Essay

An essay by CU Boulder Chancellor Philip P. Distefano. One of the core missions of our university is to positively impact humanity, and humanity faces the existential crisis of a warming planet caused by human beings.

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated during my final semester in college. Two days before graduation, Robert F. Kennedy was shot and killed immediately after declaring to his cheering supporters that the country was ready to end its fractious divisions.

When I got asked to write for the Coloradan , I had too many ideas. I could write about my journey to activism, my work on the CU Boulder Black Student Alliance (BSA), advocating for anti-racism training tied to graduation requirements, the Black Lives Matter movement or my two years...