Alianza for Equity

Mission Statement

The mission of Alianza for Equity is to offer a visible presence and united voice for Latino/a/x faculty, staff, students, and their allies, to critically examine and proactively address pressing equity issues facing our campus and surrounding community. We advocate for policies and practices that promote the recruitment, success, retention and graduation of Latino/a/x students at Sonoma State. We engage in leadership and action on issues that promote educational and social justice. Finding strength in solidarity and partnership, we embrace diversity and seek institutional transformation that will strengthen SSU as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). 

Core Values

• We believe that our campus must equitably represent the racial/ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity of our community, local service area, and state.
• We believe that our campus must proactively recruit, retain and support Latino/a/x faculty, staff, and students.
• We believe that SSU, as an HSI, must create a nurturing community, physical spaces and welcoming opportunities for all of our Latino/a/x students, faculty and staff--regardless of background--to feel safe, included, supported, successful, and comfortable being themselves.
• We believe that all our Latino/a/x students, faculty and staff have voices that are vital to the academic excellence of SSU and will contribute to addressing and solving the issues impacting our campus and larger communities.
• We believe that the academic and future professional achievement of our diverse Latino/a/x student body is a symbol and a metric of our success as a university.

Vision

Our vision for Alianza for Equity is to:

• create a broad and diverse faculty and staff base at SSU that includes Latino/a/x and allies who have life experiences and professional expertise specific to the challenges that our Latino/a/x students must overcome to be successful in college;
• prioritize a sustained and intentional effort at all institutional levels to recruit, hire and retain a diverse faculty and staff base at SSU who equitably represents our SSU student body;
• assist our Latino/a/x students in increasing their retention and graduation rates, while decreasing academic probation rates in support of the CSU Graduation Initiative 2025;
• collaborate with other groups and constituencies in pursuit of shared advocacy goals and student learning activism.

Strategic Priorities

Our strategic priorities are to:

• partner with other HSI institutions to promote leadership, programming, events, and related support and services for students.
• advocate for the continued support of the SSU DREAM Center and La Raza Graduation.
• support the recruitment, hiring and promotion of more Latino/a/x faculty and staff on campus to serve this growing population of students, to help bridge the large gap between the number of Latino/a/x faculty within the CSU system by percentage (10.5%) and the Latino/a/x student population by percentage of the total CSU student body (38%).
• collaborate with our university administrators and our local community college administrators to develop policies that will advance the recruitment, retention and graduation of Latino/a/x students.
• collaborate with our local service area community colleges and school districts to identify best transitional practices for these students to Sonoma State.
• engage in program-specific and campus-wide curricular and instructional initiatives that directly and positively impact the quality of educational experience for our Latino/a/x students.
• support and promote a wide range of campus events that showcase the achievements of and opportunities for Latino/a/x students, faculty and staff within and beyond SSU, such as lectures, conferences, and workshops.
• nurture connections with campus and community cultural and professional resources to inspire conversation, creativity, leadership, lifelong learning, networking, and community involvement.