Pierce College press release.
Pierce College students are invited to participate in the EDI CARES Fall Students of Color Empowerment Summit on November 10, from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. This year’s theme will focus on Rising through Resilience. This year’s summit will take place in the Pierce College Fort Steilacoom Performance Lounge, and participants have the option of attending in person or virtually through Zoom.
This year’s summit will focus on building students’ self-efficacy and resiliency skills to navigate systems of oppression, and provide them with opportunities to utilize their voices to effect change and build community. After a challenging year with COVID-19, and continued systemic oppression, the summit will provide an empowering and brave space that equips students with the skills and knowledge to successfully manage life obstacles.
The event will feature keynote speaker Richard Taylor. Taylor is a dynamic speaker and has been recognized for normalizing the conversation and helping people shift from “talking about mental health” to actually mobilizing in their efforts towards healing and freedom. He has overcome morbid obesity, depression, multiple suicide attempts, failing in college, and domestic abuse—and speaks from a place of empathy, compassion, love and accountability. Taylor is also a TRiO program alum, and praises TRiO programs for being an essential supportive network in helping him persist and thrive in college. Learn more about Richard Taylor.
Students will have the opportunity to build new relationships, learn about the gifts and wealth that their cultural identities hold and engage in conversations around building resilience, and establishing boundaries with EDI CARES staff and mental health counselors. The event will end with “Village Time” – a session that will provide students the opportunity to process their emotions, debrief about the event, and share their experiences as Pierce College students.
Lunch will be served to those in attendance, and we encourage faculty to provide extra credit for their students to attend. Participants can drop in anytime. The event is only open to currently enrolled students.
Join us as we empower everyone to rise through resilience!
If you would like to join virtually, please email edi@pierce.ctc.edu or join us in person in Pierce College Fort Steilacoom’s Cascade Building Performance Lounge on the 4th floor.
The event’s title, Fall Students of Color Empowerment Summit, is not inclusive; it is exclusive. People of all skin tones face the kind of challenges which the event purports to address, yet the event is only open to “people of color”. Is tax payer money funding this event? A similar program was offered exclusively to individuals of color this past summer by Pierce College. How is a publicly funded institution allowed to promote discrimination and engage in a system of oppression?
“………….navigate systems of oppression….” Please define and give examples instead of meaningless generalizations straight out of the Critical Race Theory handbook. Do you have “color chart” that determines whether you qualify as “colored” or “colored enough”? This is starting to sound like Jim Crow only in reverse.
I would think this is unconstitutional: separate but equal (Plessey vs. Ferguson 1896) was overturned in 1954 (Brown vs Board of Education Topeka). Seems to me that the college has stepped over the line in offering segregated services. I would think that even if offered to “white” students (you’d need a color chart for that too) you’d still have separate but equal let alone if no similar opportunity was offered to white students. Discrimination by definition now institutionalized at Pierce College.