The College Planning Council (CPC) expressed interest in making more of an effort to support the queer community in their meeting on Tuesday after announcing celebratory Pride events occurring throughout the month of April.
While June is internationally recognized as Pride month, administrators have chosen to celebrate early before students leave campus for the summer, deeming “Gaypril” an opportunity to recognize LGBTQ+ members at City College. April 4 was the first time that City College held a gay pride flag raising ceremony, which was the first event on the schedule. Superintendent President Erika Endrijonas also expressed that plans for a transgender flag raising ceremony are already in the works for November 2024.
Roxane Byrne, director of student equity and engagement programs at the Center for Equity and Social Justice (CESJ), praised the recent progressive strides made at City College to offer more support for queer students.
“It’s the chancellor’s office that really has provided us the push that SBCC has needed for a really long time,” Byrne said. “That push has come with some real, specific, one-time funding to get our LGBT programs off the ground.”
One of these programs, specified Byrne, is the creation of a new task force composed of students, staff, and faculty who will be assigned to design LGBTQ+ programs and events.
Michelle Detorie, communication laboratory teaching assistant, expressed the need for more outreach by the administration to the queer community of City College–a notion that Endrijonas agreed with while also relaying her desire to create new presidential advisory committees for employees in minority groups.
According to Endrijonas, a committee representing Black faculty and staff is currently in progress, spearheaded by Director of Public Affairs and Communications Jordan Killebrew. Previously having worked at Pasadena City College, Endrijonas described the multitude of advisory committees that existed there, including groups for Latinx employees, LGBTQ+ members, and even veterans, using her previous experience as a blueprint for City College to follow.
“There’s a lot of room for us to create those affinity groups and affinity spaces,” Endrijonas said. “I think it’s really important for, especially employees, to come together.”
Killebrew also kicked off the meeting by announcing the finalized SBCC Health and Safety Emergency Requests form, which can be accessed on the City College website under the COVID-19 page.
With this form, faculty and staff can list any health and safety concerns within their department and request funding from the COVID-19 Recovery Block Grant in order to resolve these issues, although the qualifications for expenditures have confused CPC members in prior meetings. Generally, Endrijonas has outlined that any submissions to the Google form should be somewhat urgent. Once an employee submits a request, it will be reviewed by the executive committee either for approval or denial based on whether or not the concern is deemed a priority.
The CPC will reconvene on Tuesday, April 16.
