May 30, 2020
Dear Members of the Connecticut College Community,
As we continue to cope with the suffering brought on by COVID-19, today we are coping with another kind of suffering. Our thoughts are with the people of Minneapolis, Atlanta, Boston, and other cities around the country protesting racial violence and police brutality, including the tragic deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. We are deeply saddened by these incidents and write today to express our solidarity with communities of color and all who are mourning.
In challenging times, we come together as a community. We cannot convene in person now, but we would like to do so remotely in order to reflect on this moment. Earlier this year, our Office of Religious and Spiritual Programs created PAUSE for that very purpose–a time for prayer, poetry, silence, and solidarity. It has become a welcome space for dialogue and community care. And so we have organized a remote PAUSE event for Tuesday, June 2, from 3 to 4 p.m. We invite you to join us via WebEx.
Racism is one of our most enduring and devastating social problems. We all have a responsibility to use our knowledge and resources to become anti-racist, to end violence and oppression in all forms. That begins with education. We invite you to use this time to avail yourselves of the tremendous resources we have within our own community, including the significant body of scholarship on race; the faculty and students associated with our Center for the Critical Study of Race and Ethnicity; the staff and student leaders within the division of institutional equity and inclusion; and all those involved in the Agnes Gund ’60 Dialogue Project.
We look forward to being with you on June 2. In the meantime, we send you our very best wishes for health and safety during these turbulent times.
Sincerely,
Katherine Bergeron
President
John McKnight
Dean of Institutional Equity and Inclusion