Colorado Mountain College
PA-5: Diversity and Equity Coordination

Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives for CMC: Yesenia Silva Estrada has held various roles including leading TRIO Student Support Services. She is a passionate, visionary, and strategic leader focused on the collaboration for higher education access and success for all communities.

Learning, Technology, Access, and Equity Administrator: As part of the learning design team within Academic Support, this position is responsible for evaluating and improving the accessibility of online course material, contributing to the planning and delivery of instructor development training around accessibility, and supporting college efforts related to Eportfolios and instructional accessibility within the Learning Management System (LMS/Canvas). With a focus on Universal Design and accessibility compliance, this position actively promotes and supports instruction in various modalities by providing training and resources, as well as works in collaboration with other team members within Academic Support. This role also promotes intra-college communications with faculty and staff, collaborates with all campuses and locations, and supports all faculty including those faculty who primarily teach concurrent enrollment courses at high schools throughout the college’s footprint through the use of CMC’s LMS.

Diversity is a core value at CMC. CMC is a Hispanic Serving Institution, and this designation also works to foster language access and language diversity for multilingual learners. CMC is passionate about building and sustaining inclusive and equitable working and learning environments for all students, staff, and faculty. The college believes every member on our team enriches our diversity by exposing us to a broad range of ways to understand and engage with the world, identify challenges, and to discover, design and deliver solutions.

Colorado Mountain College (CMC) requires students in the Associate of Arts, Associate of Science, Associate of General Studies, Bachelor of Arts, and Bachelor of Science degree programs to complete one course designated as a “cultural competency course”. The intention of this requirement is to emphasize the development of critical thinking, analytical skills, and intercultural communication necessary for living in a diverse society. By satisfying this requirement, students will study race, class, gender, ethnicity, disability, age, sexuality, nationality, and religion in the context of power, privilege, and marginalization. Equity and inclusion are pillars of the College, and it is expected that all CMC students recognize and understand multiple cultural frameworks, values, and norms.

Student Affairs sponsors much excellent programing across campuses that is related to reducing gender-based and other forms of discrimination/oppression/violence. These sessions are widely attended by students, faculty, and staff.

All employees are required to complete specific trainings: Title IX (related to sexual misconduct and sex-based discrimination), anti-harassment, and social inclusion.

DEI initiatives and trainings for CMC faculty and staff have also been prominent for several years at required, annual, college-wide employee in-service events and across CMC's individual campuses that each also require in-service attendance for employees at least once per year. Multiple sessions have been offered at these events on many subjects.