California Community Colleges
Racial Equity Leadership Alliance:
SMC Membership
About the Alliance
The USC Race and Equity Center collaborates with institutions across the nation to empower faculty and staff members to strategically develop and achieve equity goals through climate studies, high quality learning experiences, substantive partnerships and workshops built to improve racial literacy on campuses.
One of the key programs that the USC Race and Equity Center has created is the California Community Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance. The Alliance unites community colleges across the state of California for high-quality professional learning experiences on an array of topics pertaining to racial equity. Administrators, faculty, and staff across member colleges access a digital repository of useful tools and resources, as well as engage with colleagues beyond their individual campuses through a dynamic virtual community of practice.
SMC has now entered into year two of the alliance, and we invite all employees to explore the resources and ways to engage in 2022 and beyond.
Sign Up to Attend one of the 2022 Live eConvenings
SMC has renewed our membership for year 2, and we are recruiting for attendees to join each monthly, virtual "eConvening" session on behalf of SMC! This professional learning series is for full-time and part-time employees at Alliance member institutions. Each month, nationally renowned equity experts will offer a highly-engaging live session via Zoom on a different racial equity topic. Useful tools and practical strategies will be provided in every synchronous three-hour experience. For the time being, USC has lifted the cap on attendance for each session and registration is open to all SMC employees (Full-time, Part-time, Faculty, Classified, and Administrators).
If you are not available to attend the live sessions, included with SMC's membership for year 2 is access for ALL SMC employees to USC's Equity Connect Portal. In this portal, you will find all the resources and recordings from the Alliance eConvening sessions, plus events, groups, forums, and ways to connect with colleagues from other colleges.
View the PDF Flyer for the Year 2 eConvening Series
NEXT: Equity-Minded Budgeting and Equitable Resource Allocation
Wednesday, January 18 | 9am-12pm PST
Register Here
Clarifying Legal Parameters in an Anti-Affirmative Action Context
Tuesday, February 14 | 9am-12pm PST
Communicating Progress on Racial Equity Goals and Commitments
Thursday, March 2 | 9am-12pm PST
NOTE: If you are selected to attend a session on behalf of SMC, please expect to join a group debrief session at a later date to discuss the Alliance as a whole and how we can utilize the tools and practices to further SMC's growth as an equity-centered institution. You may be asked to present in a group event or panel to share out what was learned from the series.
Set up your SMC Equity Connect Portal Account
Included with SMC's membership for year 2 is access for ALL SMC employees to USC's Equity Connect Portal (regardless if you attend a live eConvening or not). In this portal, you will find all the resources and recordings from the Alliance eConvening sessions, plus events, groups, forums, and ways to connect with colleagues from other colleges.
Below is the registration link for SMC and instructions for setting up an account for the portal. Any employee with an email domain that ends in @smc.edu can now register for the portal using the link below. Note that employees must use an email address that ends in @smc.edu.
Instructions for registering your account for the USC Equity Connect Portal:
- Open the registration link for SMC:
SMC's USC Equity Connect Portal Registration - Enter information requested and create a password for your account. Please use your SMC email address when registering (this will provide you access).
- You will receive an email validation request upon registration. Please click “validate email” from the message in your email within 24 hours of receiving this email confirmation.
- IF YOU DO NOT RECEIVE THE VALIDATION EMAIL, please check your SMC Barracuda Email Protection Quarantine. If you find the validation email there in your message log, select it and click "allow list" and "deliver". It should show up in your email inbox momentarily.
- Once you receive the email and you click “validate email” from within it, an email validation screen will appear. You will be redirected to the log in screen shortly after.
- Enter your credentials for log-in (only works if you have validated your email).
- The user log in site for employees will be here (after you create and register for
an account):
Login to the USC Equity Connect Portal
Please let us know if you have any questions or issues!
epi@smc.edu
Access SMC's Archived files and sessions from 2021
SMC Employees can access a SharePoint folder with all of the resources and recordings of the sessions from year 1 of the Alliance to view or download.