The Equity Project

Each year, The Equity Project (TEP) offers faculty and staff ongoing opportunities to engage in social justice education and work towards advancing equity at Whatcom Community College. Each year a topic is selected and TEP offers programming centered on a theme. Activities include keynote speakers, workshops, campus discussions, films, and more. Please check the WCC web calendar for upcoming programming and events.

The Equity Project Core Vision: To challenge systemic norms to eradicate equity gaps at Whatcom Community College. The crucial conversations The Equity Project (TEP) facilitates encourage our individual and collective hearts by recognizing the experiential knowledge of systemically minoritized communities as legitimate and acknowledging the harms caused by systemic oppression. We aim to create a sense of belonging that starts with a language of ongoing regard that is sincere, authentic, and communicates appreciation for personal experiences. Practically, we aim to:

Increase student success
Create opportunities for our institution to consistently commit to racial and social justice
Develop tools to recognize, expose and replace harmful practices

2024-2025 Theme

Everyday People Empowering Change

This year, our core text is Ijeoma Oluo’s Be A Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World - and How You Can, Too. Once you enroll in The Equity Project, you can get your free copy in the library.

We are also offering two optional and additional books this year. New to equity work? Check out So You Want to Talk About Race?. Ready to dive into more depth? Check out Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s The Undocumented Americans. Both are available for loan in the library.

Motivation and Guiding Ideas:

Many of us feel like systemic 'isms are so big we are incapable of combatting them. This feeling of despair is captured in Oluo's text when she writes,

"...systemic racism is a very complex and vast issue with no one solution. And many people with the sincerest of intentions to make a difference don't know where to start. We know something needs to be done – in fact, it seems like everything needs to be done. So where do we find our part? Is there a part in this work for us at all?"

Ijeoma Oluo, Be a Revolution

Fortunately Oluo also offers a path out of those feelings of despair, rooted in a focus on collective action focused on local contexts. Oluo recounts instances in which small groups of organized people combat the systems that are harming their communities, and offers readers suggestions for how they can do the same in their own communities.

TEP Scaffold for the year:

Fall Quarter:

Form pods
Read “Race, Education, and the Pedagogy of Our Oppressors” and “Punishment, Accountability, and Abolition” in Oluo's Be a Revolution
Attend workshops on the basics of identity, prison abolition, and/or Round Tables for Change
Engage with The Pickford Cinema's Doctober project with discounted tickets for TEP participants

Winter:

Read "Hierarchies of Body and Mind: Disability and Race" and "Race, Education, and the Pedagogy of our Oppressors" in Oluo's Be a Revolution
Attend workshops on the basics of identity, the equity cafe, or a workshop by Kim Thompson entitled "Dreaming of Freedom: Exploring the Intersections of Race and Disability Through a Collective Liberation Lens"

Early Spring:

Read, "Race, the Environment, and Environmental Justice" in Oluo's Be a Revolution
Prepare to engage your community(s) to make positive changes informed by Oluo's Be a Revolution

The Equity Project Team

Jason Babcock, Emily Henson, Ines Poblet, Katherine Burns, Justin Ericksen, Yusuke Okazaki, Jackie Rumble, Anna Wolff, Setsuko Buckley and Tanya Zaragoza-Rosas