Click here for more information.
Click here for more information.
Mission
Umoja, (a Kiswahili word meaning unity) is a community and critical resource dedicated to enhancing the cultural and educational experiences of African American and other students. We believe that when the voices and histories of students are deliberately and intentionally recognized, the opportunity for self-efficacy emerges and a foundation is formed for academic success. Umoja actively serves and promotes student success for all students through a curriculum and pedagogy responsive to the legacy of the African and African American Diasporas.
Organizing Principles
Our community:
- shares a name with a core set of pedagogies and promising practices;
- supports the academic success of all students;
- supports the persistence and retention of all students toward defined
- educational goals: transfer, certificate, associate degree;
- integrates both instructional and student services;
- integrates direct instruction of information and technology literacy;
- integrates sound assessment strategies and a set of core benchmark measures;
- includes recruitment and regular training of students, staff and faculty through seminars, conferences, and other professional development;
- facilitates the sharing of resources: financial, curriculum, methodologies, pedagogies;
- commits to collaborating with campuses at a local level so that there is integration of the core Umoja Community with the particular college mission goals, strategic plan and student equity efforts.
Educational Philosophy
Umoja is a community of educators and learners committed to the academic success, personal growth and self-actualization of African American and other students. The Umoja Community seeks to educate the whole student–body, mind and spirit. Informed by an ethic of love and its vital power, the Umoja Community will deliberately engage students as full participants in the construction of knowledge and critical thought.
The Umoja Community seeks to help students experience themselves as valuable and worthy of an education. The Umoja Community gains meaning through its connection to the African Diaspora. African and African American intellectual, cultural, and spiritual gifts inform Umoja Community values and practices. The Umoja Community seeks to nurture knowledge of and pride in these treasures. The learning experience within the Umoja Community will provide each individual the opportunity to add their voice and their story to the collective voices and stories of the African Diaspora.
African American students are inextricably connected to global struggles for liberation throughout the African Diaspora. In light of this, the Umoja Community views education as a liberatory act designed to empower all students to critique, engage, and transform deleterious social and institutional practices locally and globally. The Umoja Community will practice and foster civic engagement so that all its participants integrate learning and service. Likewise, the Umoja Community will instill in our students the knowledge and skills necessary to enable them to make positive differences in their lives and the lives of others.
Core Requirements
Colleges wishing to launch a new program or affiliate an existing program focused on the retention and academic success of African American students based on the model established by the Umoja Community of California Community Colleges, are expected to adhere to…more
Umoja Community Song
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Copyright 2008 Terence Elliott and Kendall Gums