Community Building

At the UW I have focused my energy on creating institutional changes in programs and policies. Each community I have joined has the opportunity to become more intentionally inclusive, and I have worked hard to facilitate ways for all members to better create spaces of belonging. Inclusion and belonging occur when marginalized or minoritized participants are centered in spaces where they previously were not, and I have committed myself to collaborating to create these spaces of belonging for others.

Campus Visit Program: Workshops of Unlearning

Tour guides have teams to help us build community within our program, this is me with a few of my team-members on a scavenger hunt on campus!

Unlearning the Production of Houselessness

I worked with two of my classmates and fellow tour guides to develop workshops that helped tour guides better understand how to answer questions about houselessness in Seattle without propagating the toxic narrative that those experiencing houselessness are dangerous, a threat, or outsiders to the UW community. As ambassadors of the UW community, tour guides are a group of people that should feel empowered to help change the narrative and stereotypes that people have about those experiencing houselessness. Our workshop aimed to facilitate meaningful conversations about our personal biases and reflections as well as help us begin thinking about how we can use our tour guide platform to dismantle toxic narratives of those experiencing houselessness.

This is one slide from the presentation we led in February 2022 for tour guides! Click the slide to see all slides.

Expanding Our Definition of Safety

We designed this workshop as a first pass at focusing on how we define and understand safety on campus. Our definition and conception of what safety is can be really transformative because if we're able to articulate to our guests that being safe at UW includes having resources to protect your physical health, mental health, emotional stability, academic success, sense of community and inclusion on campus it’s easier to move away from relying on police resources to be the sole safety resource. As a University community we have to promote safety, and the concept and experience of safety looks and feels different for everyone. There is a normalized and dominant understanding of what safety looks like, often revolving around a police presence, which silences and further marginalizes the experiences of those who define and experience safety in a different way.

CEP Outreach and Admissions

CEP is a major that is run by and for the students. Outreach and Admissions is one of the six committees that governs the program and is responsible for promoting the major in and outside of UW and running the entire admissions process. This year as a Co-Lead I have lead a committee redesign of application process to center equity, diversity, and inclusion and also organized and implicit bias training with Transformative Justice practitioner, Julia Ismael https://www.theequityconsortium.com/people.html

Pictured left is the setup process for our in person open house! Prior to this we had only facilitated online outreach due to COVID, so we were really excited to meet people in person!

Honors Peer Educator

As a Peer Educator I improved my time management skills, self confidence, and teaching capabilities. I learned about my learning style through teaching others, and I have my lovely sections (pictured right) to thank! Each week these students made my job so much easier by being respectful, attentive, and supportive of each other and me. Some lesson plans were easier for me to facilitate than others, but despite any mistakes I made or any insecurities I had these students made me feel supported and in control. Their final presentations and reflections were really rewarding to read and I could see their individual growth and increased confidence in themselves and their ability to navigate the UW.