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SF State Program Promotes Diversity in the Sciences

Published

11 years ago

July 21, 2015

Courtesy of SF State Media

Throughout her career, Tendai Chitewere has, as an African-American woman, felt unfairly judged and unwelcome in certain situations.

“I’m often, even today, in places where people assume I don’t belong or I can’t do certain basic things that my peers are automatically assumed to be competent in,” said Chitewere, an associate professor of geography and environment at SF State. “You work on developing a thick skin, but it does affect you, and it accumulates.”

Now Chitewere is helping a new generation of students overcome this challenge.

This summer, 11 SF State undergraduates are participating in intense training labs as part of SF BUILD (“Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity”). Funded by a $17.04 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the program aims to enhance diversity in biomedical research fields.

Over the summer, the students are participating in three SF State labs covering different aspects of community-based research, followed by four weeks of clinical research training at University of California, San Francisco. For the next two years of their academic career, the students will work closely with a faculty member on a research project with a local connection that is personally relevant to them.

“The idea is to get involved in a project as meaningful contributors and end up with a publication or presenting at a conference,” said Associate Professor of Chemistry Teaster Baird, one of the scholars’ faculty mentors. “Having that experience is going to be key to getting into grad school in the first place, and then once they get there, they’ll have that higher level of confidence in their research because they will have done it before.”

SF BUILD also seeks to reduce susceptibility to “stereotype threat,” which occurs when prejudices negatively affect an individual’s performance, such as a woman underperforming in an all-male lab setting due both to her colleague’s perceptions of her and her own internalized stereotypes about women in science.

“Stereotype threat can discourage us from pursuing our goals, can make us doubt our abilities and make it hard for us to reach our full potential,” Chitewere said. “Addressing stereotype threat can help us free ourselves to focus on our strengths.”

In addition, SF BUILD leaders will investigate student and faculty perceptions about barriers to recruitment and persistence of minority students in the sciences and develop methods to overcome these challenges. Their findings, the leaders hope, will allow them to develop best practices that can be implemented in classrooms at SF State and even disseminated nationally.

The SF BUILD leaders hope the program will make the University’s science training more effective for all students, Baird added.

“Given the diverse population of students here, the potential for triggering stereotype threat is pretty high,” Baird said. “I’m sure some faculty aren’t really aware of stereotype threat and don’t know they can unintentionally have an impact — and not a positive one — on their students. There are ways to mitigate it, but you have to be aware of it first.”

Both Baird and Chitewere said they find fulfillment in mentoring the BUILD scholars because they themselves persevered in their studies in part because of support from professors.

“I had professors who reached out and said, ‘You’re not going to give up. We’re going to get through this together,'” Chitewere said. “They showed me that I wasn’t invisible, my work wasn’t invisible, I had value. Without that it would have been much harder.”

Her work with SF BUILD, Chitewere said, is the best way she can imagine giving back to the professors who made an impact on her life. “I told the SF BUILD scholars that this is my way of thanking those who helped me to get where I am,” Chitewere said. “These students can then pay it forward by supporting the next generation, and we’ll keep that going. That’s a powerful idea.”

In the meantime, Baird said, the students can support each other.

“We want to build a community so that even when the students do go their separate ways, they don’t feel isolated,” he explained. “They’ll always have each other to fall back on.”

To learn more about SF BUILD, visit sfbuild.sfsu.edu.

Oakland Post

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Rest in Peace: A.M.E. Pastor and L.A Civil Rights Icon Cecil “Chip” Murray Passes

The Rev. Dr. Cecil L. “Chip” Murray, former pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church (FAME) in Los Angeles, died of natural causes April 6 at his Windsor Hills Home. He was 94. “Today, we lost a giant. Reverend Dr. Cecil Murray dedicated his life to service, community, and putting God first in all things. I had the absolute honor of working with him, worshiping with him, and seeking his counsel,” said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of the dynamic religious leader whose ministry inspired and attracted millionaires as well as former gang bangers and people dealing with substance use disorder (SUD).

Published

4 days ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

The Rev. Dr. Cecil L. “Chip” Murray, former pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church (FAME) in Los Angeles, died of natural causes April 6 at his Windsor Hills Home. He was 94.

“Today, we lost a giant. Reverend Dr. Cecil Murray dedicated his life to service, community, and putting God first in all things. I had the absolute honor of working with him, worshiping with him, and seeking his counsel,” said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of the dynamic religious leader whose ministry inspired and attracted millionaires as well as former gang bangers and people dealing with substance use disorder (SUD).

Murray oversaw the growth of FAME’s congregation from 250 members to 18,000.

“My heart is with the First AME congregation and community today as we reflect on a legacy that changed this city forever,” Bass continued.

Murray served as Senior Minister at FAME, the oldest Black congregation in the city, for 27 years. During that time, various dignitaries visited and he built strong relationships with political and civic leaders in the city and across the state, as well as a number of Hollywood figures. Several national political leaders also visited with Murray and his congregation at FAME, including Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Murray, a Florida native and U.S. Air Force vet, attended Florida A&M University, where he majored in history, worked on the school newspaper and pledged Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. He later attended Claremont School of Theology in Los Angeles County, where he earned his doctorate in Divinity.

Murray is survived by his son Drew. His wife Bernadine, who was a committed member of the A.M.E. church and the daughter of his childhood pastor, died in 2013.

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Court Throws Out Law That Allowed Californians to Build Duplexes, Triplexes and RDUs on Their Properties

Charter cities in California won a lawsuit last week against the state that declared Senate Bill (SB) 9, a pro-housing bill, unconstitutional. Passed in 2021, SB 9 is also known as the California Housing Opportunity and More Efficiency Act (HOME). That law permits up to four residential units — counting individual units of duplexes, triplexes and residential dwelling units (RDUs) – to be built on properties in neighborhoods that were previously zoned for only single-family homes.

Published

4 days ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

Charter cities in California won a lawsuit last week against the state that declared Senate Bill (SB) 9, a pro-housing bill, unconstitutional.

Passed in 2021, SB 9 is also known as the California Housing Opportunity and More Efficiency Act (HOME). That law permits up to four residential units — counting individual units of duplexes, triplexes and residential dwelling units (RDUs) – to be built on properties in neighborhoods that were previously zoned for only single-family homes.

A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ruled in favor of the cities, pointing out that SB 9 discredited charter cities that were granted jurisdiction to create new governance systems and enact policy reforms. The court ruling affects 121 charter cities that have local constitutions.

Attorney Pam Lee represented five Southern California cities in the lawsuit against the state and Attorney General Rob Bonta.

“This is a monumental victory for all charter cities in California,” Lee said.

However, general law cities are excluded from the court ruling as state housing laws still apply in residential areas.

Attorney General Bonta and his team are working to review the decision and consider all options that will protect SB 9 as a state law. Bonta said the law has helped provide affordable housing for residents in California.

“Our statewide housing shortage and affordability crisis requires collaboration, innovation, and a good faith effort by local governments to increase the housing supply,” Bonta said.

“SB9 is an important tool in this effort, and we’re going to make sure homeowners have the opportunity to utilize it,” he said.

Charter cities remain adamant that the state should refrain from making land-use decisions on their behalf. In the lawsuit, city representatives argued that SB 9 eliminates local authority to create single-family zoning districts and approve housing developments.

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Funds for Down Payments and Credit Repair Given to Black First Time Homebuyers

The California Civil Rights Department (CRD) won a $10,000 fair housing settlement last November against a property management company, CIM Group LP, a global real estate company headquartered in Los Angeles, and property owner, RACR Sora, LLC, for implementing a blanket ban on renting to tenants with criminal histories at Sora Apartments in Inglewood. Three months earlier, the department, which enforces California’s civil rights laws, won another $20,000 civil rights settlement against a Lemon Grove property manager, who had targeted a Black tenant with a series of racist actions and threats of violence.

Published

4 days ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

By McKenzie Jackson, California Black Media

Three months earlier, the department, which enforces California’s civil rights laws, won another $20,000 civil rights settlement against a Lemon Grove property manager, who had targeted a Black tenant with a series of racist actions and threats of violence.

CRD Director Kevin Kish said the department investigates cases of apparent racial bias in housing and sometimes more subtle acts of prejudice like nuisance-free or crime-free housing policies or holding tenants to different standards based on their race.

Kish said, “People will get evicted if they call the police. This can negatively impact victims of domestic violence. We also see these no-crime ordinances, or no-crime policies, used in racially discriminatory ways. If there is some kind of incident, and the police are called and it involves a Black family, then they get evicted, but other folks aren’t necessarily evicted.”

On April 11,1968, a week after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, President Lydon B. Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, color, religion, and nationality.

Kish noted that William Byron Rumford, the first Black California State Assemblymember, who represented Berkley and Oakland, spearheaded the passing of the Rumford Act in 1963. That law sought to end discriminatory housing practices in the Golden State, five years before the Fair Housing Act became law.
Real estate agent and housing advocate Ashley Garner is the director of the CLTRE Keeper Home Ownership program. That organization gave 25 Black, indigenous, and people of color $17,500 each in down payment and credit repair support to purchase a home in Oak Park, a traditionally Black neighborhood in Sacramento, last fall. CLTRE obtained a $500,000 grant from the city of Sacramento to award the funds to the residents after they completed an eight-week homeownership program.

In 2021, the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) noted that around four in 10 Black California families owned homes, which trails that of White, Asian-American and Latinos.
According to Forbes, the median price for a home in California is over $500,000, which is double the cost of a home in the rest of the country.

Black lawmakers recently introduced their Reparations Priority Bill Package that includes support for Black first-time homebuyers, homeowners’ mortgage assistance and property tax relief for neighborhoods restricted by historic redlining.

California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) spokesperson Eric Johnson said CalHFA helps prospective low-income and moderate-income Californians purchase homes by offering down payment and closing cost aid. “There are lots of people who have steady jobs, good credit scores, constant income, but they haven’t been able to save up the money that traditional banks need or want to see for a down payment,” Johnson stated. “We help those folks out. We give a loan for the down payment to get them over that hurdle.”
CRD and the Department of Real Estate hosted “Fair Housing Protections for People with Criminal Histories” Zoom call on April 10.

On April 25, CRD will also hold Zoom seminars focused on advocating for fair housing for people with disabilities.