The Equity in Education event will feature AFT President Randi Weingarten, SUNY Chief Diversity Officer Ricardo Nazario y Colón and NYSUT President Melinda Person at the Shea Theater on Monday, June 10. Please join us! Breakfast begins at 9 a.m., event begins at 10 a.m., and lunch will be provided. Register here—JEDI Institute 2024—and select this event plus any of the other JEDI sessions you wish to attend.

We all know there is a big difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.

In the JEDI Institute, we are focused on helping participants make the shift from talking to walking.

Indeed, the book we rely on each year is called From Equity Talk to Equity Walk, in which Tia Brown McNair, Estela Mara Bensimon and Lindsey Malcolm-Piqueux help dismantle common myths and misperceptions about the definition of equity.

This summer we are thrilled to announce that, as part of our regular JEDI Institute, we have three leading voices in education coming to SCCC to discuss this very topic.

Shifting the narrative

The narrative about equity in education can be tricky at times. We believe most SCCC employees are well intended when it comes to this but more work remains to be done.

“I do not discriminate,” some assert. “I treat all of my students the same way.” Others declare that they believe equity is a non-issue because all students, in their estimation, have “the same opportunities as everyone else to succeed” and feel that bringing questions of race or ethnicity into the equation does more harm than good.

Our goal in JEDI, however, is to point out that equality of opportunity is a very different thing than equity in measurable outcomes. That’s what this is about. That’s what we mean when we say we need to shift the narrative. If every student at SCCC has genuinely equitable opportunities, we absolutely should see that reflected in student outcomes—but we don’t. Racial gaps in academic outcomes have persisted across the decades.

Three prominent speakers highlight the day

We are looking forward to an amazing event on Monday, June 10. Breakfast is available starting at 9 a.m., the event begins at 10 a.m. and lunch will also be provided. Our Equity in Education event is open to Long Island educators, both K-12 and higher ed, as well as to students. This is an excellent opportunity to ask questions of our three educational experts since each will have a brief Q&A following their speech.

In the Shea Theater at Ammerman, the event will commence with greetings from our emcee, FA President Dante Morelli, followed by a welcome address from SCCC President Ed Bonahue.

Then we will hear our first featured speaker, AFT President Randi Weingarten. The JEDI Institute is funded by a generous $35,000 grant from the American Federation of Teachers, our national parent union, and we are deeply grateful. The AFT was founded in 1916 and currently represents 1.72 million members in more than 3,000 local affiliates across the country. Many well-known Americans have been AFT members, including John Dewey, Albert Einstein, Hubert Humphrey, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frank McCourt and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel.

President Weingarten has led AFT since 2008 and has long been fully committed to equity and inclusion in education. Having just been elected to the National Board of the NAACP, President Darren Johnson said of her,

“As we embark on Freedom Summer, President Weingarten’s unique perspective and visionary leadership will be an invaluable contribution to our work advancing civil rights and creating a more just and equitable society for all. The AFT is a longstanding partner of the NAACP, and President Weingarten’s appointment to the National Board of Directors will allow us to continue building on this crucial relationship.”

Following a brief Q&A with President Weingarten, we will hear from our second featured speaker, Dr. Ricardo Nazario y Colón, Senior Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer for the entire SUNY system. Dr. Nazario y Colón has spoken in several interviews about how he looks for the diversity within each person as well as within regions that might be misunderstood as racially homogenous. Given his status as a former U.S. Marine and a published poet, we are thrilled that he is able to come to SCCC and we know he is a deeply engaging and inspirational presenter.

Our third featured speaker for the day will be NYSUT President Melinda Person—who graciously visited the college last June to get to know our local—and who will give a special lunch-time presentation in the Babylon Student Center. New York State United Teachers is our state parent union, which represents nearly 700,000 professionals who work in or are retired from New York schools, colleges and healthcare facilities. Having worked for NYSUT for nearly two decades before being elected president in April 2023, President Person has spent a lifetime fighting to create equitable classrooms where both students and educators thrive, as noted in her NYSUT biography.

Colleagues discuss equity at SCCC

To round out the perspectives from the national and state levels, guests at our Equity in Education event will also hear from a panel of SCCC colleagues who will each share how they define equity and the various techniques they employ in their workspaces—both in and out of the classroom—to help make SCCC student outcomes measurably more equitable.

After a full day of hearing from these prominent speakers as well as colleagues, enjoying breakfast and lunch and smart conversation, we hope that you will feel inspired to make positive changes and spend some time this summer deeply reflecting upon your practices so we can work toward a common goal next year.

Finally, we hope everyone will come to see that treating all students the “same” is focusing on equality rather than equity and that setting up the “same” opportunities is akin to talking rather than walking, i.e., working hard to better ensure truly equitable outcomes.

Please join us on June 10 at 9 a.m. To register, use the QR code on the flyer shown above or use this link: JEDI Institute Registration. Select JEDI session 2, which is this Equity in Education symposium, plus SCCC employees may also select either of the other two JEDI sessions they wish to attend.