Significance

The Matrix Center for the Advancement of Social Equity and Inclusion addresses key areas of diversity including recruitment, retention, community outreach, diversifying the curriculum, etc. The mission of The Matrix Center is to foster an intellectual climate that supports inclusion and collaboration to examine the intersections of oppression and privilege and promote solutions to inequality. The Matrix Center advances research, curriculum, and faculty development examining the dynamics of oppression and privilege in the United States and around the globe. Our central focus is on the intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality as they interact with each other and with other dimensions of inequality. We strive to foster an intellectual climate that supports inclusion and collaboration among our faculty, students, and the community.

We are committed to eliminating barriers between academia and the broader community. We are fortunate to have many stellar, nationally known scholars at UCCS, whose cutting edge research engages issues of race, gender, GLBT, and disability. In addition, The Matrix Center has gained a national reputation as a leader in the field of intersectional studies (examining the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality) and Matrix programs are attended by activists and academics from around the country. The Matrix Center provides a bridge between our scholars and the community. The core faculty affiliated with The Matrix Center conduct research and teach about diversity, inclusion and inequality because we are committed to creating change. We seek to dispel the myth of the University as an Ivory Tower, and bring that research and teaching to bear upon the specific issues and needs of our community.

 

The Matrix Center is actively bridging the gap between the university and diverse communities through our free public programming, and our community advisory board. A central goal of the Matrix Center is to leverage the existing resources of the University and make these resources accessible to the broader community. We believe that issues of equity and inclusion benefit all citizens, and working to create a more inclusive local community will improve life for everyone. We also seek to very directly serve local organizations, by providing speakers, workshop facilitators, etc. around issues of  equity and inclusion.  Our affiliated staff and faculty lead diversity workshops around the country and for many academic professional organizations, and provide an excellent resource for the local community. We study real-world problems, and contribute to advancing real solutions. The piece that has been missing for far too long is the mechanism for connecting that research and education with the Colorado Springs and Colorado community. The Matrix Center provides such a mechanism.

 

 

History

The Matrix Center was officially founded in May 2005, but evolved out of the existing, inactive, Center for Women’s Studies, at UCCS. A wide-ranging group of faculty from departments across the campus that had been affiliated with our Women’s Studies or Ethnic Studies Programs, sought to revitalize the center. The participants also sought to expand its focus to address wider issues of equality beyond gender, to better represent the board vision of diversity at CU. After months of planning, the Center for Women’s Studies was officially changed to The Matrix Center for the Advancement of Social Equity and Inclusion, a new mission, vision, and set of goals were developed, and a new structure consisting of a Director and a Community Advisory Board was created. Many faculty and staff members at UCCS are involved in the activities of the Matrix Center, and have contributed over the past three years to building a vibrant, energized, innovative community on campus committed to advancing inclusion and equality.

We work with a variety of local organizations throughout the year to advance the goal of inclusion. Over the past three years, we have built relationships with Colorado Unity, Everyday Democracy, TESSA, Inside Out, Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival, NAACP, American Association of University Women, Citizen’s Project, The Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado, The Gill Foundation, and more. We have co-sponsored events with these organizations, have invited representatives to sit on our Community Advisory Board, and have created a community listserv to bring these organizations to campus to participate in our educational outreach activities (described below). In this way we directly engage a wide range of people from diverse organizations and backgrounds.

Programs

The Matrix Center’s current programming includes:

 

  1. Collaboration with the Women’s and Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS. We have provided support for these programs as they have worked over many years to build support on campus for an academic major. 
  2. Curricular transformation: providing resources, expertise, support and networking for faculty focusing on Race/Gender/Class/GLBT issues in their courses. We have developed the nationally renowned Knapsack Institute: Transforming the Curriculum, a summer institute for faculty at UCCS as well as across the nation as they create or revise courses advancing this goal of inclusion. The Knapsack Institute has demonstrably changed the curriculum on our campus. Over 50 UCCS faculty members have attended the KI over the past 7 years, from disciplines as diverse as sociology, nursing, special education, psychology, math, and engineering. As a result, a range of new courses have been created and taught, including Black Feminist Thought, Race and Shakespeare, and Introduction to Race and Gender, and considerations of diversity have been incorporated into a range of existing courses in all disciplines. The KI focuses not only on curriculum content, but pedagogy, addressing methods for creating inclusive classrooms.
  3. The White Privilege Conference: The Matrix Center is now the institutional home of this national, award winning diversity conference committed to facilitating difficult discussions around issues of privilege and oppression.  The Matrix Center brought the conference to Colorado Springs in 2006, and attracted over 1000 attendees.  The conference now rotates around the country to a different city each year. Please visit the WPC website to see the variety of workshops, institutes and keynotes offered: www.uccs.edu/wpc.
  4. The Center sponsors a range of extra-curricular programming, including workshops, a film series, and visiting speakers. We have institutionalized the White Privilege Lectureship at UCCS, an annual presentation by a visiting scholar who is speaking at the WPC.
  5. Interfaces between academic courses and the public. Spring 2008, the matrix center sponsored a public series coordinated with a special course: “Katrina: Nation at a Crossroad.” This series features local and visiting specialists, representing a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, as well as individuals who were either directly impacted by the hurricane or took part in the post-Katrina relief effort. All lectures and presentations are being made open to the public, free of charge, including: Read in with Dr. Gregory Squires, George Washington University; co-editor of There is No such Thing as a Natural Disaster, March 18, Kraemer Family Library; the Katrina Through the Eyes of Children exhibit will be displayed at the front of Kraemer Family Library throughout the month of April. 
  6. The Center encourages community outreach programming partnerships that include serving as a community partner with the Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival; and developing an annual symposium, The Woman to Woman Dialogue Series, with the local American Association of University Women branch. We also support k-12 outreach programs such as the Smart-Girl Program for middle-school girls.