Inclusiveness is about people, cultures and beliefs. UC Davis adds another dimension by including separate but related programs in the same week, all in furtherance of “Building a More Inclusive Community.”

The phrase “Building a More Inclusive Community” is the new name for the Hate-Free Campus Initiative, which grew out of incidences of bigotry last year.

In Building a More Inclusive Community, the campus relies on its Principles of Community, the 11-year-old document that promotes respectful relationships with other people in the campus community.

Every year, the campus observes Principles of Community Week — and this year’s dates are Feb. 28 to March 4. Events are planned on the Davis and Sacramento campuses, and include a Community Day on the Quad with multicultural entertainment in Davis, and the Inclusion and Diversity Faire in Sacramento.

On Wednesday, March 2, the Campus Community Book Project continues with the second of three installments of the film series Race: The Power of an Illusion.

Also next week, Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi hosts a reception for this year’s recipients of the Chancellor’s Achievement Awards for Diversity and Community.

Principles of Community Week

The Office of Campus Community Relations is sponsoring the Davis campus activities. The office “is excited to see you take part in these activities and assist in the furthering of the Principles of Community and the promoting of a more inclusive campus climate,” said Melissa Muganzo, a student assistant to the chancellor.

The week’s theme is “O.N.E.,” standing for Outreaching, Networking, and Embracing Differences.

Here is the Davis campus schedule of events:

MONDAY, FEB. 28

• Safe Zone Training — Designed to raise awareness and discuss how to create a more welcoming and safe environment for people who identify as gay or lesbian, bisexual or transsexual, or questioning, in the places where they live and work. Open to students, staff and faculty; sign up by e-mailing Sara Farooqi, safarooqi@ucdavis.edu, or by calling the LGBT Resource Center, (530) 752-2452. 5-8 p.m., Garrison Room, Memorial Union.
• Movie Night: Crash — Movie followed by discussion. 7-10 p.m., MU II, Memorial Union.

TUESDAY, MARCH 1

• White Privilege Workshop — Are you privileged and don’t know it? Come and find out the answer. 2-3:30 p.m., Moss Room, MU.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2

• Community Day: Multicultural Dance Groups and Spoken Word — With performances by the Nigerian Student Dance Group, Phi Beta Sigma, Danzantes del Alma, Kathak Dance and the Toofan Dance Company, noon-1 p.m., MU II.

THURSDAY, MARCH 3

• Envisioning a Hate-Free Campus — This staff events asks, How are you upholding the Principles of Community? Noon-1 p.m. For more  information, send an e-mail to Vickie Gomez, vlgomez@ucdavis.edu.
• Keynote speaker: Kate Bornstein — “Hello, Cruel World: An Outlaw's Mini-Guide to Survival.” Bornstein is an author, playwright and performance artist whose work to date has been in service to sex positivity, gender anarchy and to building a coalition of those who live on cultural margins. She is the author of Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives To Suicide For Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws. Her books  and tGender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us and My Gender Workbook are taught in more than 150 colleges around the world. 7 p.m., 66 Roessler Hall.

FRIDAY, MARCH 4

• Nigerian Culture Show — The second annual, presented by the Nigerian Student Association. With performances by the Nigerian Student Dance Group and guests from San Francisco Bay Area schools, plus authentic Nigerian foods. 7 p.m., Ballroom A, Activities and Recreation Center.

All events are free and open to the campus community, except for March 3’s Envisioning a Hate-Free Campus, which is for staff only.

Here is what is happening on the Sacramento campus, under sponsorship of the UC Davis health System’s Office of Diversity and Community Engagement:

TUESDAY, FEB. 1

• Getting Things Done in the Middle of Chaos — A time-management presentation. Noon-1 p.m., 1222 Education Building. Sponsored by Women in Medicine and Science.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2

• Heart Disease and Women: What We Know and What You Can Do — Presented by Amparo Villablanca, associate professor, cardiovascular medicine. Noon-1 p.m., auditorium, Cancer Center. Sponsored by the Status of Women at Davis Administrative Advisory Committee, in conjunction with Women’s History Month.

THURSDAY, MARCH 3

• Inclusion and Diversity Faire — With student and staff interest group tables. Plus refreshments. 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m., first floor, Education Building.

FRIDAY, MARCH 4

• Happy and Gay: Mental Health Issues in the LGBT Community — Presented by Julie Weckstein, a licensed clinical social worker with the health system’s Social Services. Noon-1 p.m., Auditorium, Cancer Center.

Race: The Power of an Illusion

The bulk of the 2010-11 Campus Community Book Project took place in the fall quarter, culminating with author Beverly Daniel Tatum’s visit to the Davis campus to talk about her book: Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race.

To continue that discussion, the book project is presenting Race: The Power of an Illusion, a project of the nonprofit organization California Newsreel, which has been producing and distributing social justice films since 1968.

Race: The Power of an Illusion, which came out in 2003, “questions the very idea of race as biology, suggesting that a belief in race is no more sound than believing that the sun revolves around the Earth,” according to the California Newsreel website.

The website continues: “Yet race still matters. Just because race doesn’t exist in biology doesn’t mean it isn’t very real, helping shape life chances and opportunities.”

The book project presented Episode 1 on Feb. 3. Here are the dates and details on the next two episodes:

• Wednesday March 2 — Episode 2: “The Story We Tell,” uncovering the roots of the race concept in North America, the 19th-century science that legitimized it, and how it came to be held so fiercely in the western imagination. The episode is an eye-opening tale of how race served to rationalize, even justify, American social inequalities as “natural.”

• Thursday, May 12 — Episode 3: “The House We Live In,” asking, If race is not biology, what is it? This episode uncovers how race resides not in nature but in politics, economics and culture. It reveals how our social institutions “make” race by disproportionately channeling resources, power, status and wealth to white people.

Each presentation is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. in the Shields Library Instructional Lab (first floor). Each episode runs for just under an hour, and a discussion after each film will continue until 1 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.

Chancellor’s Achievement Awards for Diversity and Community

The university established these awards to honor achievements that contribute in substantial ways to the development and wellbeing of UC Davis’ diverse and evolving community. UC Davis faculty, staff and students and local community members are eligible for the awards.

Next week’s awards reception is by invitation only. Look for a story next week about the awards recipients.