5/15/20 Meeting w/the University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins and Provost Liesl Folks -

The meeting was held on 5.15.20 via Zoom. Timeline written by Felise Tagaban
1) In November 2019, The University of Arizona President personally assured Amanda Cheromiah and I (and our Native community) that he would see to it that our program, Native SOAR, would receive institutional support;
2) He then deferred his commitment to his Senior Leadership Team (first Jon Dudas, then Celina Ramirez, then Provost Folks) and after SEVEN months of meetings, the Provost met with Mandy and I to review our proposal. In revealing her decision, she insulted us (see video);
3) After we asked for a follow-up meeting to address her conduct, her team scheduled a meeting on THE DAY OF COMMENCEMENT (for a whole 30 mins). We shared our concerns directly w Robbins & Folks, forgave them and asked for a response to our recommendations.
4) They did not respond and 11 days after commencement, the Provost told our UArizona Student Affairs colleagues (in a town hall) that they were “establishing [Native SOAR] as an institutional priority" with "professional staffing” with the hope to sustain us for “many years to come.” The truth: the Provost maintained her original decision to provide ONE .5 FTE position. In other words, she misrepresented the support and quickly returned to a deficit narrative about Native American students/communities.
5) Since then, no one from Senior Leadership has reached out to us (or our communities).