In 2013, Chancellor Khosla created the Chancellor’s Associates Students Program to assist the success of native, high-achieving college students with monetary want who come from companion excessive faculties and neighborhood faculties or are enrolled members of federally acknowledged tribes.
Advancing analysis via an Indigenous lens
Exterior of the classroom, UC San Diego school researchers have been participating Indigenous students in the neighborhood. The work is led by the college’s Indigenous Futures Institute (IFI), co-directed by Assistant Professor of Schooling Research Theresa Ambo (Tongva/Luiseño) and Assistant Professor of Anthropology Keolu Fox (Kānaka Maoli). Each got here to UC San Diego via the President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. By way of a cluster rent funded by the College of California’s Advancing School Range program, IFI will welcome extra students to its various cohort of Indigenous school targeted on designing simply futures.
“We earnestly work to position Indigenous Peoples within the driver seat of analysis initiatives,” mentioned Ambo. “We additionally advocate for Indigenous communities within the analysis partnerships and supply academic packages for the campus neighborhood.”
At the moment, IFI is supporting a community-driven mission titled, “Unmapping UC Motkoolahooee,” which examines the historical past and cultural significance of present-day La Jolla via the gathering of archival analysis and oral histories from members of the Kumeyaay Nation. The mission received a giant enhance with a current $400,000 grant from the Lumina Basis’s Racial Justice and Fairness Fund. The grant can even assist different forthcoming IFI initiatives that may spotlight the work of Indigenous students in the neighborhood. A few of these embody an elective course at present titled, “Colonialism, Campuses, and the Kumeyaay Nation” that might be launched within the Spring of 2023 and plans for a campus exhibit about Motkoolahooee.
By selling partnerships with Kumeyaay students and supporting school variety, Chancellor Khosla has made a long-term dedication to honor the Native American and Indigenous communities at UC San Diego and the encircling space. These neighborhood partnerships embody the creation of the Chancellor’s Associates Scholarship Program (CASP, which is able to have fun its 10-year anniversary in 2023.
These efforts are important to constructing an equitable college the place people from all cultures, backgrounds and identities can discover a sense of belonging. Because the ITRC’s Pupil Assistant Melanie Estrella defined, “Rising up, I didn’t have a tribal neighborhood…Coming right here, I’ve discovered a house away from dwelling.”
