Camille Joy Abutin
Section A01
Week 1

In medicine, there's a process called "triage". Basically what happens is patients are given priority over others for treatment based on the conditions. Generally, patients are giving the following labels: green is minor injuries, yellow is a moderate non-life threatening conditions, red is life threatening injuries, and black is pain medication until death. There's a lot of reasons why medical personnel decide to triage; however, I think a good way to put it is that if there's a need to ration resources(time, supplies,personnel,etc.) there will be a triage. Unfortunately, the reality of limited resources is not only existent in the world of medicine, but also, in the university. There's only so much money, space, general resources, etc. And sometimes its impossible to accommodate for everyone. Whenever I hear stories like that of Dr. Velvarde's struggle for tenure or tuition hikes at UC Davis, it feels like the university system is constantly triaging and students/faculty of color, disability, and or lower socio economic backgrounds come in labeled, by the institution, as black. This isn't a perfect metaphor, because obviously we, students/faculty of those backgrounds, are not lost causes. However, in the eyes of executives and administrators we are "presumed incompetent" and thus not a priority.

This response to the reality of limited resources is valid. Not everyone can be approved for tenure, not everyone can have a lower tuition, and not everyone can be a student at this university. If we can't eliminate the problem of rationing then sure, lets prioritize. But lets also do it without bias against race, gender, class, ethnicity, disability, and motherhood. Reading about Dr. Valverde's struggles in academe is only one example of the injustices by the academe. If community empowerment and using knowledge to better the world is so essential to the mission of our campus, then why do professors like Dr.Valverde feel these struggles so often? Are we so lost in the politics and formalities that we've forgotten our mission and purpose? If that's the case, then why are we here? And why are we putting the responsibility of "[addressing] the needs if the region, state, and globe" in our hands?

Question: As students, what can we be doing to not only protect the current students and faculty but also future ones?

Bibliography:

1. Valverde, K. (2013). Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia. Seattle Journal for Social Justice, 12(2).

2.Raat, M.D. (2012, OCtober 18). Triage Control [Digital image]. Retrieved April 5, 2017, from https://docs.moodle.org/dev/File:Triage.png