Training Videos

System Office Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Training

Part 1: Video Series

Welcome!  By working together, we will make the University of Alaska a diverse, equitable, inclusive organization that makes everyone feel that they belong.  After completing this video series, we will come together in a Town Hall setting to discuss.  Join us on this journey!

Consider the following questions as you watch the videos:

  1. How did the video(s) make you feel?  
  2. Have you experienced anything like what you saw in the video(s)?
  3. Does the content elicit any questions?  
  4. How can we implement best practices/lessons learned at the System Office?  Through the entire System? 
  5. What would you like to discuss during our Town Hall?  Do you have questions, or do you have topics you encourage us to discuss?

Watch this First:

When More People Speak Up, More People Listen (4 min)

Then Watch This:

How to Get Serious About Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace (11 min)

Then choose any of the following videos.

Please watch approximately 3 hours of content.

Alaska

  • Beyond Land Acknowledgements (1 hr. 42 min)
    • In this special session, several Alaska Native educators engage participants in thoughtfully considering the role of higher education in the assimilation of Native students and extraction of Native knowledge to its own benefit, and uplift questions and ideas that help align efforts beyond land acknowledgements to the transformation of the relationship between universities and Native communities.
  • Decentering Whiteness in Antiracism Initiatives (1 hr. 24 min)
    • Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq is an Iñupiaq technical communication and rhetoric scholar from Kotzebue and Noorvik. In the Zoom-recorded lecture below, she discusses the problematic orientation toward whiteness that pervades many antiracism initiatives in academia. She discusses her work creating an antiracism curriculum for the Caleb Scholars Program–an Inuit-led conservation advocacy development fellowship created to honor the legacy of her father Caleb Pungowiyi–that centers Inuit identity and values in its approach. Learn more about Dr. Itchuaqiyaq’s work at itchuaqiyaq.com.

Nation

  • Unconscious Bias (1 hr. 5 min)
    • The NCURA Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion presents Unconscious Bias, the first in a six-part 2021 series of webinars on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Rashonda Harris, Adjunct Faculty at the Johns Hopkins University Masters of Research Administration Program and Wayne Moody, Dream Builders, lead a discussion on this timely and important topic.
  • How Racism Makes Us Sick (17 min)
    1. Why does race matter so profoundly for health? David R. Williams developed a scale to measure the impact of discrimination on well-being, going beyond traditional measures like income and education to reveal how factors like implicit bias, residential segregation and negative stereotypes create and sustain inequality. In this eye-opening talk, Williams presents evidence for how racism is producing a rigged system -- and offers hopeful examples of programs across the US that are working to dismantle discrimination.
  • How to Overcome Our Biases? Walk Boldly Toward Them. (17 min)
    1. Our biases can be dangerous, even deadly — as we've seen in the cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner, in Staten Island, New York. Diversity advocate Vernā Myers looks closely at some of the subconscious attitudes we hold toward out-groups. She makes a plea to all people: Acknowledge your biases. Then move toward, not away from, the groups that make you uncomfortable. In a funny, impassioned, important talk, she shows us how.

Finally, watch this last:

 

System Office Discussion

System Office employees held a discussion forum on  Wednesday, June 8, 2022  about these videos and ways we can create a University of Alaska system and System Office in which everyone feels represented and that they belong.  System Office staff are asked to watch a total of three hours of video content by September 1.