Resources for all Employees


The list of resources is not exhaustive and represent only some of the many resources available for understanding this extensive body of work.  This is a starting point. If you have additional information to add or need further information please contact Sandra Mitchell, Senior Diversity Officer or Laura Taylor, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Updated 7/2024

Vector Learning Solutions

Choose from a large selection of modern, interactive, mobile-ready online courses easily deployed through the Vector Training and Learning Management System to meet your learning and compliance education.  Courses include Communication for Inclusion, The Influence of Unconscious Bias, Engagement with Diversity and many more.  For more information contact the Office of Human Resources at [email protected].

Academic Impressions

As part of our ongoing efforts to invest in and build the capacity of our faculty and staff, we have established a partnership with Academic Impressions, a group that provides extensive online leadership and professional development resources specifically for college and university professionals. This partnership is an important tool in supporting our strong commitment the professional development of faculty and staff.

This partnership will provide you with access to: 

You can easily set up an Academic Impressions account by going to https://www.academicimpressions.com/csbsju/, clicking the blue box and entering your CSB and SJU network username and password.

Privileged
Veteran NBA guard Kyle Korver stunned the sports world in 2019 by acknowledging the issues of white privilege and racism in his first-person story in The Players’ Tribune. The rousing response to the words of a white player not known for saying much was a necessary reminder that white words matter in the fight against racism and social injustice.

“Checkbox Diversity’ Must Be Left Behind for DEI Efforts to Succeed”
Good intentions to increase the diversity of organizations have led to “checkbox” approaches that don’t account for hegemony, marginalization, and the creation of sustainable shifts in power. Without a closer examination of these practices, we may wake up in a few years wondering what went wrong.

“Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person…”
This essay is very helpful for understanding the difference between earned an unearned privilege.  A quick but informative read.

“A 16-Year-Old Explains 10 Things You Need to Know About Generation Z”

Like all other generations, members of Generation Z have been shaped by the circumstances they were born into, such as terrorism, school shootings and the Great Recession. This article offers the perspective of 16-year-old Josh Miller, a high school student in suburban Minneapolis who also is a speaker, a researcher and the director of Gen Z studies at management consulting firm XYZ University. 

Novels

Staring Down the Tiger: Stories of Hmong American Women by Pa Der Vang

In this collection contributors celebrate the power of bonds between daughter and mother, sister and sister, and grandmother and granddaughter. Only after climbing a mountain in Nepal can Kia M. Lor finally understand her mother’s life. Pa Xiong provides a recipe for squirrel stew, remembering in telling detail the gender roles that mark each step—and how her mother broke those rules. Kao Kalia Yang sketches the extraordinary everyday achievements of a Hmong leader, her older sister, Dawb. Contributors to this volume bring life and character to the challenges of maintaining identity, navigating changes in gender roles, transitioning to American culture, and breaking through cultural barriers.

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

This raw memoir about growing up as a transracial adoptee will reverberate with anyone who yearns to belong. Chung writes about identity, race, motherhood, and her journey to find her true self. Her book starts with her struggle as a Korean child adopted into a white family, then digs into her growing relationships with her adopted family, husband, birth family, and children. Through letters and emails, Chung makes sometimes difficult discoveries about her birth family. The work closes with reconciliation for her families, the truth about her adoption, and understanding about herself.

There There by Tommy Orange

The story follows 12 Native Americans as they prepare for a big powwow in Oakland, California. They all come from different places at different stages of their life, but what I loved reading about was their connection to their culture and heritage.

An Ocean of Minutes by Thea Lim

Thea Lim dives into a science fiction world where one day you’re an American citizen and the next, you’re not. This book shares the feelings of abandonment, the strength to persevere, and gives you a glimpse into a world where you’re not at home anywhere.

Everyone Knows You Go Home by Natalia Sylvester

Everyone Knows You Go Home is about the struggles you face when you’re risking everything for freedom and the strength to continue the fight for those you love. If you wanted to know what life is like when you’ve illegally entered a country, this book depicts it all from the days spent trying to get across the border and then the years spent staying there.

A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza

This is the story of a young Muslim Indian family moving to California and the life they live as new citizens. As they assimilate to life in a new country, they try to maintain some of the traditions from India. Some family members are able to balance the two cultures, while others find the task to be too much. It’s interesting to read the individual lives of people living and growing in the same house. You’d imagine that having similar upbringings, things would be the same, but nothing could be more different.

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

This romance novel does an amazing job representing Asian Americans as well as people with autism spectrum disorder.

Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala

Speak No Evil tells the story of young Nigerian American boy who had everything ready for him. He has an amazing college to attend, a scholarship in track and field, and family and friends who love him. However, everything changes when he realizes that he’s gay; after that, the book doesn’t stop until the final pages. It’s a mesmerizing novel on one person’s coming out and how sometimes you’re never quite the same.

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan

This Young Adult novel follows a young teenager who just lost her mother. Now, she’s asking her father to take her back to Taiwan, her mother’s birthplace, so she may meet her mother’s parents and learn more about the woman she knew. This book shared a beautiful story of finding who we are, even if all we have is a few sticks of incense and a necklace.

Song of a Captive Bird by Jazmin Darznik

Song of a Captive Bird shares the story of the Iranian poet, Forugh Farrokhzad, but it isn’t considered a biography. While not much information about Forugh Farrokhzad is available, Jazmin Darznik fills the gaps of her life with fiction based on real events taking place in Iran during the 1950s. If you don’t know much about this poet, she defied the traditions in her culture to write poetry that spoke to her body, her sexuality, and her life.

The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar

This story follows a young girl and her journey through Syria after her house is destroyed. She and her family follow the same map created in a fairy story she used to hear as a child. It’s her favorite fairy story. However, the only issue with fairytales is that they’re not real and as the reality of her fate starts to emerge, it becomes harder to believe the fairytale as nothing more than a ghost story.

All My Mother’s Lovers by Ilana Masad

People say all women turn into their mothers sooner or later. But what does that mean when it turns out your mother isn’t who you thought she was? That’s the question All My Mother’s Lovers’ protagonist, 27-year-old Maggie Krause, must grapple with after her mother, Iris—who struggled to accept Maggie’s queerness—suddenly passes away. When Maggie returns to her family home, she discovers Iris has left behind five letters to five lovers Maggie’s never heard of. Maggie takes it upon herself to hand-deliver the letters, hoping that, along the way, she’ll also learn who her mother really was.

Real Life: A Novel by Brandon Taylor

Brandon Taylor’s debut novel heralds a striking new voice with a vital perspective on what it is to be Black and queer in the Midwest. When Real Life’s PhD-candidate protagonist Wallace has an unexpected encounter with a classmate over the course of a fraught weekend, the reverberations threaten to unravel the fabric of their small university town.

Our Stories Carried Us Here: A Graphic Novel Anthology

Published by Green Card Voices, Our Stories Carried Us Here is a bold and unconventional collection of first-person stories told and illustrated by immigrants and refugees living across the United States. 

Short Videos

#Eat Together
Celebrate the power that eating together has at a time when the world seems disconnected.

P&G: The Look 
This 1:45 video zeroes in on the unconscious biases that black men are forced to confront on a daily basis, highlighting the barriers to acceptance they face in their everyday lives. 

A Day in the Life of a Homeless College Student at California’s Humboldt State by Now This
For a shocking number of students, the college experience means living in your car to avoid massive debt. These two students showed us how they get by while homeless and in college.

Reparations and White Privilege by Trevor Noah
Between the scenes of The Daily Show host Trevor Noah responds to an audience member’s question about reparations and white privilege.

That Moment You Understand White Privilege by Soul Pancake 
As the only white person in the audience of a comedy club, Ron Hart was jokingly & relentlessly called out during the show. But, at the end of the show, there was a mic drop moment that Ron will never forget.

P&G: The Talk
The conversations we have but don’t want to…that’s ‘The Talk.’  Scenes of black parents openly sharing truths about bias their children will experience.

MTV Decoded

In the MTV Decoded series of short videos Franchesca Ramsey takes on fascinating topics in politics, history and more as she breaks down must-know facts with a fresh and funny spin.  

Where are you from?

This video by Ken Tanaka takes a humorous look at one of the most common microaggressions.

That Little Voice

We’ve all experienced times when the voice in our head tells us to stay silent when we’ve seen or have been subjected to non-inclusive behavior. This video produced by RBC encourages instead of listening to that little voice, it’s time to find yours and use it to speak up for inclusion.

Our Hidden Biases

Adult biases can have lifelong implications for children. This video was developed by Project ABC, an Early Childhood System of Care Community, to spark dialogue among child-serving professionals. Even on our best days we may not be mindful of our thought processes and biases. And the decisions we make can have negative effects on our work and those we serve.

By Topic

General

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights – United Nations

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages. The UDHR is widely recognized as having inspired, and paved the way for, the adoption of more than seventy human rights treaties, applied today on a permanent basis at global and regional levels (all containing references to it in their preambles).

The Iceberg Concept of Culture

The Iceberg of Culture is a commonly known concept for explaining culture.  This graphic provided by the Indiana Department of Education is one version of many popular renderings.

The Danger of a Single Story

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. In this TED Talk novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

How an Elite Women’s College Lost Its Base and Found Its Mission

Almost 30 years ago, Trinity College, in Washington, D.C., faced a crisis familiar to many small institutions today: It lost the ability to attract the predominantly well-to-do women it had traditionally enrolled. So the Roman Catholic women’s college adopted a risky strategy. It changed its base, focusing instead on serving primarily African American and Latina women who face financial disadvantages.

Institutional Mission and Bias Response

From a webinar of the Council of Independent Colleges, Dr. Teresa Nance, Chief Diversity Officer at Villanova University discusses delivers a powerful statement on the topic of understanding your institutions mission statement relating to justice and equity in your own work. 

Belonging: why it is the next step on the equity, diversity and inclusion ladder

Belonging feels good, improves student retention rates and supports other EDI efforts. Joanna West from the University of Luxembourg offers six ways campuses can foster this intangible essential.

Belonging on Campus:  Three Ways to Make it So

This overview article that speaks to three ways to think about belonging on campus, including several links to research articles for those who want to dive deeper.

bell hooks & John A. Powell: Belonging Through Connection

This keynote address from Bell Hooks, a ubiquitous name when it comes to the topic of belonging through her work on race, feminism, and class, in conversation with John A. Powell, law professor and leader of the UC Berkeley Othering & Belonging Institute. This recording was their keynote address at a conference on Belonging from 2015 and proved to be an engaging listen. These individuals speak deeply into how one understands belonging (and love more broadly) in ways that are deeper and more integrated than our familiar contexts.

How to cultivate a sense of belonging on your campus

This article offers a quick and engaging 9-minute read (and embedded 2-minute video). It takes us into the mindset of our students and their journey for connection as they return to campus, as well as demonstrates how different campuses are bringing this topic up with students. The piece normalizes the motivation to belong and highlights the positive impact of community on physical, mental, and academic well-being. It also suggests practical approaches for students to find their people, such as attending campus events, exploring shared identities, utilizing student resource offices, embracing virtual avenues, and connecting with the broader local community.

Living with Identity

In this keynote address  at the 2022 Atlantic Institute Leadership Convening, Professor Kwame Appiah emphasizes that our identities are not just personal markers, but the bedrock of our communities. He highlights how the power of commitments to one another can rise above disagreements, emphasizing unity in diversity. Additionally, the address explores global citizenship, urging us to consider how we can better equip our students for meaningful engagement with the world beyond our campus. This is a full keynote, perfect for background listening and reflecting.

 

Microaggressions

ACUE and CIC Belong Community of Practice (2023) Microaggression presentation

Knight, R. (2020). You’ve Been Called Out for a Microaggression.  What Do You Do? Harvard Business Review July 24, 2020.  https://hbr.org/2020/07/youve-been-called-out-for-a-microaggression-what-do-you-do

Assensoh, K. (2020). Microaggressions: The hidden retention killer. INSIGHT Into Diversity. December 22, 2020 https://www.insightintodiversity.com/microaggressions-the-hiddenretention-killer/

Lilienfeld, S. O. (2017). Microaggressions: Strong claims, inadequate evidence. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(1), 138–169. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616659391

Jana, T. and Baran, M (2020) Subtle Acts of Exclusion:  How to Understand, Identify and Stop Microaggressions. Oakland: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Johnson, N. N., & Johnson, T. L. (2019). Microaggressions: An introduction. In U. Thomas (Ed.), Navigating micro-aggressions toward women in higher education (pp. 1–22). IGI Global. https://doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-5942-9.ch001

Nadal, K. L. (2013). That’s so gay!: Microaggressions and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. American Psychological Association.

Reynolds, A. L., Sneva, J. N., & Beehler, G. P. (2010). The influence of racism-related stress on the academic motivation of Black and Latino/a students. Journal of College Student Development, 51(2), 135–149. http://doi.org/10.1353/csd.0.0120

Runyowa, S. (2015). Microaggressions Matter. The Atlantic. September 18, 2015 https://pzacad.pitzer.edu/~lyamane/Runyowa-MicroaggressionsMatter.pdf .

Solorzano, D., Ceja, M., & Yosso, T. (2000). Critical race theory, racial microaggressions, and campus racial climate: The experiences of African American college students. The Journal of Negro Education, 69(1/2), 60–73. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2696265

Souza, T (2020). Responding to Microaggressions in Online Learning Environments During a Pandemic.

Academic Impressions. Responding to Microaggressions in Online Learning Environments During a Pandemic (academicimpressions.com)

Steinberg, L. J. (2021). The deadly toll of environmental racism. Boston College Magazine. https://www.bc.edu/content/bc-web/sites/bc-magazine/bc-magazine-fall-2020- issue/features/bc-and-racial-justice/what-systemic-racism-looks-like.html

Sue, D. W. (2010). Microaggressions in everyday life: Race, gender, and sexual orientation. Wiley.

Williams, M. T. (2020). Microaggressions: Clarification, evidence, and impact. Association for Psychological Science, (15)1, 3–26

Microaggressions: Power, Privilege and Everyday Life

Microaggression Examples

Responding to microaggressions in online learning environments

Racelighting is the normal realities of People of Color

Race/Racism/Antiracism

Massingale, B.N. (2010) Racial Justice and the Catholic Church. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books.

Kendi, I.X. (2019, 2023) How to Be an Antiracist. One World Trade Paperback Edition.

Antiracism and America article series from The Guardian

This collaboration between The Guardian and American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center is an ongoing series that sheds light on the structures at the root of racial inequities.

Risky Business: Confronting Racism in America – MPR News

Former California Judge LaDoris Cordell speaks at the University of Minnesota about America’s history of racism and slavery, and called on people to be “upstanders” not “bystanders.” She’s a former associate dean at Stanford Law School and Independent Police Auditor for the city of San Jose. The event on October 28, 2015 was sponsored by the Black Graduate and Professional Students Association of the University of Minnesota.

Avoiding Racial Equity Detours

In this article by the Equity Institute and EdChange founder, Paul Gorski, discusses the four most common detours often used to avoid the messy work of racial justice.

Segregation in America

This website by the Equal Justice Initiative includes a report examining the civil rights era and challenges still faced today, the stories of senators, governors, ministers and other public figures who led the movement to maintain segregation, iconography that glorify the legacy of slavery, and video from segregation era documents. 

Who is Hispanic?

The once-a-decade head count of all people living in the U.S. used a different approach from previous censuses to measure racial identity, which has provided new insight into how Hispanics view their racial identity. At the same time, the federal government has proposed a change to how race and ethnicity are measured in government surveys like the decennial census, bringing even more attention and debate.

So, who is considered Hispanic in the U.S. today? How exactly do the federal government and others count the Hispanic population? What role does race play in deciding who counts as Hispanic? And how do surveys incorporate various terms people use to describe their Hispanic identity, such as Latina or Latinx?

Americans are divided on whether society overlooks racial discrimination or sees it where it doesn’t exist.

The author shares the results of her study on what they think is the bigger problem when it comes to racial discrimination in the country today.

Unnatural Causes (film)

Unnatural Causes is the four-part acclaimed documentary series broadcast by PBS to tackle the root causes of our alarming socio-economic and racial inequities in health.



What to read, listen to and watch to learn about institutional racism

This a list of more than fifty books, podcasts and films recommended by some of the voices features on the PBS NewsHour offers a starting point for understanding race, racial justice and equity and oppression in the U.S.

White Supremacy Culture

This article on dismantlingracism.org discusses a list of attitudes and behaviors that show up in organizations that are damaging because they are used as norms and standards that are often used by dominate society to maintain structural inequality. 

Jamiles Lartey (2018) Oppression in America: ‘To root this out we need a movement against racist policies’The Guardian. June 6, 2018. Oppression in America: ‘To root this out we need a movement against racist policies’ | Race | The Guardian

Shin, S.Y. (Editor) (2016) A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota. Minnesota Historical Society Press 

Rankine, C. (2014) Citizen:  An American Lyric. Graywolf Press

Gutierrez y Muhs, Gabriella, and Niemann, Yolanda Flores, and Gonzalez, Carmen G., and Harris, Angela P., (Eds.), 2012. Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press

Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow : mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New Press.

Anderson, C. (Carol E. (2018). One person, no vote : how voter suppression is destroying our democracy. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Gender/Gender Identity

The Genderbread Person

This infographic visually represents four components of human identity- assigned sex, gender identity, gender express, and attraction.

Asking For and Using Pronouns: Making Spaces more Gender Inclusive by Bryn Mawr College

10 Things You’re Actually Saying When You Ignore Someone’s Gender Pronouns by Sam Dylan Finch

Singh, A.A. (2018).  The Quer & Transgender Resilience Workbook: Skills for navigating sexual orientation and gender expression. Oakland, CA : New Harbinger Publications, Inc., [2018]

21 Things Not to Say to a Trans Person

Creating LGBTQ+ Inclusive Classroom Climate

Inclusive Teaching

Ensure Your Course Reflects a Diverse Society and World

This resource from the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) discuss how to design your courses to reflect global diversity and set expectations within your classroom on respecting the viewpoints of others. The videos and handout provide practical insights on how to set expectations for valuing diverse viewpoints, including strategies for creating a safe space for discussions and addressing conflicts that may arise. 

Enhancing Learning in a Virtual World: Three Tools to Increase Student Engagement and Belonging

Originally tailored for K-12 settings, this article provides an interdisciplinary approach that could be applied to our higher education context. The article reminds us that our systems have changed and might continue to change as the world evolves. It offers three tools that could be adapted to our unique context.  I encourage you to consider if these are tools you would consider incorporating into your own instructional practices.

Safe Spaces, Brave Spaces, and Accountable Spaces

Three years ago, this reflection on safe, brave, and accountable spaces was a pivotal part of our ongoing dialogue. With time having passed, I think we can look back at these concepts with more clarity than we were able before. How do we create environments that foster both inclusivity and accountability? This article encourages us to reflect on these questions and consider the strategies that align best with our current moment.

Scaffolding: The Key to Teaching the Art of Conversation 

How do we engage in conversation with our students on the war in Gaza and Israel? In this article, the author discusses the technique of scaffolding in creating a conducive environment for meaningful conversations. The piece provides strategies for promoting engagement, inclusion, and a sense of belonging among our students. Perhaps these techniques can prepare our students to leave our classrooms with a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding topics such as the Israel-Gaza conflict. 

Creating Inclusive College Classrooms addresses five aspects of inclusive teaching that influence interaction between and among faculty and the student in the classroom including course content; prior assumptions and awareness; class planning including group work; knowledge of students’ backgrounds;  and decisions, comments, and behaviors during the process of teaching.

Cornell University’s MOOC, Teaching and Learning in the Diverse Classroom, is a free, self-paced course in which participants use an inclusive teaching framework while centering you and your students’ lived experiences. Also see Cornell’s Center for Teaching Innovation’s Inclusive Teaching Strategies page.

Columbia University’s MOOC, Inclusive Teaching, Supporting all Students in the College Classroom, is a free course that will help participants consider multiple facets of inclusive teaching and how creating an equitable course climate will help students and their learning across a wide range of educational contexts. Also see Columbia’s Guide for Inclusive Teaching at Columbia, a PDF with five inclusive teaching principles derived from research and evidence-based practices

Carnegie Mellon University’s Eberly Center’s Strategies for Inclusive Teaching covers what to do from the first day to the last of any class. Their strategies also contain references for additional reading.

University of Michigan’s Center for Reaching on Learning and Teaching’s Inclusive Teaching Resources and Strategies contains pages of definitions, principles, and practices against racism and stereotype threats.

Vanderbilt University’s  Center for Teaching’s guide to Teaching Race: Pedagogy and Practice contains five principles for social justice education across the disciplines. 

Washington University in St. Louis Center for teaching and Learning https://ctl.wustl.edu/resource-category/inclusive-teaching-and-learning/

ACUE toolkit Ensure Your Course Reflects a Diverse Society and World

This tool explains how to be intentional when selecting multimedia, readings, and examples so that they reflect diverse people, viewpoints, and voices. This toolkit includes two videos and a planning guide that can help you be intentional in selecting media, required readings, and illustrative examples that reflect a variety of perspectives and viewpoints.

Sathy, V. and Hogan, K.A. (2022) How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive:  Advice Guide. Chronicle of Higher Education offers answers to common questions and ideas for inclusive course design.  The article also offers a number of helpful resources.

Lafayette College’s Tools for Inclusive & Anti-Racist Course Design offers tools for course design, assessment syllabus design, and an anti-racist educator questionnaire and rubric.

Enhancing Learning in a Virtual World: Three Tools to Increase Student Engagement and Belonging

Originally tailored for K-12 settings, this article provides an interdisciplinary approach that could be applied to our higher education context. The article reminds us that our systems have changed and might continue to change as the world evolves. It offers three tools that could be adapted to our unique context.  I encourage you to consider if these are tools you would consider incorporating into your own instructional practices.

Safe Spaces, Brave Spaces, and Accountable Spaces

Three years ago, this reflection on safe, brave, and accountable spaces was a pivotal part of our ongoing dialogue. With time having passed, I think we can look back at these concepts with more clarity than we were able before. How do we create environments that foster both inclusivity and accountability? This article encourages us to reflect on these questions and consider the strategies that align best with our current moment.