SF State Transforms is a three-year grant that began in January 2021 through support from the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE Program, which aims to increase the participation and advancement of women in academic STEM careers, with a focus on TT faculty positions and advancement.
Our approach and activities are grounded in feminist intersectionality as a theory and practice for social change. Our program goals are intersectional equity, equity in service and scholarship, and harm reduction/restorative practices.
Terminology
Intersectionality
Feminism seeks to understand and change how power relations and social structures differentially affects people’s lives.Intersectionality is an important approach that highlights and attends to the interlocking structures of power and oppression that unevenly shape social life for different groups, often rendering some more visible and supported and other marginalized and/or minorities. Intersectionality is a theory that originated in Black feminist thought to account specifically for how gender and race(ism) intertwine as systems in ways that structure social wellbeing. Social identities and categories such as race and ethnicity, gender, as well as sexuality, immigration status, and disability intersect in complex ways differentially distributing access to professional rewards and opportunities.We value intersectional lives and identities and attend to the working of power.
Faculty of Color
Faculty of Color is an umbrella category to describe a demographic body of SF State faculty consistent with the racial demographics collected as part of California and the CSU. Faculty of color of all gendered are underrepresented in the CSU system and academia. Institutional data shows this underrepresentation for TT faculty and given trends across higher education is likely similar for all faculty, including lecturers who make up the majority of faculty.
The umbrella construct of Faculty of Color includes, but is not limited to, people of African American, Latina/x, and Indigenous ancestries, as well as Filipino, Pacific Islander, and other Asian backgrounds. We prefer, and encourage, specificity when speaking of racial categories and people's experience and to not speak of generalized collectives. Given white people's racial privilege in academia and elsewhere, we strategically use this umbrella term of faculty of color as well as the acronym BIPOC for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color when referring to systems and experiences of racial equity and inequity. We understand that race and racism operate in multiple intersectional forms along with gender. To advance women and non-binary faculty in STEM requires intersectionality.
Women, Non-binary, and Trans
Women, non-binary and trans identified faculty are often marginalized and minoritized in STEM and in higher education. We bring an intersectional gender analysis to our work of transform-ing SF State.
Faculty
Faculty includes all those who teach our students (Lecturers and TT). A major component of power relations in higher education is the ways faculty hired, promoted, and paid as lecturers. Another operation is the ways TT Faculty are supported along a career advancement track from assistant to associate to full. Our goals for intersectional change include advancing faculty equity more comprehensively and beyond STEM into the larger campus community.
The PERC Portal is now Available - Spring 2023
The Promoting Equity and Relationships amongst Colleagues (PERC) program promotes healthy relationships of staff and faculty by providing space where relationships can be built or repaired using restorative circles.
PERC is a collective of staff and faculty who have received extensive training in restorative practices. Please click here to learn more and submit a concern.
Land Acknowledgment
The campuses of San Francisco State University on the San Francisco peninsula and north bay are located within the occupied territories of the Ramaytush Ohlone and the Coastal Miwok (who, along with the Southern Pomo, are organized as the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria).
EQUITY
To establish equitable faculty workloads that recognize, reward, and value faculty through an intersectional lens. A lens on equity is designed to address specific exclusions and differences based on social categories, specifically around gender, race, and positions in academia that produce and maintain inequitable practices and experiences and that are pervasive. We seek systems approaches to identify and change these inequalities as we seek equitable practices.
SCHOLARSHIP & SERVICE
To support faculty careers in ways that value and supports scholarship and service. For scholarship to work toward designing and implementing mechanisms that emphasize interdisciplinary collaboration, cross-college engagement, and faculty inspiration and development that begins with an intersectional lens and ensures equity for women faculty of color, white women, and faculty of all intersectional gender and racial/ethnic identities across campus. For equity in service to ensure balance, transparency, and accountability for service work-loads that value and instill professional development.
HARM REDUCTION & RESTORATIVE PRACTICE
To reduce bias and related harms using a mechanism that identifies, discusses, and restores faculty relationships and policies and practices that structure professional careers at SF State. Our work is focused on micro-level interactions and relations and the macro-level of systemic change. Our goal through restorative practices is to promote systems that foster equitable relationships and opportunities for leadership.