watts community. In fall 2022, we received 15 applications. Each application was reviewed by a committee. In all, three projects were awarded, totalling $7,510 in funding. A fourth project was awarded and has deferred until 2023-24 due to speaker availablity.

Guidelines in the call for proposals included projects that: ●

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Create, build, and/or provide space for networking, support, belonging, and mentorship for Watts community members (employees and/or students) that have a common identity Create space to deepen understanding of structural inequities by educating and building individual capacity for conversations about race, oppression, and intersecting identities

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Empower participants to share knowledge and resources while developing a safe space engage in advocacy work that leads to systemic change within their units, college, university, or community Infuse historical and contemporary content on race, oppression, inclusion, equity, and access into teaching/pedagogy

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1) 2) 3) 4)

Supports a focus on inclusion, equity and access in research projects, policy reform, mentorship programs, group activities, or events: funding for speaker honorariums funding to support small research projects, activity and event funds, community networking/hosting of meetings or forums

Fall 2022 Awardees 6

Three initiatives were awarded mini-grants

01** Indigenous Leadership Academy Kristen Talbert, Staff in Watts College

02* Institutionalizing Opportunity Joe Kaufman, Staff in the School of Public Affairs

03* Seed Exchange Meka Allen, Faculty in School of Social Work *New initiative in Watts **Formerly established initiative in Watts

2023 Indigenous Leadership Academy participants

Indigenous Leadership Academy Awardees: Kristen Talbert, MBA Award: $2000 Grant awarded for guest speaker honorariums and updating the curriculum.

“Each cohort member has a project idea in mind for their community, we just ask that it benefits natives in some capacity. And so, you know, we've had 66 graduates of ILA. And that is 66 different ideas that benefit not just tribal communities, but urban communities.”

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Total Graduates

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Project Spotlight

Initiative Description

Initiative Impact

ILA works to build leadership capacity for urban and tribal community members in the Southwest.

Cohort members benefited from guest speakers who have similar shared life experiences.

“The expanded ILA program will afford participants the opportunity to explore issues and find ways to make a positive difference for Indigenous people in urban and reservation communities within an IDEA lens. The concept of the proposed ILA “IDEA”” program is to integrate anti-racism and anti-oppression concepts within each of the ten-ILA module segments. In doing so, participants will be inspired and motivated in how to execute strategies and lead change in their communities in consideration of IDEA strategies”

“We had Chris James, who is the Executive Director of the National Center for American Indian enterprise development.

He's from North Carolina…And he's from the rez. He worked for his tribal community for many years. Two people from our cohort were from his same rez. And one of them… is kind of where Chris James was previously. He works for his tribe, in education. He's trying to like expand, but he doesn't know how. And so…it was a really good conversation that we all got to witness between these two. And they had that mutual connection, of having guest speakers from that rez.”

What’s next?

ILA held a strategic planning meeting in February of 2023.

Several plans are being explored to expand programming.

“The first idea was to give presentations to our funder, APS, and their Native American Networking Organization (NANO), hoping that some members would apply to and become a part of the Indigenous Leadership Academy. The second idea was to start a Tribal leaders academy or a non-profit leadership academy….Lastly, ILA could align our funding proposals to Community Economic Development (CED). []as well as]...show how our work is creating a social impact.”

2023 Institutionalize Opportunity participants

Institutionalizing Opportunity: Enhancing Pathways to Professional Development and Mentorship for Minoritized Students Awardee: Joe Kaufman; Dr. Angel Luis Molina; Dr. Yushim Kim; Dr. Maribel Guerrero; Maryjo Douglas Zunk Award: $1510 Grant awarded for student incentives and materials to convene the listening session.

“...we don't always know the experience of the students.

We can identify problems and we can see challenges that we might see. But we don't live their experience. So it's very useful for us to hear from them. So that then we can say, oh, okay…I didn't know about that. And now I know this is an issue. And now you know, we can do something about it.”

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Listening sessions

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Student Participants 10

Project Spotlight

Initiative Description

Initiative Impact

What’s next?

SPA hosted a listening session to understand and address student concerns regarding inclusive practices.

There was a shared sense of openness, transparency, and gratitude in the sharing of student experiences.

SPA is committed to making the project an annual event.

“We sought feedback from students, alumni and community partners about their experiences with ASU and SPA. We asked about any barriers they had and solutions they found that worked, or if they did not find solutions.”

“the amount of thank yous that [we] received… was really powerful….We gave them a space where they actually felt like they could share and that they were heard.”

“We did a pretty good job of matching a variety of our community partners and alumni and students together and having those discussions and things.”

The SPA submitted and was awarded the George V. Voinovich Public Innovation Challenge Award. “The award comes with $10,000, which would allow us to continue this event for years to come” “...one of the things that happened as a result of the event is a commitment from the school to have something like this every year,...now we can sort of institutionalize this idea and have an event so that we listen to the students every year and we incorporate that in our plans…we don't just listen once and then decide that we know what's going on.

We actually will engage and listen to the students regularly.”

Seed Exchange of Central Arizona Grow Anywhere program Awardee: Dr. Meka Allen Award: $2000 Grant awarded for grow kits and associated costs

“We are gardening as resistance. We see gardening as a way of promoting health with communities that are often overlooked.” Overall the Seed Exchange gave out:

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145

300

Grow kits

Pea plant starter kits

Sunflower seeds

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Project Spotlight

Initiative Description

Initiative Impact

What’s next?

The project was designed to support food insecurity for the South Phoenix community.

The Seed Exchange was able to disseminate hundreds of seed starting pagackages to communities in Phoenix.

Community support is growing as well as the orgnaiztiaons confidence in soliciting funds..

“We coordinated with Happy Acres and Florence Crittenton two group homes in the Valley where the majority of children belong to Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and Asian communities. We facilities a workshop with moms of Arizona Democracy Resource Center, a mutual aid organization that advocates and supports justice involved folks. We also participated in the Family Fun Day with Maricopa Village SDA Church, on the Gila River Indian Community.”

The group also participated in Earth Day events including the Hines Property Management Farmers Market.

“The Seed Exchange was able to share 61 grow kits to Grow Anywhere workshop participants this year so far. All workshops discussed the devastating impact of food apartheid and how food growing and sharing support wellness.”

“Along with grow kits we shared 145 pea plant starter sacks and 300 hundred sunflower seeds for the community.”

“We are happy to share we received a generous donation of seeds and volunteers to build out kits…. We also have 100% of our board committed to donating towards 20 kits each, this will bring us 100 more kits this year. We have written for more grants and have been able to schedule out more workshops. Our founder is still committed to providing the resources necessary to continue the work she started in 2020.”

ASU Charter

ASU is a comprehensive public research university, measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed; advancing research and discovery of public value; and assuming fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves.

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“To realize ASU's Charter and undo 400 years of racism in this country, we must all take active steps to dismantle systemic oppression and create inclusive environments in our own communities.”

– Cynthia Leitz, Ph.D., Dean of Watts College

Watts College of Public Service & Community Solutions Ensuring Inclusivity in Watts (learn more publicservice.asu.edu/about/ensuring-inclusivity)

In a statement about ensuring inclusivity in Watts, Dean Lietz shared the following: Engaging in specific actions that are anti-racist remains essential to our ability to move forward, because adopting an anti-racist lens centers race when considering oppression; it acknowledges and seeks to combat our nation’s long history of violence and discrimination against Black, Indigenous, Latinx and Asian communities. Our commitment to approach our work on a daily basis from an anti-racist perspective must never cease.

By saying we are advancing an anti-racist, AND anti-oppressive approach, it allows us to call out the need to ensure safety, respect, and inclusion of students, staff, and faculty as it relates to multiple identities that can lead to oppression. We are working to advance a truly welcoming and inclusive work and learning environment across the intersecting ways we define ourselves.

As we initiated the implementation of this commitment to an anti-racist and anti-oppressive approach, the most important early action was appointing an associate dean of Inclusive Design for Equity and Access (IDEA). To support her work, a set of graduate students were appointed as IDEA scholars to work with Associate Dean Chandra Crudup to advance initiatives that combat racism and oppression in the college.

These student leaders not only expand our capacity, but they bring perspectives that have been essential to understanding how best to move forward. The creation of this role and office has allowed us to move from talking about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging to engaging in actionable steps that allow us to advance this approach.

The IDEA office also created a mini-grant program that invites faculty, staff, and students from across the college to submit proposals for a modest level of seed funding to support ground-up work to help create an inclusive work environment. This, coupled with the Race Talk Circles initiative, has created space for our community to have important conversations about race, a topic that is often avoided.

To advance an anti-racist and anti-oppressive approach in our work and learning environments, we have to first be able to have open and honest conversations about race. All of these efforts have created not just space for conversation, but also ideas that are leading to direct actions that seek to dismantle systems of oppression and name and address micro-aggressions that occur in work or learning spaces.

IDEA Office The IDEA Office strives to advance the college's commitment to be anti-racist and anti-oppressive.

We do this through inclusive practice, by embracing the evolving nature of this work to design and support initiatives with Watts’ students, staff, faculty, and community partners IDEA Office Commitments: 1. Ensuring Inclusive & Equitable Environments We are committed to ensuring inclusive and equitable learning and working environments for and in collaboration with employees and students of the Watts community.

2. Attuning Towards Transformative Change We are committed to supporting the ongoing learning process necessary to create continual attunement towards transformative change.

3. Designing Inclusive Practices We are committed to embedding and designing inclusive practices in our everyday work and within the relationships we build.

4. Accountability to Communities We are committed to holding each other accountable in the quest to build more vibrant, healthy, equitable, and accessible communities.

5. Countering Harmful Practices We are committed to countering harmful dominant narratives, policies, and procedures with practices that benefit all.

6. Acknowledging Mistakes, Pledge to Repair We are committed to acknowledging where we make mistakes, and we pledge to be transparent about steps towards repair.

7. Supporting Needs, Addressing Harm, Identifying Root Causes We are committed to supporting the immediate needs of individuals or groups, addressing harmful behaviors, and identifying the root causes of racist and oppressive systems.

8. Celebrating Shared Experiences We are committed to celebrating individual uniquenesses and shared experiences.

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There are a number of resources at ASU that provide financial support for projects and initiatives.

Committee for Campus Inclusion Catalyst Grants https://inclusion.asu.edu/cci/grants

Graduate College Knowledge Mobilization Spotlight Grant https://graduate.asu.edu/graduate-insider/apply-now-100knowledge-mobilization-spotlight-grant

Graduate College and Graduate Student Professional Association Graduate Research Support Program https://graduate.asu.edu/current-students/funding-opportunitie s/awards-and-fellowships/gpsa-graduate-research-support-pr ogram

Graduate Student Professional Association Innovation Fellowship Program https://eoss.asu.edu/gpsa/funding/awards/innovation-fellowsprogram

Educational Outreach and Student Success Change the World https://eoss.asu.edu/change-the-world

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The IDEA office would like to thank Watts College for their continued support of the IDEA Mini-Grant Program.