Somos SJSU Framework

Somos (“We Are”) SJSU is a vision for being an HSI campus that is specific to San José State University. It is based on the fact that SJSU is home to many Chicanx, Latinx and Hispanic people, including our students, our faculty and staff, our leadership, and the larger community that surrounds our campus. The highlights below are drawn from the full text of the framework:

Somos SJSU is built on the growing understanding of the experiences, strengths, and needs of the Chicanx/Latinx students, families, and communities that we serve with a recognition of the powerful ways in which students’ campus and home lives are intertwined and inform each other. In serving the Chicanx/Latinx community, SJSU HSI projects (and all projects that serve students, families and communities) must:

1. Be grounded in a recognition of the prevalent deficit thinking that is used in the schooling of BIPOC communities.
   
   
2. Explicitly take an assets-based approach to working with Chicanx/Latinx and all students.
   
   
3. Provide culturally-sustaining, academically-affirming approaches to supporting and engaging Chicanx/Latinx students.
   
   
4. Foster Chicanx/Latinx students’ well-being and success in ways that go beyond retention and graduation to align with the values, interests and needs of their families and communities. 
   
   
5. Build the leadership capacity of students (using, adapting, and owning theoretical and research-based concepts and tools), as well as faculty and staff, to recognize and address inequities.

In addition, SJSU HSI projects should reflect the following six core Somos values that are shared across diverse Latinx cultures:Concern for students’ holistic well-being and development rather than a singular focus on academics.

Mutual trust embedded within patterns and expectations of sustained relations within a social network, making students’ cultures part of the institution’s own material culture and to promote student voices.

Iterative and dialogic understanding of others to gain subjective, experiential, and collective knowledge, understanding students as more than objects of academic support.

Identify and address the institutional factors that result in inequitable outcomes for students, staff and faculty who are historically underrepresented within the academy.  This is centered in a political consciousness that interrogates and opposes racist, nativist, and other oppressive forces.

Ensure that programs disrupt an emphasis on individualistic gains and instead situate individual successes in a broader community context that represents collective wellbeing and integration.

Develop meaningful, long-term and mutually reinforcing partnerships across campus and in the community to offer students, staff, and faculty a strong and long-term network of resources and support as they work together to transform the institution, as well as K-12 schools and community colleges.