For Nazeerah Rashad, Black Academy being for African, Black, Caribbean-identifying (ABC) students is what made it unique from other campus programming.
Rashad was a 2021 mentee, 2022 mentor and 2023-2024 program coordinator for Black Academy, one of the seven Extended Orientation Programs (EOPs) offered over the summer for the past ten years at UC Santa Cruz.
Now, all seven programs are being combined into one: Inspiring Growth, Nurturing Innovation, and Transforming Education (IGNITE).
“[We] had a program that was specifically for us, and the programming was by people that looked like us and understood what we were going through and shared the same sentiment when it came to the university. That’s what really made it special,” Rashad said.
These summer programs help guide freshman and first-year transfer students in their transition to the university. They pair participants with mentors who share similar interests and can guide them to resources they may need, leading them to spaces where they can find community.
All seven original groups had cohorts focused on supporting specific underrepresented groups. Now, according to the IGNITE website, they have been combined in an effort to “be a stronger resource for students.”
The original EOPs included:
- Black Academy, which supported African, Black, and Caribbean (ABC) students.
- 540% Slug Extended Orientation Program, which supported undocumented students.
- Native Student Orientation, which supported Indigenous and Native students
- Working to Achieve Valuable Experiences for Successful Scholars, which supported incoming admitted Resilient and Underground Scholars. Resilient Scholars include foster youth, formerly incarcerated students, students who have experienced houselessness before 18 and students with independent status. Underground Scholars include students who are affected negatively in some capacity by the incarceration and/or deportation of a parent or guardian.
- Services for Transfer Re-Entry and Resilient Scholars Summer Transition Program, which supported incoming transfer students connected through the Community College Partnership Program.
- Bridge to Success, which supported Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) and South West Asian and North African (SWANA) students.
- Early Opportunity Program Summer Bridge, which supported first-generation students who may come from low-income backgrounds and under-resourced high schools.
Will IGNITE Help or Hurt?
In the past, students applied to and attended each EOP separately. These programs included events such as guest speakers, mental health advice and advocacy, one-on-one time with mentors and thorough rundowns of the campus and its resources.
Since the programs are now morphing into one under IGNITE, any participants in the program can pick and choose what workshops and presentations they want to attend, regardless of background.
Lenora Willis, the executive director for African, Black and Caribbean student success, explained that the program will be structured like a large conference, with a range of activities that students can select based on their “lived experiences and areas of interest.”
“We want to offer students the opportunity to choose their own adventure,” wrote Willis to City on a Hill Press via email. “We’ll be intentional about scheduling, ensuring that sessions with overlapping themes, such as financial literacy, run concurrently and that specialized affinity spaces don’t compete with one another or with sessions that include essential information for all participants.”
Serena Campbell, a previous Black Academy program coordinator, said during her time at the university, there were plans to combine some EOPs to avoid students being limited to only one cohort. However, it did not fully come to fruition.
“We had quite a bit of students that were like, ‘I want to be a part of Black Academy, but I’m also in this EOP [Early Opportunity Program] Summer Bridge, so how do I do both?’ and it’s not really possible to do both at the same time,” she explained.
Although she sees the positives in combining these programs, she acknowledged that it could also diminish the sense of community that the previous system offered.
“I think it’s a great thing that the same students are still eligible [for the program], but I think it does lose a little bit of that intimacy …. If it combines everything, I think there is a bit of a loss for the Black community at Santa Cruz,” Campbell said. “How does [IGNITE] allow Black community to form in a way that is meaningful and impactful to students, and shows them there are people in their corner on campus?”
Are Federal Level Attacks a Factor?
Nazeerah Rashad speculated that the Trump administration’s attacks on DEI initiatives could have something to do with this change.
At the bottom of the IGNITE website’s homepage, a statement reads: “This program is open to all students consistent with state and federal law.”
Recently, statements of inclusivity like these have appeared on various UCSC organizations’ websites, such as the Afghan Student Association’ webpage. Certain ethnic organizations have even been asked by university administration to change their organization statements to comply with the law. This request is being justified and mandated by Proposition 209, the statewide DEI mandate that was passed as a constitutional amendment in 1996.
Despite the enforcement of these DEI regulations, as well as the merging of these programs, Rashad emphasized that IGNITE must keep its purpose intact as an EOP, and that culturally relevant programming should not be dismantled.
“The attack on DEI makes it so that we don’t emphasize the importance of culturally relevant programming,” she said. “That shouldn’t be taken away from IGNITE when all these programs merge together, because that’s what really cultivates these relationships and allows students to connect and build friendships that last for the rest of the four years or two years that they’re here.”
A Tight Budget
Although this change is coming as many other DEI-related programs are facing attacks, the campus’ ongoing budget deficit was also a factor in the decision to create IGNITE.
The existing budgets for the previous programs were funded by the university. Although the programs differed in the amount of mentees and mentors, Black Academy and the Educational Opportunity Program Summer Bridge — just two of the seven spaces — each had around 100 participants last summer, including mentors.
Scott Hernandez-Jason, assistant vice chancellor of communications and marketing, confirmed that 50 mentors will be hired for IGNITE this summer. However, at a May 14 information session, Lenora Willis revealed that this year, IGNITE may only have the budget for 250 to 400 participants in total.
She said that funding was a strong motivator for the combination of the programs into IGNITE.
“While the Division of Student Affairs and Success is navigating this UC-wide budget impact, DSAS and Student Success and Equity have committed to this program in our fiscal planning for years to come,” Willis told City on a Hill Press via email, although she did not include specifics of the new program’s finances. “Because the majority of this program takes place during the summer and falls within the next fiscal year, the confirmed budget will be shared once we have a clearer understanding of the overall fiscal outlook.”
These funding changes are coming amidst a $111 million structural budget deficit UCSC has been facing since the spring of last year. As of February, the deficit is on track to go down to $81 million due to campus-wide budget cuts and hiring freezes, but projected to continue for at least three more fiscal years.
Within the Quarter 3 Projection Report Overview for the campus budget, the university did not specify which programs they had cut or taken funds from in order to compensate for the deficit.
“I think that the university doesn’t want to create more room for more programs to do stuff that’s student-facing and student-supporting because we are in a budget deficit, and the people that are gonna get the brunt of that are students and staff and faculty — it’s not administration,” Nazeerah Rashad said.
In hopes of gathering enough funds to accommodate the maximum number of participants, IGNITE participated in UCSC’s Giving Day in November and applied for funding through the Student Fee Advisory Committee. According to the Giving Day website, IGNITE received one donation for a total of $5.
Rashad was not surprised to hear about the combination of the cohorts into IGNITE when budget was included as a factor.
“Wherever the administration can find to sell students short, that’s where they’ll cut people off at, because this is an institution, and they’re thinking about things in a business-minded, business model type of way,” she said.
