Patience Bryant, director of Black/African American equity, was appointed Interim Deputy Diversity Officer for the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at San Jose State last week.
Bryant will also continue in her role as director of Black/African American equity which she assumed in December 2020.
“It has been a great opportunity to get to know the campus, campus partners, community partners in the two years I've been in the role,” Bryant said. “Stepping into this role allows me to make sure that important conversations are not being left out of the cabinet or the president’s office.”
Bryant, who received her doctorate degree in conflict analysis and resolution, said her love for transformative and restorative justice led her to working in student conduct.
Bryant worked in student conduct at the University of Mississippi, Texas A&M University-Commerce and California State University Long Beach.
During her tenure at Long Beach State, the restorative justice program, Welcoming Accountable Voices in Education, was created.
Bryant said restorative justice is when someone causes harm and wants to repair the harm they caused.
“[Restorative justice] is a community involvement. So if you are harmed by me, that means that I will have to listen to you,” Bryant said. “We will say ‘what do you need to fix this? What do you need for repair?’ ”
Bryant said working as a Black woman in restorative justice has helped her understand why people do the things they do.
“Knowing why someone did something helps us say ‘how we can educate the person so it doesn't happen again,’ ” Bryant said. “That's part of the research I love, restorative justice it restores, it fixes, part of restorative justice is repairing.”
Travis Tamasese, deputy chief of staff at SJSU, worked with Bryant at Long Beach State.
Tamasese said at the time, he worked as chief of staff in the Division of Student Affairs at Long Beach State, he was in charge of hiring someone as the director of student conduct and ethical development.
“She had already, even at that point, had done a lot of work around bringing restorative justice to the student conduct process,” Tamasese said. “One of the things that really stood out about her was that her education and her work experience really blended well together when we’re thinking about restorative justice, serving students and particularly with a focus on student identity groups, like students of color.”
Tamasese said Bryant created a division-wide department equity audit process that allowed department’s to look at all of their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
He said he is excited to see what Bryant will bring to the campus.
“She brings such a great skill set and knowledge base to really serve our campus, and also not just our campus but our campus community as well,” Tamasese said.
Bryant said she wants students, faculty and staff to see the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as a resource for consultations and education.
She said their office requires every manager on campus to do microaggression training. The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion has onboarding programs for students and faculty.
“As a continued goal we want people to see us as a resource,” Bryant said. “So we know for a while people kind of thought of us only for faculty staff, but we're here for students as well and we want to make sure students know where we exist.”
Kathleen Wong, the former SJSU chief diversity officer who hired Bryant, said when she was looking at the top candidates, she could see the potential in what Bryant could bring to the campus.
“I would say that in her role as a student conduct officer she worked directly with a lot of students sometimes during their most difficult times,” Wong said. “So it was important for whoever we hired to really have a very strong equity framework and a very strong understanding of systemic issues.”
She said Bryant has spent two years as a member of the Professional Standards Committee, one of the working committees of the Academic Senate. Wong said she, along with other members of upper administration, advocated for Bryant to take the interim position after Wong left.
“She has credibility in a lot of different parts of the university,” Wong said. “I think people welcome her leadership because of her credibility and the hard work that she's put in.”
