Equity Diversity and Inclusion at UCL

• One U Thriving

• Office of Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action, and Title IX

• Report a Bias Incident

• Friday Forums on Racism and Higher Education

• EDI Centers & Programs

• Bennion Center

• Human Resources Staff Diversity and Equity Committee

• Office for Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

• Division of Human Resources & U Diversity Resources

• EDI and The Office of the VP for Research

• The Disturbing History of the Suburbs, an Adam Ruins Everything episode that quickly and humorously explains how redlining came to be (6 minutes)

• Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true, by Nikole Hannah-Jones, The 1619 Project, The New York Times (August 14, 2019)

• The Injustice of This Moment Is Not an "Aberration." Michelle Alexander contextualizes the current state of racism/white supremacy in the United States as an inevitable outcome of a collective narrative steeped in denial.

• The Case for Reparations, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic (June 2014)

• Higher Ed Perspective: Leading After A Racial Crisis: Weaving a Campus Tapestry of Diversity and Inclusion, American Council on Education

• Without Slavery, Would the U.S. Be the Leading Economic Power? Host Jeremy Hobson explores with Edward Baptist, author of The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, how slavery established the United States as a world economic power. (15 minutes)

• Implicit Association Test (IAT)

• Making people aware of their implicit biases doesn’t usually change minds. But here’s what does work, PBS News Hour

• 21 Racial Microaggressions You Hear on a Daily Basis - Using a series of photographs by Kiyum Kim, Heben Nigatu elaborates on the term “microaggression.” Note that Ibram X. Kendi, in his recent book How to Be an Antiracist, calls us to consider using the term “racist abuse” as a more descriptive alternative.

• How White People Got Made, by Quinn Norton, exploring where the term “white people” comes from and which ethnic groups have and have not been able to become “white” over the course of U.S. history, The Message (October 17, 2014)

• Higher Ed Perspective: Driving Campus Diversity One Decision at a Time, by Sharon L. Davies, Association of American Colleges and Universities

• Media Portrayals and Black Male Outcomes - The Opportunity Agenda

• Hip Hop, Grit, and Academic Success - Dr. Bettina Love, TEDxUGA. Dr. Love explains how students steeped in hip-hop culture, often seen as deficient, actually bring the very characteristics deemed necessary for 21st century success. (15 minutes)

• Indigenous People React to Indigenous Representation in Film And TV - FBE captures the reactions of a diverse range of Indigenous people to media depictions of Indigenous people, Columbus Day and Indigenous identity. (15 minutes)

• Representation Matters: Latinx in Mainstream Media - Raquél Peréz, TEDxURI

• Higher Ed Perspective: Colleges Must Take a New Approach to Systemic Racism, by Christiane Warren, Inside Higher Ed (June 9, 2020)

• How to Be a Better White Person in 2020, by Michael Harriot, The Root (January 9, 2020)

• Guide to Allyship - Created by Amélie Lamont, this site strives to be an ever-evolving, open-source guide to resources for becoming a more effective ally.

• Your Unconscious Bias Trainings Keep Failing Because You’re Not Addressing Systemic Bias

  Janice Gassam, Forbes (Dec. 29, 2019)

• Teaching While White Podcast - Hosted by longtime educators Jenna Chandler-Ward and Elizabeth Denevi, TWW’s podcast focuses on how whiteness shows up in the education sector and what anti-racist educators are doing to challenge that. Episodes feature different nationally renowned anti-racist educator guests. (any episode - times vary)

• Higher Ed Perspective: Become a Better Champion for DEI by Focusing on These Three Areas, CUPA-HR

The #shutdownacademia movement brought up some difficult questions about higher ed, and pushed me to rethink some of my views about my school and my job. We created this group after looking for ways to effect change in the office, and I hope that our efforts will push our office further in that direction. In particular, I want to participate in this committee in order to act as a support for co-workers who don’t always feel comfortable with the University of Utah’s approach to Race/Class/Gender issues.

The tragic murder of George Floyd heightened my awareness of my personal societal privileges (including Whiteness). My sorrow and that of my community which resulted from the event, combined with confronting blatant inequities, made me ask myself what I could do on an institutional level to push an anti-racist agenda. I hope to establish this committee to serve the students, staff, and faculty of UCL in understanding the problems we face and finding ways to make incremental and continuous improvements in our operations, policies, and thoughtfulness when it comes to serving our community and those less privileged.

Moved by the racial protests which began in summer of 2020, I was convicted to go beyond words and make a difference with actions. As part of this committee, I hope to help uncover where our organization has unconscious bias and increase access for BIPOC. Working in Marketing, I promise to faithfully represent those we serve and ensure that all people groups sense that they will be welcomed in our programs.

I recognize my privilege as a cisgender, heterosexual, white person, and my goal is to foster and support a diverse and inclusive community by celebrating our differences and building an empathetic culture. As an HR professional, I also have positional privilege to leverage my role to advance opportunities for historically marginalized, disenfranchised and oppressed peoples and advocate for systemic change through policies and practices inclusive of all peoples.