A campuswide initiative to build community resilience, foster a greater sense of connection and promote a healing climate among students, faculty and staff following a historic and challenging 2020 will debut Jan. 18 on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The Center for Inclusion and Social Change within the Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement (ODECE) will lead the semester-long initiative, The Power of Community: Courage, Healing and Unity.
Led by the Center for Inclusion and Social Change, the campus will also introduce the I AM campaign and other related events, programming and engagement opportunities.
“As we begin this new semester and this new year, our hope is that we can come together as a community to build our collective resilience and learn from our intersectional experiences in the face of adversity and ongoing challenges,” said Dyonne Bergeron, assistant vice chancellor for inclusion and student achievement. “Critical to fostering deep connections and meaningful engagement is to first express empathy for each other as we grow together as a campus community and explore who we aspire to be as scholars, colleagues, classmates and individuals.”
Between January and April, the campus will offer a series of events and programming focusing on the themes of courage (in January and February), healing (in March) and unity (in April).
Upcoming events
- Jan. 16: Mobile food pantry sponsored by the Volunteer Resource Center as part of a day of service for students, faculty and staff.
- Jan. 18: MLK Day of Service––Virtual Letter Writing sponsored by the Volunteer Resource Center to support communities in need of encouragement and connection.
- Jan. 21: “Is Civil Discourse Dead? A Conversation with Robert George and Cornel West,” a webinar sponsored by the Benson Center.
- Jan. 22: “What Does the Civil Rights Movement Look Like in 2021?” a presentation by noted author and Vanderbilt University Professor Michael Eric Dyson in partnership with CU Denver and Metropolitan State University of Denver.
- Feb. 5: The 2021 CU Social Justice Summit––“Revolutionizing Systems for Equity: If Not Now, When?”––will take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Staff, faculty and students from all four CU campuses and community members are invited to take part in a day of virtual workshops, presentations and discussions about how to advance equity with a focus on systems.
- March 9: The CU Boulder 2021 Spring Diversity & Inclusion Summit will include virtual sessions about diversity, equity and inclusion that tap into the semester’s themes of courage, healing and unity. Stay tuned for more details.
