During the pilot JEDI Institute this summer, a panel of faculty offered some ideas to participants about various ways to make our classes and workspaces a bit more JEDI. Above, third from left, LB Thompson, adjunct assistant professor of English, shares examples of ways she makes her classes more inclusive and welcoming for minoritized students. Listening, from left, are moderator and planning board member Jill Santiago, Matt Konig, Nic Pestieau, Christina Bosco Langert, Sarah Grunder, Michael Boecherer and Joan Cook. (photo by Cynthia Eaton).

As indicated in our "Five ways to JEDI your workspace" article, the JEDI Institute is a joint three-year collaboration between college administration and the FA to make our workspaces more just, equitable, diverse and inclusive—or "JEDI"—for minoritized students.

We described in the June issue of The WORD how the idea for the JEDI Institute grew out of the college's Journey to Aspiring Allyship book discussion group which ran all last year and will continue again this year.

Quite a kickoff!

The JEDI planning board (shown below) wasted no time putting together a pilot institute for the summer and, lo and behold, nearly three dozen of our full-time and adjunct colleagues voluntarily gave up time out of their summer, even on such short notice, to participate in our pilot. We think this speaks volumes to the dedication of our colleagues and we are grateful to them.

We are also thrilled to announce that our planning board also worked diligently to apply for and were overjoyed to receive a $35,000 grant from the American Federation of Teachers to support our good work with JEDI.

The participants who completed our pilot summer institute will implement their JEDI plans this fall, come back together to reflect and review in January, then revise and reimplement their plans in spring 2022. Their experiences will help us craft the official program launch in summer 2022.

Join us in this important work

If you'd like to participate in next summer's official launch, contact a member of our planning board right away, as we are limiting cohorts to about 24 participants and there will be an application process.

In addition, we strongly encourage all FA members to get involved in the series of JEDI activities taking place this academic year. The fall events that we're currently planning are below.

Keep an eye out for emails or college briefs announcing each of the above events and/or reach out to one of our planning board members.

In addition, colleagues who participated in our three summer pilot sessions in July and August should save the date for our winter follow-up meeting:

We look forward to learning with and working with all of you this year!