Statement of Solidarity from the UConn Digital Media & Design Department

In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist. – ANGELA Y. DAVIS

Dear students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, and friends,

We in the Department of Digital Media & Design feel the pain, sadness, and frustration caused by the senseless murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, and the innumerable Black citizens whose lives who were cut short by racial injustice in our nation. Say their names.

In honor of those lost and in protection of our collective, societal future, I challenge each of us to commit to being ANTI-RACIST. We can no longer turn away and remain silent – it is not enough to be non-racist, we must stand together, act for social justice, and become actively conscious about race and racism in our daily lives. This is the only way that we can transform the world around us to become a more just and peaceful society.

In our departmental mission, we state that, “…we encourage students to find and express their voice, building from their unique background and perspective. We acknowledge that a diversity of thought and expression is needed in today’s society and see great promise in our DMD students’ ability to make a difference in the world as future digital media content creators, distributors, and analyzers.”

These words are more significant now than ever. Ironically, it is only because Americans carry smartphones – with high definition cameras connected to the internet – that these horrific acts of violence are being brought to light, the same tools that we embrace in Digital Media & Design for content creation and distribution. As a creative community with talents in digital media, each one of us has the potential to make a positive impact, realize complex ideas, empower those whose voices are silenced by mainstream media, and amplify those voices in the digital sphere. This moment is a call to action for each of us to rise up and use our talents to spark meaningful conversations, engage in digital advocacy projects, and share our unique voices and diverse backgrounds.

DMD has become known for its collaborations around social justice through partnerships with the Dodd Center, the Human Rights Institute, Global Affairs, UConn Archives, and our many external nonprofit partners around the state, who we have helped realize professional digital products to support their missions. We have begun working closely with our Office for Diversity and Inclusion and our Cultural Centers, and we formed a departmental Inclusion Committee in 2019. However, confronting and fighting systemic racism requires intentionality, commitment, and coordinated efforts by the entire community.

We join our colleagues at the University of Connecticut in committing to anti-racism, share this statement on racial injustice, and invite you to read those of the Dodd Center and Human Rights Institute, the Africana Studies Institute, interdisciplinary centers, institutes, and programs, and the President and Provost. Together, we affirm our commitment to making the struggle against White supremacy and systemic racism central to our work in building an equitable and just campus community and society.

To our black students, faculty, and friends, please know that your DMD family stands with you in solidarity. We hear you, we share your outrage, and we empathize with your pain. And I ask everyone in our community, right now, to reach out to and support our friends of color, who are truly suffering during this time of national crisis, both from racial injustice and the pandemic, which has disproportionately impacted minority groups.

There are many resources available to support this work, but a particularly meaningful one is the National Museum of African American History and Culture‘s “Talking About Race,” site. I also invite you to join the Racial Profiling Prohibition Project and stakeholders from across the state for Truth & Reconciliation: A Conversation about Race and Policing at 11am tomorrow, Friday, June 5.

Finally, over the next month, we will be sharing via social media examples of recently created student projects that engage social justice issues, address racism, and embrace cultural identity. Please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to view the works and help amplify our UConn DMD students’ voices as we celebrate their creativity and passion as they learn that they have the power to bring change to the world.

In solidarity and with hope,

Heather Elliott-Famularo

Department Head & Professor, Digital Media & Design

Statement from Centers, Institutes, and Programs on Racial Injustice and Ending White Supremacy

We, the faculty and staff of the interdisciplinary Centers, Institutes, and Programs, stand together to express our shock, our heartbreak, and our outrage at the horrific and senseless killing of George Floyd and the ongoing violence against Black people.

George Floyd, David McAtee, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, Kathryn Johnston, Ayiana Stanley-Jones, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland. Too many to list and too many to forget.

Each of these names represents a human being, dehumanized, rendered invisible, a Black life cut short by brutality and wanton violence.

We cannot look away. We cannot remain indifferent. We cannot be silent.

We must expose and confront the deep, pervasive, systemic issues that continue to fuel one tragedy after another. We must work together to bring real change. As academic units and programs of the university founded on principles of social justice and human rights we reaffirm our commitment to educating the next generation of healers and freedom fighters. The vision of change, which this crisis on top of a catastrophic pandemic calls for, is a broad, systemic, and intergenerational strategy. We recognize that broad societal change cannot be legislated alone, but must be cultivated community by community, day by day. To that end, we reaffirm our commitment to creating communities of accountability; implementing actions that dismantle the status quo of white supremacy; and amplifying the voices and experiences of people of color.

As a first step, we encourage you to join us in programs that will bring communities into conversation including tonight’s AACC Town Hall Meeting, presented by The H. Fred Simons African American Cultural Center:

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Racism in the African-American Community

Thursday, June 4, at 6 PM

https://preview.mailerlite.com/k8h6u0/1435486084640281891/n9g0/

We also encourage you to read the public statement on anti-black violence from the Africana Studies Institute: https://africana.uconn.edu/public-statement-on-anti-black-violence/

We stand together with communities of color across the country as they yet again are subject to pain and suffering at the hands of a racist and unjust system. We support our students, from the African American, Asian American, Puerto Rican and Latin American, Women’s and Rainbow Centers, and Native American Cultural Programs, and all who are struggling to demand recognition of their rights and transformation of the conditions in which they live. We are not silent. We are not indifferent. We are implicated and, therefore, responsible. We will not stand idly by while the blood of our community members cries from the ground.

“Justice is not a natural part of the lifecycle of the United States, nor is it a product of evolution; it is always the outcome of struggle.”

― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter To Black Liberation

You are not alone. We are with you.

In solidarity,

African American Cultural Center

Africana Studies Institute

American Studies Program

Asian American Cultural Center

Asian and Asian American Studies Institute

Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life

El Instituto (Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies)

Human Rights Institute

Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center

Rainbow Center

Thomas J. Dodd Research Center

Women’s Center

Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program

A Message from Dean John Elliott:

Dear Colleagues and Friends of the UConn School of Business,

George Floyd’s death has galvanized the moral center of our nation. Sadly, his brutal killing is but the latest of not years, but centuries of violence and inhumanity against people of color. As an educational community, UConn and the School of Business must be among those raising their voices to encourage change. And we are. As the University’s president and provost have noted, “[We] are uniquely positioned to reflect, learn, and act.”

As we reflect and learn, it is vital that we remember to act. We must act differently than we sometimes have and must hold ourselves accountable for those actions. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” If anyone knew the effort and work, the risk and danger required to bend that arc toward justice, it was he.

My hope is that George Floyd’s death and our nation’s response will focus us on envisioning a more just and truthful world and acting to realize it. It is our collective but individual actions that can bend the arc toward justice and truth. Please join me in working toward this goal and keeping it our moral priority until it is achieved.

Sincerely,
John A. Elliott
Dean

a person wearing a suit and tie

The UConn Rudd Center is Committed to the Fight For Health Equity and Against Systemic Racism

The brutal murders of Mr. George Floyd, Ms. Breonna Taylor, and Mr. Ahmaud Arbery have become the most recent examples of systemic racism against Black people in the United States. The UConn Rudd Center stands in solidarity with national advocacy groups and community leaders committed to seeking social justice and denouncing race-based violence and police brutality in our society.

Systemic racism is a public health crisis in our nation and a root cause of many of the issues we study. As we’ve watched the COVID-19 pandemic unfold, we’ve seen alarming inequities in the number of infections and deaths of Black Americans. This is not by chance. Black Americans are disproportionately affected by food insecurity and inadequate access to healthy, affordable food. Black youth are exposed to more marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages than their white peers. Facing stigma for one’s body weight in addition to one’s skin color compounds and exacerbates the inequities Black people in the US already face. These injustices have become all too clear, and we all have a responsibility to address them.

We commit to researching policy changes that will interrupt the current cycle of social injustice and systemic racism.

Specifically, we will intentionally support people of color by working to:

promote food security and nutrition through policies in child care centers, schools, college campuses, and food banks;
improve access to healthy, affordable food through equity-oriented policy changes at the local level;
improve neighborhood environments where unhealthy foods and beverages are more accessible than healthy options to Black residents;
hold the food industry accountable for targeted marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to Black youth and communities;
reduce the harm of intersectional stigmas including weight, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity;
provide research training opportunities for post-doctoral fellows and students of color.
We also pledge to continue educating ourselves about ways to dismantle structural racism in the food system and stand with our colleagues and partner organizations who are fighting racial injustices every day.

Dear Friends and Colleagues –

The events of the past few weeks have brought sadness and outrage to communities across our nation. The senseless killing of black men and women demonstrates that as a nation, we need to make further and strong progress toward our aspirations of a diverse and inclusive society.

The College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources remains steadfastly committed to our goals of creating and supporting a diverse and inclusive environment for us all. In these troubled times, we must stand tall in our beliefs and redouble our resolve to ensure that all members of our community feel safe and welcome. We will continue to take multiple steps to promote diversity and inclusion throughout our college and our communities.

On behalf of the college and in cooperation with our Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathy to all who have been impacted by these senseless acts. I know that you share my commitment to supporting all individuals in communities across our state, the nation, and the world.

Best regards on behalf of myself and the CAHNR Committee on Diversity and Inclusion,
Indrajeet Chaubey, Dean

CAHNR Committee on Diversity and Inclusion
Maria-Luz Fernandez, Nutritional Sciences, Chair
Sharon Gray, Extension
Miriah Kelly, Extension
Beth Lawrence, Natural Resources and Environment
Michael O’Neill, Associate Dean, ex-officio
Sara Putnam, Communications, ex-officio
Farhed Shah, Agricultural and Resource Economics
Ellen Shanley, Allied Health Science
Brandon Smith, Animal Science
Young Tang, Animal Science
Beth Taylor, Kinesiology
Huanzhong Wang, Plant Science and Landscape Architecture
Xiaohui Zhou, Pathobiology and Veterinary Sciences

Statement of Support Against Racism and Violence

I am repulsed by the horrific deaths and injustices that the Black community continues to endure. Systemic racism, violence and oppression of People of Color must not be allowed to continue. I aspire to do more personally and within the Department to support our Black students and colleagues and the Black community in general. As a way of amplifying this message, I am attaching the statement sent out by the Avery Point Director on behalf of the Leadership Team.

J. Evan Ward

Head, Department of Marine Sciences

Avery Point Leadership Team Member

___________________________________________________________________

Dear UConn Avery Point Community,

The Leadership Team and I are heartbroken and angry over the losses of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and far too many others killed at the hands of racist-fueled violence and felt the need to amplify the President and Provost’s message.

I am deeply concerned by the increase in acts of violence and hatred rather than understanding and compassion. It is imperative that we learn from experiences, history, cultures, values, beliefs, and views different from our own and that we strive to become more empathic and more compassionate every day. At Avery Point, we respect and value differences of all kinds, and we depend on the contributions of a diverse community to continue to make Avery Point a special place. I aspire to do more in support of our Black students and colleagues and the Black community in general. I recognize that collectively we need to do more to make UConn Avery Point an educational place that fosters and sustains equity and social justice. I welcome suggestions on how we can better support and serve you. Additionally, I implore you to listen to one another and to exercise empathy as you draw on and support each other.

Please remember, that at this moment we all need different things. In addition to connecting to those you trust at Avery Point, I want to remind you that The Office for Diversity and Inclusion offers some wonderful racial justice resources, which is a great supplement to the work of our Cultural Centers.

I look forward to working with University and Campus Leadership and all of you to advance our efforts to build an anti-racist campus and university.

Be well – Annemarie

As a community, we stand with those demanding justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and an end to the police brutality, systemic racism, and anti-black violence that led to their deaths and the deaths of so many others. We as a department refuse to be silent about hatred, racism, and violence against communities of color, already disproportionately suffering from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, and we stand ready to fight actively all forms of white supremacy. We believe that the highest calling of English as a discipline is to serve as an engine of understanding, empathy, social justice, and change, and the department adds our voices to those of so many others at UConn and around the country and world, in calling for our country’s police forces to acknowledge and commit to dismantling a long legacy of racist abuse.

Here follow links to the study of anti-Black racism and also what we as a community can do about it.

· Ibram X. Kendi’s “An Anti Racist Reading List”:
· The Innocence Project

Bob Hasenfratz (Head, English Department),

English Department Executive Committee Members, 2019-20 and 2020-21

Pam Bedore,
Brenda Brueggemann,
Lisa Blansett,
Kathy Knapp,
Melanie Hepburn,
Clare King’oo,
Kathy Knapp,
Ellen Litman,
Greg Pierrot,
Shawn Salvant,
Victoria Smith,
Kathleen Tonry,
Lyn Tribble,
Chris Vials

Dear Colleagues –

The pain, sorrow, and outrage of the last week in the United States has been profound. We are faced with yet another series of horrific events. The terrible, unwarranted death of George Floyd has again highlighted the long history of racial injustice in our country.

I echo the statement of President Katsouleas and Provost Lejuez that especially now, during a time when a global pandemic is disproportionally affecting African-American, Latinx, and Indigenous communities, and discrimination against individuals of Asian descent is rampant, it is especially important to reaffirm the commitment to our values of community, social justice, equity, and inclusion.

In this time of terrible pain, please continue to do what I know so many of you have been doing since the start of COVID-19: Reach out to your loved ones, your friends, your colleagues, your neighbors. Ask how you can support them during this difficult time, and please take care of yourself.

Sincerely,

Juli

Juli Wade

Dean

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

University of Connecticut

215 Glenbrook Rd., U-4098

Storrs, CT 06269

Public Statement on Anti-Black Violence*
Africana Studies Institute (ASI), UConn, Storrs

We live, seemingly, in unprecedented times. People face daily crises and agitation because of pandemic, economic insecurity, and floundering national leadership whose institutions and actions lean as much toward violence and inhumanity as they do ineptitude. Yet, as Africana Studies scholars who for decades have thought critically about the politics of race, culture, history, economy, and Black life in North America, there is very little new for us about the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor. We know these murders are not an “escalation” of anti-Black violence. Rather, they represent the status quo because our research and that of so many others, and our life experiences bear this out. In fact, we are clear that the only novel aspect of these police-sponsored murders is their visual capture on cell phones and public release of the footage. Thus, we stand in complete solidarity with protesters across the country demanding justice and an end to police terror and wanton disregard for human lives–especially Black lives. So how do we as scholars challenge the silences and violence embedded in America’s record on race?

We propose the UConn community re-dedicate itself to end White supremacy, systemic racism, and anti-Black violence. We believe a first step is to shift clusters of Africana courses from electives to required curricula for most if not all of UConn’s academic programs. We believe without this essential first step the university will continue to intimate that racial aggression in its myriad forms is no more concrete than an innocuous difference of opinion. Without the university’s systematic effort to shift policies and worldviews on campus and beyond we enable the practice of racism among our students and some colleagues to our community’s detriment. Without forthright, university-sponsored anti-racist pedagogy we fortify a national legacy of racist violence that is the tailwind of so many recurrent, deadly acts. Our choice is stark: lay bare the symbiosis between racist assumptions and antiblack violence or, be indifferent to the deaths of many, many more Mr. Floyds.

UConn’s race scholars within and outside of ASI must be called on to ply campus initiatives and pedagogies with expertise and leadership because any serious intellectual goal for social justice and equity studies on campus utterly depends on our input. We believe ASI’s curriculum and programming, designed to explore the depth of African-descended experiences and influences in our society should always be tapped to critically engage race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, poverty and other analytics fundamental to the university’s research and teaching missions. This fall, for example, ASI’s faculty roundtable will center Ibram Kendi’s book, How to Be an Antiracist; this and scholarship of similar focus should be required reading for our entire community and a touchstone for permanent university-wide discussion on how our campus can work to dismantle the machinations of racism and its intersections. And faculty expertise in Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies; Asian and Asian American Studies; and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Hebrew and Judaic Studies to name a few also must have meaningful integration on campus. We must respect and showcase the scholarly rigor and intellectual force behind these fields, their specificity, depth of perspective, and multi-disciplinary approaches. We enthusiastically embrace the collaborations, cross-pollination, project overlap, and solidarities within and among our institutes yet insist they not be homogenized or treated interchangeably. Each should occupy more, not less space in campus programs, curriculum, and research. The stakes for unraveling the human condition are far too high to not do so.

We also believe that a real commitment to change is made through action not words. We insist that the university partner with faculty to maintain an investment in wholistic growth as well as anti-racist commitments as much now as when the cameras are gone, and the protests and headlines subside. As ASI faculty we do this work every day, every semester, and every year, with or without a high-profile event. And we will continue to do so because the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and thousands of others are not aberrations. Sandra Bland’s 2015 arrest for not using her turn signal and subsequent death in jail has a time-honored place on the continuum of racial aggression that POC expect. To repeat the familiar, these are deeply rooted attacks on Black lives, only a tiny fraction of which are captured by cell phone memory for the world to see in plain view.

– Africana Studies Institute Faculty

*A lengthy assessment of racism and anti-racism in the country as well as our strategies for our campus will be on our website, Friday, June 5.

For more communications from The Africana Studies Institute, including this statement, click here.

To my UConn family, students, staff and faculty:

In the wake of recent events, I wanted to reach out to make sure we are in dialogue, despite our physical distance. The world suffered another immense loss of life with the unjust killing of George Floyd this past Memorial Day. His death is a tragedy of humankind and is one we all must face, in light of a national history of systemic inequality and racism.

As the Vice President for Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship and PI of an active lab, it is my responsibility to foster an inclusive environment in which we all feel comfortable having difficult conversations about such events. It is my sincere hope that from this discomfort and discussion will come growth, community, and a safer world for us all.

While we all have unique reactions to such atrocities, I wanted to start the conversation and share my thoughts and experiences. I have been struggling for several days with George Floyd’s death and how deeply it affected me. Although in an entirely different context, I have had several first-hand experiences with xenophobia and its repercussions throughout my life. First through my family members being killed in the second world war, next with many of my family members being killed in the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, and having been called myself so many times “gaikokujin” or “foreign-country person” and being asked when I would go back to my country during my time in Japan. I did not know the answer, as I did not have a country to go back to.

When I moved to the US, I was so happy to finally have a country to which I could belong. I believed it to be a melting pot in which success could be earned by anyone, from any background. All you needed was to work hard and anything was possible. I have now learned that this picture of American opportunity is easier to attain for some than others, and the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and so many others are a devastating reminder of this fact.

It also reminds us of how much needs to be done in our country to celebrate our differences and stand together against injustice. Whether we are Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Muslim, LGBTQ, or anything else, we are all unique and beautiful human beings, and mother earth wanted us to be so different to bring beauty and diversity to this world. We are united when we speak loud, when we feel that love is stronger than fear, when we stand up to speak without fearing our own life and livelihood.

To my own team, please know that I support you. Please celebrate our differences. Please turn to someone near you, even if it’s virtually, and say “I respect you and your uniqueness.” We are better than what is happening in our country. We need to love, speak, and support each other.

Sincerely,

Radenka Maric

Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship