To the UMA Community:
During these troubling times for our state and nation, it is important to remind everyone that UMA is committed to ensuring an inclusive environment for all members of our community. This includes people of all abilities, races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, nationalities, religious traditions, socioeconomic classes, and ages.
At the beginning of this year, a UMA team of faculty began developing a charge for a new Council on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion that would help guide the UMA community to understand, address, and meet this commitment. This fall we will share this team’s work and establish the Council on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and will seek the participation of our faculty, staff, and students.
We are grateful to have the Holocaust and Human Rights Center as a member of our Augusta campus community and support its efforts to provide programming on the topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion. This week the HHRC will hold a panel discussion on how racism is shaping the pandemic response, structural inequality, and implicit and explicit bias on June 7 in a program titled, Racism is a Virus Too.
Our hearts go out to the family of George Floyd and the many other individuals who have lost family, friends, and loved ones simply because of the color of their skin. Much work remains to be done to address the systemic, disparate treatment and economic inequalities faced for generations by many in this country. Each of us must also continue our own journey of awareness on the issues of racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Sincerely,
Rebecca M. Wyke, Ed.D.
President