Dear Campus Colleagues,
This past summer, we began the development of the Valuing Black Lives Task Force to address anti-Blackness violence and ongoing needs in our community. To maintain our promise of accountability and transparency, we wanted to share with you an update on our progress.
The Valuing Black Lives Task Force is sponsored by Chancellor Muñoz and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Camfield with administrative co-leads: Associate Chancellor and Chief Diversity Officer Dania Matos, J.D., Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students Jonathan Grady, Ph.D., and Academic Senate Liaison Robin DeLugan, Ph.D.
We formed five subcommittees to address the following areas:
- Student support
- Community engagement
- Policing and anti-Black violence
- Staff and faculty recruitment and retention
- Research, scholarship and funding opportunities
Each subcommittee is made up of co-leads and members who represent each of our stakeholders, including Senate and non-Senate faculty, administrators, staff, undergraduate and graduate students as well as alumni and local Merced community members.
The administrative co-leads met with each subcommittee and their co-leads in August to outline their goals and agenda. They were provided a number of foundational documents to guide them in their work, such as the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion’s Strategic Framework, the “We Charge Anti-Blackness” petition, the Black Student Union Call to Action Statement and other documents that provided an anti-racist framework as well as context for where our campus currently stands. In addition to these documents, we also provided each subcommittee with a list of guiding questions. In addressing these guiding questions and others that may arise, subcommittees were told that they must provide, short-, mid- and long-term goals, the budgetary needs to meet those goals, and which goals should be prioritized based on the current climate of our campus and the larger context of our society. It is important to note that subcommittees were also encouraged to extend their reach and scope beyond the documents and questions provided to develop assessments to guide their work.
Each individual subcommittee convenes with their co-leads and members at least twice a month. Outside of that, the administrative co-leads check in monthly with each subcommittee to assess their progress and provide support where needed. On October 22, we held a progress update meeting with the administrative and subcommittee co-leads where each subcommittee reported out on their progress and breakout groups were created for collaboration across subcommittees. The newly formed affinity group, UC Merced Black Alliance (UCMBA), also participated for continued collaboration. In December, subcommittee co-leads will present their goals and recommendations to Chancellor Muñoz and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Camfield.
To maintain our promised level of accountability and transparency, the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) has developed an executive summary of the list of demands outlined by the “We Charge Anti-Blackness” petition and the Pan-Afrikan Council, as well as the campus responses thus far. The long-term goal of this Task Force and the work that follows is to eliminate the need for the creation of such task forces, so that instead we have an infrastructure that is built to combat anti-Blackness and anti-Black violence and value Black lives to forge a just and humane future.
Thank you,
