Staff as Students of Social Justice (SSSJ)

This program is currently on hiatus. Please contact us at sssj@berkeley.edu if you have any questions.

Overview

The 'Staff as Students of Social Justice' (SSSJ) Program is the first of its kind in the UC system, a cross-disciplinary curriculum centered in social and racial justice available for all staff and the many career paths they follow. Brought to life through the American Cultures Center, SSSJ is an important expression of the campus’s commitment to staff’s intellectual and professional development in issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice. This program provides a unique opportunity to learn first-hand about the intersections of race, ethnicity, and gender; reflect on lived experiences; and build connections with faculty, students, and campus colleagues. Now continuing its sixth year, SSSJ provides a 10-week-long seminar series in the Fall and Spring semesters, including a weekly intellectual lecture and discussion over Zoom, led by the SSSJ Program Director of Pedagogy, David Maldonado.

Program Format

Participate in 10 weekly discussion sections with seminar course instructor SSSJ Director of Pedagogy, David Maldonado, Ph.D., facilitated over Zoom
Anticipate 3-4 hours of class/discussion/lecture viewing per week, plus additional time to complete readings
No exams, grades, or academic credit
Must attend at least 80% of meetings, partipate fully, and complete a final reflection to complete the course

Upon completion, you will receive a certificate signed by Acting Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion Fabrizio Mejia, Vice Provost Oliver O’Reilly, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Human Resources and Chief People & Culture Officer Eugene Whitlock, and your achievement will be added to your HR personnel file

Aspirations of Material Anti-Racism: What's Next?

Presentations and Projects Archive

The best thing about the program was that I was able to gain a more firm and nuanced understanding of the harms and inequities of the tech industry while having really thoughtful conversations with our professors, my classmates, and folks from the VCUE Division around existing and imagined interventions into so many different facets of tech in a lot of other spaces from art to journalism to activism.

Sara Assadi-Nik, Program Coordinator, Division of Summer Sessions, Study Abroad & Lifelong Learning

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What is SSSJ?

The ‘Staff as Students of Social Justice’ (SSSJ) Program allows up to 25 staff per semester (from the Division of Undergraduate Education and beyond) to audit an American Cultures course and participate in discussions about timely and important topics. Piloted in Fall 2020, the SSSJ Program is a unique opportunity to learn first-hand from leading scholars and American Cultures instructors about the intersections of race, ethnicity, and gender; dig into subjects of personal interests; and build connections with faculty, students, and fellow staff colleagues.

Who hosts the Program?

Staff as Students of Social Justice is a collaborative offering from the American Cultures Center, Divisions of Equity & Inclusion, and Undergraduate Education, and People & Culture.

How do I register for the Program?

Applications open ahead of each semester. The registration form is relatively simple and asks you to provide information about yourself and your role on campus and list your preferred meeting times.

What are the expectations of staff-student participants?

Staff-students are expected to attend SSSJ-specific discussion sections and keep up with readings as assigned by the SSSJ Director of Pedagogy. They are also expected to complete one staff-student experience survey at the semester’s midpoint.

Staff-students are encouraged to attend lectures for the course they are auditing and/or keep up with recordings and course readings as assigned by the course instructors.

What will I get from participating in this Program?

Staff-students study the original curriculum prepared by the SSSJ Director of Pedagogy and have access to an online database of course materials. At the end of the semester, staff-students will receive a certificate of completion signed by Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Oliver O’Reilly, Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion Dania Matos, and Associate Vice Chancellor Eugene Whitlock, which is added to your HR personnel file.

Will class attendance be required?

SSSJ Program staff understands that our fellow staff at UC Berkeley are bustling! With that in mind, the Program’s success depends on staff-students attending our discussion sections to share in the collective learning process. We expect staff-students to attend those discussion sections and highly recommend that they also attend lectures for their chosen course.

Through this course, we learned how the devastating fires we experience in California today are a product of climate change and pervasive policies of suppression deeply connected to settler colonialism, white supremacy, and dispossession of Native peoples from their ancestral lands. We also learned from guest speakers about several tribal groups' ongoing efforts to preserve, sustain, revitalize, and share their cultural practices and scientific knowledge.

Jean Cheng, Sarah Pickett, and Alex Tan

Staff as Students of Social Justice (SSSJ)