Fall 2024
Section 0468 of ENGL22
Ethnic Diversity in American Arts and Literature -- : Aug 19 - Dec 11 2024
Section 0499 of ENGL1A
College Composition -- : Sep 09 - Dec 13 2024
Section 0753 of ENGL1A
College Composition -- : Sep 04 - Dec 13 2024
This section is part of the Umoja learning community. Any student can enroll in this section. Umoja actively seeks to welcome, engage, and empower all of its students—with a particular focus on Black students—through a curriculum and pedagogy responsive to the legacy of African and African American cultures. While anyone can join this class, if you want to be part of the Umoja learning community, email the Umoja Program Co-Coordinator Jesekah Loggins Jloggins@santarosa.edu. To learn more about the Umoja Program Learning Community, please visit the website at umoja.santarosa.edu website and fill out an Umoja Interest Card.
Section 3109 of ENGL1A
College Composition -- : Oct 21 - Dec 20 2024
Summer 2024
Section 9116 of ENGL1A
College Composition -- : Jun 17 - Aug 11 2024
Ph.D, American Culture Studies (2015) with an emphasis on Ethnicity, Gender, and Social Identities
Bowling Green State University (School of Cultural and Critical Studies)
Dissertation Title: “The New Deal to the New Majority: How SDS Failed to Realign the Largest Political Coalition in the 20th Century”
M.A, English (2005) with an emphasis in Rhetoric and Composition
California State University Northridge
Thesis Title: "The Representation of Women in Radical Publications and Proletarian Literature During The Great Depression"
B.A English (2002) with an emphasis in Honors English, Chicano/a Studies, and Central American Studies
California State University Northridge
Thesis Title: “Walt Whitman, Pedro Mir, and Their Song to Clio.”
California Community College Transfer Student (1999)
Professor of English at SRJC from 2013-Present, Tenured since 2017
Ethnic Studies Graduate Student Teacher at Bowling Green State University 2010-2012
Community College Adjunct English Instructor at a variety of institutions from 2005-2013
Graduate Teaching Assistant at Cal State Univ. Northridge 2004
SRJC Academic Experience
Umoja Learning Community Co-Coordinator 2015-Present
BSU Co-Advisor 2015-Present
MEChA Faculty mentor 2013-Present
AB705 Implementation Taskforce Tri-Chair 2018-2019
Guided Pathways Implementation Taskforce Co-Chair 2018-2019
ISSC/Student Equity and Achievement Member 2018-Present (First Year Achievement Team Captain, 2019-2020)
Work of Literary Merit Committee for James Baldwin (2015), Ta-Nehisi Coats (2016), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (2017), and Octavia Butler (2018); Jose Antonio Vargas (2020)
Dr. Michael Hale is a professor of English at Santa Rosa Junior College, where he is the out-going coordinator of the Umoja Learning Community, faculty co-adviser to the Black Student Union, and faculty mentor to M.E.Ch.A. He is a long-time social justice activist with an interest in racial justice, immigrant rights, and organized labor.
Originally from Los Angeles, he studied American literature along with Chicano/a Studies and Central American Studies at Cal State Northridge and UCLA. At Cal State Northridge, he was involved in MEChA and CAUSA, and he was the director of political education for the Associated Student Government.
He moved to Ohio to finish his Ph.D. in American Culture Studies with an emphasis on Ethnicity, Gender, and Social Identities from Bowling Green State Univ. in the new School of Cultural and Critical Studies. While in Ohio, he was the Director of Communications for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (AFL-CIO) and a neighborhood team leader for Organizing for America. His dissertation focused on post-WWII social movements in the United States, specifically Students for a Democratic Society, organized labor, Black Power, and the New Right.
Michael received tenure at SRJC in Spring of 2017 where he continues to be involved in equity-minded reform projects and student and community organizing.
He says this about his teaching philosophy: "My class readings and assignments tend to be different than the average Composition or Literature class. My classes are focused on an examination of the ways social movements and popular culture are responding to a variety of problems in American society. My activism and my academic training are focused on a deep analysis of race, class, gender, and sexuality in the United States, so my readings will reflect these issues. I believe many students do not find the assignments in the typical English class to be relevant to their life and respectful of their cultures. That is not the environment I try to foster in my class. My courses are certainly challenging, but you will find I am an understanding and caring professor that is deeply concerned with finding the appropriate support to help you succeed in my class and in college in general. I am trying to constantly evolve as a teacher and as an equity-minded, culturally competent human being by listening to all of my students, with a special focus on listening to the voices of my most oppressed students. I come from a working class family where some dropped out of high school and most did not pursue higher education. I, myself, started my college career in community college, and more specifically I tested into Developmental Composition, so I have a better idea than most what it is like to sit in your seat."
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”-James Baldwin
Como Tu
. . . Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan, de todos.
Y que mis venas no terminan en mí
sino en la sangre unánime
de los que luchan por la vida,
el amor,
las cosas,
el paisaje y el pan,
la poesía de todos.
-Roque Dalton
SRJC Campus Talks
- What is the Umoja Supported Program Community of Practice (June 2021)
- Data and Inquiry for Educational Justice Community of Practice (June 2021)
- Healdsburg Jazz Festival, Panel Discussion Honoring Maya Angelou and her I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. (April 2021)
- We the Future Conference, Afrocentric Hair Discussion, Zoom logistics and facilitator, not a presenter (April 2021)
- We the Future Conference, North Bay Organizing Project Panel, Zoom logistics and facilitator, not a presenter (April 2021)
- What is the Umoja Supported Program? Presenter (April 2021)
- Women's History Month Film Screening of Misfits and Q&A with Ciani Rey Walker, Zoom logistics and facilitator, not a presenter (March 2021)
- Black History Month Conference, Creating Black Equity: Action Beyond Solidarity Statements, Zoom logistics and facilitator, not a presenter (Feb 2021)
- Black History Month: " I Am Not Your Negro" Documentary Film About James Baldwin, Speaker and Facilitator (Feb 2021)
- Professional Development Day: "Join the Umoja Learning Community and Become Umojafied" Presenter (Feb 2021)
- Roundtable Discussion with Undocumented Student Activists Focused on Dear America: Notes from an Undocumented Citizen. Part of the WOLM and Undocumented Student Action Week, Facilitator and Speaker (Oct 2020)
- Professional Development Day: Report Back on our Equity Circle COVID Conversations (Aug 2020)
- Equity Circle COVID Conversations: A Conversation about Racism and Anti-Blackness (Jun 2020)
- Equity Circle COVID Conversations (May 2020)
- Professional Development Day: Presentation Student Equity and Achievement: Report Back on First Year Achievement Team (Feb 2020)
- Student Empowerment Academy "Community Organizing: What is Whiteness" (Feb 2020)
- Welcome and Connect Center: "Spring Back into Action" (Jan 2020)
- Student Empowerment Academy "Diversity Change Agent" (Nov 2019)
- COP Critical Methodologies: Early Warning Data Analysis for First Year Students (Oct 2019)
- COP Critical Methodologies: Demographic Analysis of Latinx student in Sonoma County (Sep 2019)
- Octavia Butler's Kindred: Survivors of Trauma and Decedents of Generational Trauma (Oct 2018)
- Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me: Faculty Panel Discussion (April 2017)
- Arts and Lectures Keynote Address "How Was Trump Elected President" (Nov 2017)
- Pre-Hispanic Heritage Month Presentation: Anti-Colonial Poetry from Latin America (Sept 2016)
- ‘And That Is Because I Am Wounded’: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Emphasis on Vulnerability in Between the World and Me (Oct 2016)
- Arts and Lectures Keynote: Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Politics of Post-Civil Rights Radicalism (Oct 2016)
- Gabriel García Márquez's100 Years of Solitude: A Faculty Panel Discussion (March 2016)
- Tribute to Eduardo Galeano: A Celebration of his life and writing (May 2015)
- Arts and Lectures Keynote: Between Civil Rights and Black Power:James Baldwin’s prophetic vision “to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country…” (Mar 2015)
- WOLM Panel Discussion: How are James Baldwin's Idea Relevant Today (Apr 2015)
- Documentary Film Panel Discussion: The Price of the Ticket (Apr 2015)
National/International Conferences
- 6 Guided Pathways Conferences between 2018-2019 "Citizen Researchers Campaign: Data to the People!"
- “Obama the Class Warrior? The New Right and Discussions of Class in the U.S.” American Association of Geographers 2012
- “Anti-Immigrant Movement, the White Working Class, and Immigration Reform: A Dialogue.” Working Class Studies Conference 2011
- “Are We at a Crossroads in Cultural Theory?” American Studies Symposium 2011 Purdue Univ.
- “Challenging the Re-Emergence of Xenophobia” American Education Studies Association Conference 2008: (Chair of Panel)
- “Teaching the Immigration Debate” American Education Studies Association Conference 2008
- “Teaching the Immigration Debate in a Predominately Working Class, African American Classroom.” Re-Thinking Marxism 2006
- “The Representation of Women in Proletarian Literature.” Working Class Studies Conference Youngstown 2006
- “Pedro Mir and His Song to Clio.” Working Class Studies Conference 2004
University/State-wide Conferences
- "Xenophobia in Schools." Special Colloquium 2011 Univ. of Toledo. Journal release celebration and panel discussion for Educational Studies 47.4
- “Post-modernism and Its Discontents” Battle Ground States Conference 2011 Bowling Green State University
- “The Long March to Immigration Reform in the US.” Ohio Latin Americanist Conference 2011 BGSU
- “Xenophobia in Schools." Foundations of Education Symposium 2009 University of Toledo
- “What’s Left in the Immigration Debate.” Latino/a Issues Conference at Bowling Green State University 2007
Peer Reviewed Journals
- Hale, Michael, Martha Kransdorf and Lynne Hamer. "Introduction to the Special Issue: Xenophobia in Schools." Educational Studies 47.4 (2011): 317-322.
- Hale, Michael. "Teaching the Immigration Debate in Freshman Composition." Radical Teacher, no. 84, (Apr. 2009): pp. 18-30
Editorial Work
Co-Edited a Special Issue of Educational Studies: Hale, Michael, Martha Kransdorf and Lynne Hamer. “Xenophobia in Schools." Educational Studies 47.4 (2011).
Student Government Assembly and the Office of Student Life, Equity, and Engagement: "Outstanding Contributions to Student Life and Santa Rosa Junior College in the 2019/2020 Academic Year"
The PEERS Coalition at SRJC as a Health and Wellness Champion April 2020
Student Government Assembly and the Office of Student Life, Equity, and Engagement: "Outstanding Contributions to Student Life and Santa Rosa Junior College in the 2015/2016 Academic Year"