Division of Student Affairs Annual Report 2015-2016

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  Achieved desired outcome of students properly receiving their accommodation because the Center had the exam printed and ready for administration at the time of the testing appointment
  
  
  
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  Instructed one-on-one and small group workshops and created materials on building executive function skills, test anxiety, and self-advocacy for students
  
  
  
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  Facilitated training, materials, and resources to a new graduate assistant regarding the peer mentor program, one-on-one academic and personal support, self-advocacy skills, and resource referrals to students
  

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  Improved visibility of CAS and the services it provides to students through display of informational posters and hand-outs campus-wide, links through other departments, and UMD Announce
  

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  Presented to New Faculty Institute, Academic Resource Centers, Student Transition & Achievement Resource Center, Orientation Leaders, and the UMD Ambassadors
  
  
  
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  Reviewed documentation for Admissions regarding SAT waivers for roughly 400 prospective students
  
  
  
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  reviewed documentation for accommodations for placement examinations for College Now
  
  
  
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  conducted staff retreat and professional development activities
  

CENTER FOR WOMEN, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY

This year was largely spent focusing on the VAWA grant education component, the push toward gender neutral bathrooms on campus, and Trans-friendly policy development.

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  Continue to seek funding for Miss Representation to Mass Representation as a permanent community service opportunity for UMassD Students—we worked closely with Ben Jones, Director of Development, Corporations & Foundations to identify foundations we could approach.
  
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  Build upon bystander intervention program with a more comprehensive social justice lens: LGBTQ aspects already included in the program. Have added a healing aspect for survivors and information on mental health
  

2. Foster and Advance Social Justice and Diversity

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  Work with other campus departments to make preferred name options for students in COIN and online. This is now a system wide initiative. We have posted a “how-to” on our website
  
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  Offer programming on race & sexuality with FDUH. See list of events. Sponsored a talk and three movies on LGBT people of color.
  
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  The Director was asked to serve on the “new” Diversity & Inclusion council that met bi-weekly during the spring semester.
  
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  The Director wrote a “This I Believe” essay for first year orientation.
  
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  The Victim Advocate/Educator, along with a student worker, offered 9 Safe Zoneⁱ Training’s for the university community, training a total of 52 staff, faculty and students.
  
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  We co-sponsored an LGBTQ alumni panel with the CDC.
  

3. Promote a Healthy and Safe Campus Community

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  Coordinate campus initiatives on sexual violence to be in compliance with OCR regulations. Our Victim Advocate/Educator was able to encourage 1,380 first year students to complete the online mandatory sexual violence program, prior to registration for spring 2015. She also offered 9 bystander intervention workshops: 4 Intro to College courses; 3 RA programs; 1 Greek Life and 1 for Pride Alliance. She had 4 interns from the departments of Sociology, Crime & Justice, Women’s & Gender Studies, and Anthropology
  

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  Reduce campus violence. Our number of student visits to the Victim Advocate/Educator stayed the same
  
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  Coordinate institutional response to hate and bias [with FDUH]. This project is ongoing. Along with the Corsairs Care site going live this August, there will be a comprehensive hate bias incident form connected to the site.
  
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  Offer a comprehensive multi-disciplinary training on prosecuting alcohol facilitated sexual assault with the DA’s office, local police departments, DPS, and the Women’s Center. We had almost 50 people attend from all areas. The evaluations were outstanding
  
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  Launch Corsairs Care Campaign—This is ongoing with a plan to launch during Week of Welcome
  
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  The Victim Advocate/Educator and Director submitted a $300,000 continuation grant to the DOJ’s Office for Violence against Women. We will hear if we receive it in September-October.
  

4. Advocate for Student Affairs Infrastructure that Better Supports Student Needs

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  Increase web presence by adding pages for different programs and library. This is ongoing with launch of Corsairs Care site.
  

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  Provide a safe space. A trans student began a transgender support group that met weekly throughout the year called Gender Punks
  

5. Professionally, the Victim Advocate/Educator completed the National Organization for Victim Assistance, Victim Assistance Academy 40 hour training from March through April of 2016. She will be joining the National Advocate Credentialing Program in July of 2016. I was selected to present as part of a panel at the National Women’s Studies Association in November 2017.

Submitted by Dr. Christine Frizzell, Director

The year began with Mika MacInnis, a former intern, assuming duties as senior staff. She completed the required supervised clinical hours for her post-doctoral residency during the year and passed the national licensure exam for psychologists in May.

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  The most significant accomplishment of the year is finding additional psychiatric help. The Center will have 2.5 days of psychiatric services available next year, which will significantly cut the wait time for these services. Jana Sobczak has agreed to provide some services over the summer, which will help with emergency situations, students who start psychopharmacology very late in the semester and need medication titration, and those students who are unable to find off-campus care.
  

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  We experienced a significant increase in applicants to our internship program this year, thanks to vigorous outreach to doctoral programs throughout New England by Sara Conklin, our training director.
  
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1. 
   Continue to Meet Growing Demand for Services
   

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   Increase Resources for Counseling Center
   

3. 
   Tactics from DOSA Strategic Plan
   

4. 
   Interdepartmental Goals
   

Submitted by Nicole Williams, Director

Overall, the 2015-16 academic year was a successful year as it pertains to student development, advocacy, and the promotion of social justice. This year, we had the benefit of working with a full staff having hired a new Associate Director in July 2015. While there are always challenges to training new staff and planning comprehensive programs simultaneously, the Frederick Douglass Unity House staff worked as a strong team and was successful in developing and supporting a number of activities, events and services critical in fostering a diverse, inclusive and integrated learning environment for the campus community.

As part of our mission, the Unity House aims to "assist students... develop their own sense of cultural identity and self-awareness while providing the university as a whole with a central area for learning more about other cultures and exchanging information about their own". To foster this intercultural exchange, we continue to foster a safe / “brave” and welcoming space for students. In the spring 2016 semester, we recorded 2933 total visits and served over 500. To note, this data only reflects recorded visits for the partial fall 2015 and spring 2016 semester, as we were unable to retrieve data for the entire fall semester. With the new technology, we are still learning its capabilities and the card reader did not store data for the entire year. We also came to realize the reader did not capture all the students who visited the Unity House, as some students’ cards were not recognized and some did not realize they needed to “swipe in” with their UMass Pass. In addition to those served in the center, we were able to outreach to many more students with the work we did outside of the physical FDUH space.

We continue to recognize the importance of embracing the history of the Frederick Douglass Unity House and acknowledge the role it plays in the success of many students, particularly students of color. At the same time, we work to encourage all members of the UMass Dartmouth community to think critically and engage in topics relating to diversity, social justice, and privilege. The Unity House hosted and supported nearly 100 programs, activities, and collaborative events in 2015-2016. Programs included leadership seminars, faculty lectures and classes, de-stress days, student employment opportunities, Latino, Asian, Native/Indigenous, and Black heritage events, the Unity Fest (UMOJA 2016) – a new collaborative annual tradition celebrating diversity and unity, and the traditional ALANA graduation reception to name a few.

The new and updated technology we secured last year continues to serve our students well and CITS continues to be a supportive, collaborative partner and resource for the Unity House staff and, most importantly, our students. Collaboration is vital for student success and student development. With this in mind, we continued our intentional efforts to increase collaborative programming across campus and with the greater community. We maintained our existing connections with areas such as the Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality, the Black Studies Program, Crime and Justice Studies, CITS, student organizations, and community organizations such as the New Bedford Historical Society. We will continue to develop and nurture such vital collaborative relationships across campus and within the greater community.

We continue to face broad challenges as we work to promote social justice, particularly as we engage in the global conversation and address violence against people of color. With state sanctioned violence and escalating hostility more visible in the media, our campus community struggles to understand and is seeking to learn how we can work to combat injustice effectively. As we work to explore the history of violence and reflect on our own community, policies, and practices, we will continue to dialogue and advocate for what is just in an effort to make changes at our own institution and society as a whole.