Hillary Skillings
Template:TOCnestleft Hillary G. Skillings CADD Specialist, Bridge Division at Oklahoma Dept of Transportation.
"Justice and Hope"
Steven Phillips wrote Justice and Hope: Past Reflections and Future Visions of the Stanford Black Student Union 1967-1989, in 1990.
- Writing Justice and Hope has been a humbling and daunting exercise. Many, many people helped, and this is indeed a collective work. I am grateful to the many Black faculty and staff members who provided valuable advice, support and direction: James L. Gibbs, St. Clair Drake, Kennell Jackson, Clay Carson, Keith Archuleta, Michael Jackson, Michael Britt, Dandre Desandies, Hank Organ, and Rachel Bagby.
- I also made extensive use of the Stanford Libraries. At the various stages of production, a whole host of peeple contributed. I hope I don't leave anybody out, but here goes. My thanks go out to the following people: Lisa Fitts, Audrey Jawando, Bacardi Jackson, and Drew Dixon helped give shape to Justice and Hope when it was still a vague and unformed idea. Toni Long demonstrated for me the true power of PageMaker. David Porter clarified important facts and provided historical information. Frederick Sparks helped with fundraising and monitoring the budget. Lyzettc Settle added critical comments and an extremely thorough and detailed revision of the text. Danzy Senna, Joy St. John, Stacey Leyton, Raoul Mowatt, Valerie Mih, Hillary Skillings, Judy Wu, Quynh Tran, and Cheryl Taylor meticulously proofread the final drafts. Elsa Tsutaoka gave advice on design, layout and cutting photos. MEChA loaned us its layout equipment The staff in the ASSU Business Office always cheerfully facilitated financial transactions and questions.[1]
COPE
To some students, recent events at Stanford (1989) serve as reminders that nationwide institutional racism exists, and that few people seem prepared to acknowledge or confront failings at the educational level. In light of the October defacement of posters at Ujamaa House and last year's Western Culture debate, the newly-formed ASSU Committee on Democracy in Education has spearheaded efforts to address issues of educational rights on campus. The question of democracy in education has long been a concern of students of color organizations. Last year, this question prompted the formation of the Students United for a Democratic Education which, under this year's Council of Presidents, has evolved into the Committee on Democracy in Education, an ASSU special task-force committee devoted solely to educational concerns. Issues addressed by the committee this year include the need for better recruitment and retention of minority students and the demand for a relevant multi-cultural curriculum. The group is also working toward fairer systems of tenure and financial aid. The committee was established, according to co-chair Kathleen Coll, to "make education more relevant to a changing society."
Since it was formed in September, the committee's membership has grown to nearly 40 students. To increase efficiency, the committee late last quarter split into two smaller work groups, one dedicated to the promotion of ethnic studies, the other designed to address student concerns about recent teaching assistant budget cuts. As their first project, the ethnic studies sub-committee coordinated a series of cross-campus dorm discussions to facilitate dialogues on racism and its links to education. Sophomore Hillary Skillings, co-chair of the ethnic studies group, said organized dorm discussions often help students "talk about the fear of talking," providing a peaceful atmosphere through which individuals can air issues they may have previously found uncomfortable to confront.
The TA sub-committee, led by juniors David Brown, a COP member, and Katherine Van Uum, has begun an investigation into the effects of recent TA budget cutbacks in the School of Humanities and Sciences. According to Brown, the cuts have left many students fearful that the general quality of education might suffer. In meeting with department chairs, the group has found that more often than not, budget cuts translate into fewer and larger class discussion sections, with fewer TAs readily available to aid students, Brown said.[2]
Unity
In 1992 production staff for Unity, newspaper of the Unity Organizing Committee included Bruce Akizuki, Easter Bonnifield, Joanne Cosenza, Michael Green, Cindi Kim, Gary Kozono, Paul Lew, Kristin Prentice, Hillary Skillings, Judy Sowell, Leon Sun, Marlene Tonai.