Our Strategic Plan

After months of dialogue, deliberations, and reflections by our faculty, students, and staff, our college unanimously adopted a new 3-year strategic plan in January 2020. Additionally, our college is committed to taking action to advance racial justice in our community and our faculty, staff, and students have identified several priorities for the 2020-2021 academic year to continue to decolonize our own institution and the systems within which we operate.

Strategic Plan Identity Statement

At the SJSU Lurie College of Education, we prepare transformative educators, counselors, therapists, school and community leaders. We do this through an emancipatory approach across our teaching, scholarship, and service with a focus on the four areas below.

• Lurie College commitment to racial justice

  • Our racial justice commitments hone and strengthen the priorities outlined in our college’s strategic plan. They complement and extend the existing strategic initiatives in the college and recognize that if we are truly to live our mission, we must center anti-racist policies and practices in our teaching, research, and service and end the systemic racism that has historically prevented full inclusion and equity for our BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) students, staff, and faculty.

    During the 2020-21 academic year, we are committed to taking the actions outlined below to advance racial justice in our college and community. These actions were identified through multiple conversations among faculty, staff, and students seeking to understand and reform the language, norms, policies, and practices, as well as underlying thinking and ideologies, that exist in our programs, departments, and the college to limit and prevent equal participation and shared power with BIPOC students, staff, and faculty.

    We believe that these actions are critical steps in what will need to be a continuing and concerted effort to decolonize our own institution and the systems within which we operate. At the end of the 2020-21 academic year, we will report on progress made and commit to next steps to advance our racial justice priorities.  

1 - Community-Engaged

We strive to become the hub for community-centered, educational transformation in the region.

• Examples of initial strategic plan initiatives

  • - Build a rich partner network of schools and community organizations

    - Create professional learning programs with the community

    - Enable community leaders to share their insights with our students and the larger community

• Examples of racial justice priorities

  • - Strengthen outreach and recruitment for prospective students with an emphasis on recruiting BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) applicants who are committed to racial justice

    - Identify/strengthen collaborations, student teaching, and internship placements/MOUs with local schools and colleges with high enrollment of BIPOC students and that are committed to anti-racist policies and practices

    - Strengthen outreach to BIPOC alumni to provide ongoing professional support and encourage their engagement with current students as mentors, fieldwork supervisors, and advocates

    - Provide open-access extra-curricular seminars, workshops, and colloquia for students and community partners to engage in interdisciplinary conversations to cultivate anti-oppressive, anti-racist policies, practices, and pedagogies within educational institutions

    - Launch of the Institute for Emancipatory Education. The mission of this P20 focused institute is to create more equitable and inclusive educational systems that nurture the creativity and brilliance of all learners so that our diverse, democratic society can truly thrive. The guiding principles of IEE are to center historically marginalized learners and communities, partner with community, and build bridges across institutions from preschool through post-secondary

    - Launch of the Healthy Development Clinic to be located in East Side San Jose to strengthen collaboration and engagement with local communities with an emphasis on equity through wellness for children, youth, and families

2 - Culturally Sustaining

We value and sustain the linguistic and cultural practices of the communities we serve and make that the foundation of our work.

• Examples of initial strategic plan initiatives

  • - Engage in professional learning and self-reflection in culturally sustaining practices and enact them in classrooms

    - Strengthen curricular integration and centering of culturally sustaining pedagogy in and across existing and new programs

    - Conduct outreach, recruitment, on-boarding, and support of underrepresented faculty, staff, and students

• Examples of racial justice priorities

  • - Increase scholarship supports for BIPOC students committed to anti-racist priorities

    - Strengthen inclusion of BIPOC researchers and theorists in course syllabi

    - Recognize, value, and highlight scholarship from our faculty and students that focuses on issues of racial justice, educational equity, and culturally sustaining pedagogy and provide multiple venues to showcase this research for internal and external audiences

    - Implement learning outcomes assessment practices with an equity and culturally-sustaining approach

3 - Holistic

We foster a caring and supportive community of belonging, connectedness, and appreciation.

• Examples of initial strategic plan initiatives

  • - Develop college-wide experiences and resources for students, staff, and faculty that cultivate a culture of welcome, support, appreciation, and inclusivity

    - Cultivate physical and virtual spaces that encourage ongoing relationship-building among students, staff, faculty, and community partners

• Examples of racial justice priorities

  • - Cultivate a sense of belonging and connectedness with current students and provide intensive advising across the areas of academic, career, and personal/social development to ensure students, particularly those from BIPOC communities, are valued and included

    - Increase scholarship supports for BIPOC students committed to anti-racist priorities

    - Strengthen efforts to recruit diverse faculty and staff through targeted outreach, DEI training for hiring committees, and critical assessment of application review and interview procedures

    - Grow student representation in department- and college-level committees, including continued presence on the college strategic plan steering committee

4 - Interdisciplinary

We learn together across and beyond the college, transforming schooling and benefitting our communities.

• Examples of initial strategic plan initiatives

  • - Develop interdisciplinary experiences, coursework, and degree programs that bring together the Lurie College of Education community

    - Engage faculty and students in interdisciplinary research

• Examples of racial justice priorities

  • - Provide anti-racist, culturally sustaining, and intersectional professional learning workshops to faculty and staff. These may be led by internal faculty experts and/or external consultants

    - Engage faculty and staff in college-wide anti-racist affinity groups for BIPOC faculty and staff and white faculty and staff

    - Develop and launch new courses and programs that directly address issues of race, justice, and intersectionality

    - Critically examine coursework and pedagogical practices to ensure they reflect a lens of racial justice. Update course content, syllabi, and assignments to address systemic racism, racial justice, and intersectionality

2020-2021 Strategic Plan Grants

During the Spring 2020 term, we coordinated a grant proposal process within our college to support edeavors by our faculty, students, and staff that advance our four priority areas. The six projects that have been awarded funding include:

• Creating an Inclusive Climate: Queering Our Classrooms and Our Campus
  • If you’re hoping to make your class, office, or programming more accessible for and supportive of your queer and trans students and coworkers, be on the lookout for upcoming training sessions and a professional learning community supported by the Strategic Plan Seed Grant. “Creating an Inclusive Climate: Queering Our Classrooms and Our Campus” represents a partnership between the Lurie College of Education and The LGBT Youth Space to offer introductory and advanced trainings at the department and college level around topics like pronouns and vocabulary terms, the hidden curriculum in our classes, and creating opportunities for authentic self-expression. We will also be hosting a Professional Learning Community for faculty and staff who want to more deeply engage in the work of transforming their corner of the campus into a queer-affirming space. For more information, please contact Dr. Robert Marx at robert.marx@sjsu.edu.

• Early Childhood Connections
  • Early Childhood Connections brings together a cohort of SJSU Lurie College of Education students and recent alumni from across disciplines, who are in pursuit of careers involving young children. Through virtual meetings, ECC provides a space for participants to cultivate relationships, build community, and learn from community partners. For more information, please contact the ECC Program Coordinator, Dr. Maria Fusaro, at maria.fusaro@sjsu.edu. 

• Education Leadership Minor
  • The SJSU Lurie College of Education is developing a Leadership Minor.  Housed in the Department of Educational Leadership, this minor is an interdisciplinary approach to leadership development through engagement with anti-racist pedagogies and practices. We will support future leaders in their quest to transform their communities through meaningful, culturally affirming, and sustaining practices embedded throughout the program. For more information, contact Dr. Rebeca Burciaga at rebeca.burciaga@sjsu.edu.

• Healthy Development Clinic
  • The Healthy Development (HD) Clinic is a community-engaged, multidisciplinary clinic that will offer values-based, culturally sustaining, and trauma-informed care to children, youth, and families. The goal of the HD Clinic is to maximize the developmental, behavioral, and familial wellness of those served while providing interprofessional training to future professionals. This clinic is an active collaboration between SJSU’s Child and Adolescent Development, Speech-Language Pathology, and Psychology programs. For more information, please contact Dr. Cara Maffini at cara.maffini@sjsu.edu.

• Interprofessional Education Project
  • The Interprofessional Education Project group (Jason Laker (Counselor Education), Rebeca Burciaga (Educational Leadership); and Collette Rabin, Grinell Smith, and Lara Kassab (Teacher Education)), will be developing two interdisciplinary education courses to be offered College-wide. One will focus on socio-cultural foundations of education, and the other will introduce students to Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR), possibly in collaboration with a local School District or other educational or community organization. We will be consulting with faculty across the College to identify representative content, apprehend interest and support among our colleagues, and determine the elements needed for one or both courses to “count” toward various degree and credential programs. For more information, please contact Dr. Jason Laker at jlaker.sjsu@gmail.com.

• Interprofessional Summit
  • The interprofessional summit looks to create a collaborative learning opportunity for candidates in the departments of Communication Disorders and Sciences and Special Education. The goal of the summit is to connect students with current professionals in their fields and support the connections of theory and professional practice when it comes to working collaboratively. It is our hope that this summit can be a spark for our candidates in becoming agents of change for inclusion through interdisciplinary collaboration.  For more information, contact Dr. Matthew Love at matthew.love@sjsu.edu.