A movement to understand, interrupt, and transcend racism and achieve community, opportunity, and belonging for all

To the Faculty, Staff, and Students of Nazareth College: 

Today, we commit to a movement to understand, interrupt, and transcend racism and achieve community, opportunity, and belonging for all. Our learning community will face and reflect on the realities of racial injustice and cultivate the vision and skills for creating just and inclusive communities, near and far. A lifelong commitment to antiracism will guide our life’s work in service to humanity and the greater good.

We are a college that was formed to take a stand against injustice. Our values compel us to choose action and pursue social justice.

Last week, we stood in silence as our bell tolled to honor lives lost. The student group El Barrio hosted dozens of students, faculty, and staff in a breakthrough conversation about race and healing. And, this week, students are working together to create a mural which proudly states we are committed to the creation of an antiracist campus community uniting with the theme: Fight for racial justice: It is a movement, not a moment.

We also come together as a community to face the reality that no sector is immune from racial injustice, including education — and our own college community. A racial bias incident last spring evidenced painful biases in our community. I hear the upsetting ongoing bias experiences of many in our community. This reality beckons us to step up and put our values in motion — on our campus, in our community, and throughout our world.

This is not a moment in time that we will let pass.

Our movement is inclusive, defined by ongoing initiatives shared among the members of our campus community. There is significant work underway for this year, involving many students, faculty, and staff all across the College showing ways we are integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion into the fabric of the institution to achieve measurable progress.

I have charged Community and Belonging, with the leadership of Interim Vice President Lisa Durant-Jones, to be the hub and aggregator of this work. As articulated in the 2017 Nazareth College Strategic Plan for Diversity and Inclusion, Community and Belonging will span boundaries across the College, connecting people, ideas, resources, and initiatives to expand the reach and impact of our shared commitment. 

Lisa and the Community and Belonging team will understand the full scope of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across all areas of the College, be a think tank and resource for developing initiatives, identify promising collaboration opportunities, and track the collective impact of our work.

Lisa and her team are creating a continually updated webpage that captures the DEI initiatives that are currently in motion. We extend the invitation to you to review and add your initiatives here — now and in the future. Check the calendar of DEI events regularly, get involved, and participate in this movement.   

This process will not always be easy. Change often faces resistance, and brave conversations that break taboos are not easily had. Critical dialogue must include various perspectives with the goal of listening and understanding, rather than hurt and division.  

I believe that we are precisely the community with the values, the principles, the underpinning ethics, the people, and the heart to take on this important work. Together. I am proud of — and grateful for — the commitment, passion, and participation I’ve seen thus far. Let’s keep moving forward.

Sincerely, 

Beth Paul, Ph.D.
President
Nazareth College