President's Update on Our Continuing Equity Work

9/18/2020

To the Campus Community, 

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to stand in solidarity with the campus community during a Black Lives Matter demonstration and candlelight vigil on our quad. Seeing the great turnout from students, faculty and staff meant so much to me, and I know there is a dedication and commitment to doing the deep work to be a more inclusive university. 

The lives of our Black students matter. I hear your voices. I’m listening to your requests and understand what is needed for you to be supported and included in our community. With us all being back together on campus, it gives us the opportunity to be in dialogue and to make this a year of action.  

As we continue to uphold our pledge to do better and to be better, I wanted to share with you some of the progress we’ve made in our actions, while recognizing that we still have much work to do. 

  • This week, we held the first presentation in the year-long Hidden Truths: Stories of Race and Place series that will provide a space for conversations and learning about historic racial justice issues. The series was organized by the Education, Scholarship and Service group connected to our Equity Action Planning efforts. 
  • An important initiative that’s many years in the making, we are working to finalize a land acknowledgement statement that recognizes that our campuses in Providence and Bristol are located within the homelands of both the Pokanoket and Narragansett Nations. University faculty and staff have worked closely with leaders of the Pokanoket and Narragansett tribes to create an institutional land acknowledgement statement that honors this history and commitment to reconciling the past and partnering on a shared future. This statement is one which can be shared in publications, posted online, and be read and included at major university events to remember and respect our local Indigenous peoples and their sacred land. 
  • Our fourth session of RWU’s innovative Intercultural U was held for faculty and staff this summer. Covering historical, cultural and societal aspects of diversity, equity and inclusion in the U.S., this 25-hour training has “graduated” 79 faculty, staff and administrators since the program began under former VP for Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer Dr. Ame Lambert in 2018.  
     
  • Diversity, equity and inclusion professional development for faculty is regularly incorporated into the Faculty Fall Conference, a day during which faculty members prepare for the new academic year. 
     
  • Fifty-nine faculty members remain as part of a community of practice following participation in a year-long or summer intensive Diversity and Inclusion Fellows program, a faculty-led initiative to combat inequities in the classroom. These faculty leaders promote a social justice culture while dismantling educational injustice in the classroom. 
     
  • Twenty-two employees now serve as Equity Ambassadors, trained to support equitable employment search processes to ensure the university is hiring from a diverse pool of applicants.  
     
  • Student and employee affinity groups have formed to provide a space for people with shared identities. Among some examples are the Queer and Trans Student Affinity Group, Employees of Color Affinity Group, and Women’s Affinity Group. 
  • We held a powerful campus community conversation, “Race at Roger,” on June 23 with more than 150 students, faculty and staff, and broke out into several groups for candid conversations about racism and the experiences of Black community members. I am so proud of the courage and passion of community members who both shared their personal stories and those who came out to listen, to engage and to learn. 
  • A commitment to equity can only be successful when it is embraced from the top, which is why I believe that diversity training for university leadership is one of the most important pieces of the work that needs to get done and to be an ongoing commitment. The provost, my chief of staff, and I have arranged a few introductory meetings with diversity trainers and consultants that will lead this diversity training and capacity building among our leadership team. We intend to select and schedule this training as soon as possible and look to create a consultant partnership that will extend from Cabinet training to other mandatory trainings throughout the campus.  
  • Over the last few months, I have been able to meet with various groups and hear the goals and needs that the community seeks in our next Chief Diversity Officer. Now that we are back in session this fall, I have also been able to meet with various student groups. Talking to Student Senate and the Multicultural Student Association have been especially helpful in considering the position and the type of leader we need in the diversity realm. I am talking next week with students involved in SAGA and QTRAC. 
     
  • Our work to improve the bias response process continues, since students have voiced strong concerns about the nature and effectiveness of the follow-up discussions after bias behavior is experienced as well as the resulting action steps that are determined. To help us move forward, Student Life is working with the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Dr. Zoila Quezada, and Director of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution, Ms. Diana Proto, to prioritize and lead our Bias Response and Education Team this semester that will ideally include representation from students, faculty and staff. Student Life continues to lead transparent discussions with students on developing more effective, substantive and educational interventions. 
     
  • We are continuing to work on several fronts to strengthen social justice educational opportunities across curricular and co-curricular programs. These are just a few examples:  
    • The Hidden Truths Series will open important conversations on race for the entire campus community and provide us with opportunities to learn from history and from present day struggles, and to grow together. 
    • As part of an expanded, more comprehensive diversity, equity and inclusion program that is required for all incoming students, we held an antiracism intensive program for white-identifying students in September that offered a framework for white identity development rooted in antiracism and addressed the history of Rhode Island’s role in transatlantic slave trade.  
    • The School of Law will add a required course on race and the foundations of American law to the law school curriculum in Fall 2021. 

While any listing of efforts is just a beginning and not meant to be exhaustive, I hope you can see we are making progress. We recognize that some of our actions were overdue and that our initial efforts also reveal that deeper work is needed. We know from social media comments and experiences shared online on a Black at RWU Instagram page, and most recently through a BLM online petition, that we must continue to take further actions together.  

I am grateful to everyone who has spoken up so far with conviction and believe that together we can make real progress toward being a fully inclusive campus. In my next campus communication, I will detail our plans and actions for initiatives we will accomplish from the Equity Action plan this year. 

We must reflect and learn from the past in order to build an equitable future. I am dedicated to this work and will continue to listen and implement ideas and suggestions that ensure antiracism and bias-free policies, and training at the departmental level and the institution at large.  

Sincerely,
Yannis

Ioannis Miaoulis is the 11th president of Roger Williams University