Dear K College Students,<\/p>\n
The pandemic of novel coronavirus has reshaped our world and transformed our institution in profound ways. Over the last few weeks as we pivoted sharply to take our classes online, we have seen the painful and unequal impact of the virus-related changes and restrictions on our most vulnerable students. We have witnessed how disparities in access to technology and internet service affect student learning. We have also witnessed the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black, Brown, Latinx, and immigrant communities in Kalamazoo and across the nation. We know that many of our community members have lost loved ones and are grieving them now. The pain of losing relatives and coping with the death of over a hundred thousand people in a few short weeks has been exacerbated by our inability to mourn them together and by the knowledge that many of these deaths were preventable. Our pain and frustration have been compounded by the violent murder of unarmed Black people by white racists.<\/p>\n
The lynching of Ahmaud Arbery for being Black while running, the shooting of nursing student Breonna Taylor by police as she slept in her bed, the killing of Black trans man Tony McDade by Florida police, and the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police have shaken us to our very core. The incident in New York\u2019s Central Park involving false allegations made by a white woman named Amy Cooper against a Black birdwatcher has also been a chilling reminder of how Black and Brown folks are harmed by large and small daily acts of white entitlement, untruthfulness, and aggression. We cannot go on without acknowledging how this violence affects us as people and as members of the Kalamazoo College community committed to social justice. We stand in solidarity with protesters in the US and around the world calling for an end to the murder of Black people by police, and for abolition, decolonization, and Black liberation now.<\/p>\n
Beyond the discourse of institutional diversity as an asset, we want to strive together to create a different reality in which our Black, Brown, trans, queer, and gender non-conforming community members\u2019 lives are valued, cherished, and protected. How do we move forward in light of these new realities? We need historical perspective to help us discern the crossroads where we stand—a place of both convergence and disjuncture. We need to learn from and mobilize forms of historical memory and anti-racist coalitional work now more than ever.<\/p>\n
We need to move forward together. During the past week, we have heard from you: in emails, in video conferences, in phone calls, in SMS texts, in posts on the K-College Facebook site, and ongoing informal and formal correspondence.<\/p>\n
To Black students, we have heard your anger at what is happening on campus, of the wearying effort to just be heard during this term and your years at K. Beyond Kalamazoo, we have heard you tell of what is happening outside your doors and in your communities. We have heard your righteous anger and justified fear. We have smelled the smoke of fires burning outside your doors and heard the sounds of sirens, not from the news or Facebook or Instagram, but from your own lives and your own witnessing. We have seen parents and siblings walk in and out of your screens and so felt the immediate presence of those you love and who love you, and who make it possible for you to be part of the K College community. And, for some, the turmoil and anger mixes with the grief of family members, friends, or neighbors who have lost loved ones or feared the loss of a parent, grandparent, relative, or friend who contracted COVID-19.<\/p>\n
To non-Black students of color, we have witnessed you engage in acts of solidarity and moral courage. We have learned of you providing transportation and aid to protesters and filming protests. We know you have been challenging anti-blackness within your own communities. We have heard you tell us of how you have reached out to friends and fellow students who absorbed in traumatic and inexpressible ways the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Ahmaud Arbery. And you have told us of your own experiences, when you felt able and heard, of what it means to walk in a Brown body on our campus and in the streets.<\/p>\n
To white students, we have heard your own struggles with negotiating the pandemic and the violence perpetrated upon George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and others. Albeit in very different ways, these struggles also exist within your own communities, and, in painful ways, among friends and family members. We are hearing you give language to systemic racism. We are learning of difficult family conversations. We are reading emails reaching out to us in support of students of color, especially Black students navigating the impact of the past week (and weeks).<\/p>\n
To first-generation students, for those who have had to work many hours to help their families, or struggled to find secure housing, we have watched the burden and your response to it unfold during the past weeks. We have witnessed your struggles with housing and food insecurity. We have also seen folks risk the vulnerability of speaking, loving, and standing in solidarity.<\/p>\n
At the end of this long academic year, everyone is carrying the added burden of the lockdown, quarantines, illnesses, family health concerns, curfews, and this next cycle of social unrest. All of us are suffering, but especially Black students, faculty, and staff. We must collectively recognize the impact of these events on our community members\u2019 well-being.<\/p>\n
As we acknowledge that we are differently positioned within the institution and in the world, we can work together by prioritizing Black, indigenous, queer, trans, and people of color leadership within this historically predominantly white institution. Attempting to think from and with the point of view of the most marginalized among us will help us overcome some of the enduring inequalities that limit the free enjoyment of our learning community by all.<\/p>\n
We understand that completing academic assignments may be very difficult, even impossible for some, especially for students who are being and have been affected by systematic racism and violence. The quarter\u2019s Credit\/No Credit grading format provides flexibility to professors to extend grace, accommodations, and alternative projects to satisfy requirements for passing a class. It invites, too, a framework for faculty to use remaining time and assignments as tools for timely critical reflection, taking stock of what is truly necessary at this point. We can alter expectations without lowering standards.<\/p>\n
We wish to encourage faculty to adjust expectations for final work, including canceling exams or making assignments optional wherever possible. This is a time when we need to make peace with doing enough instead of doing the usual and students just need to do enough to pass.<\/p>\n
At the end of his address, \u201cIn Search of a Majority,\u201d delivered to students, faculty, and staff at Kalamazoo College in November of 1960, James Baldwin said: \u201cWhether I like it or not, or whether you like it or not, we are bound together forever. We are part of each other. What is happening to every [Black person] in the country at any time is also happening to you. There is no way around this. I am suggesting that these walls\u2014these artificial walls\u2014which have been up so long to protect us from something we fear, must come down.\u201d Let\u2019s dismantle these walls together.<\/p>\n
Lux Esto,<\/p>\n
The Undersigned Members of the Faculty and Staff<\/p>\n
1. Adriana Garriga-L\u00f3pez<\/p>\n
2. Bruce Mills<\/p>\n
3. Kyla Day<\/p>\n
4. Rochelle Rojas<\/p>\n
5. Santiago Salinas<\/p>\n
6. Eric Nordmoe<\/p>\n
7. Katie MacLean<\/p>\n
8. Alyce Brady<\/p>\n
9. Candace B. Combs<\/p>\n
10. Blakely Tresca<\/p>\n
11. Brittany Liu<\/p>\n
12. Mark Murphy<\/p>\n
13. Anne Marie Butler<\/p>\n
14. Charles Stull<\/p>\n
15. Francisco J. Villegas<\/p>\n
16. Leslie Burke<\/p>\n
17. Jennifer Einspahr<\/p>\n
18. Francesca Gandini<\/p>\n
19. Beau Bothwell<\/p>\n
20. Kelly Frost<\/p>\n
21. Isabela Agosa<\/p>\n
22. Sarah Lindley<\/p>\n
23. Jennifer Perry<\/p>\n
24. Christine Hahn<\/p>\n
25. Regina Stevens-Truss<\/p>\n
26. Jennifer Langeland<\/p>\n
27. Katerina Stefatos<\/p>\n
28. Dennis Frost<\/p>\n
29. Sally Read<\/p>\n
30. Nayda Collazo-Llorens<\/p>\n
31. Bryan Goyings<\/p>\n
32. Michael Powers<\/p>\n
33. Amy Smith<\/p>\n
34. Christina Carroll<\/p>\n
35. Richard Koenig<\/p>\n
36. Larissa Dugas<\/p>\n
37. Jessica Stachowski<\/p>\n
38. Hafiz Nauman Akbar<\/p>\n
39. Binney Girdler<\/p>\n
40. Patrik Hultberg<\/p>\n
41. Kathryn Sederberg<\/p>\n
42. Justin Berry<\/p>\n
43. Dimitrios Papadopoulos<\/p>\n
44. Oliver Baez Bendorf<\/p>\n
45. Darshana Udayanganie<\/p>\n
46. Joshua Hartman<\/p>\n
47. Jessica R. Smith<\/p>\n
48. Andrew Koehler<\/p>\n
49. Taylor Petrey<\/p>\n
50. Amelia Katanski<\/p>\n
51. Sandino N. Vargas Perez<\/p>\n
52. Shanna Salinas<\/p>\n
53. Tom Rice<\/p>\n
54. Cynthia Carosella<\/p>\n
55. Babli Sinha<\/p>\n
56. Pam Cutter<\/p>\n
57. Tyler Walker<\/p>\n
58. Aman Luthra<\/p>\n
59. Elizabeth Manwell<\/p>\n
60. Timothy Conrad<\/p>\n
61. Siu-Lan Tan<\/p>\n
62. Ivett Lopez Malagamba<\/p>\n
63. Josh Moon<\/p>\n
64. Jennifer Furchak<\/p>\n
65. Andreea Prundeanu<\/p>\n
66. Stacy Nowicki<\/p>\n
67. Maria Romero-Eshuis<\/p>\n
68. Kelli Duimstra<\/p>\n
69. Ethan Cutler<\/p>\n
70. James E. Lewis, Jr.<\/p>\n
71. John Dugas<\/p>\n
72. Graham Chamness<\/p>\n
73. Blaine Moore<\/p>\n
74. Charlene Boyer-Lewis<\/p>\n
75. Daniel Kim<\/p>\n
76. Eric Barth<\/p>\n
77. James Zorbo<\/p>\n
78. Tom Askew<\/p>\n
79. Max Cherem<\/p>\n
80. Andrew Mozina<\/p>\n
81. Lisa Murphy<\/p>\n
82. Lisa Brock<\/p>\n
83. Robert Batsell<\/p>\n
84. Hannah Apps<\/p>\n
85. Shannon Dion<\/p>\n
86. Aurelie Chatton<\/p>\n
87. David Wilson<\/p>\n
88. Jan Tobochnik<\/p>\n
89. Gary Gregg<\/p>\n
90. Alison Geist<\/p>\n
91. Ren Berthel<\/p>\n
92. Mark McDonald<\/p>\n
93. Tom Evans<\/p>\n
94. Lanny Potts<\/p>\n
95. Arthur Cole<\/p>\n
96. Joanna Steinhauser<\/p>\n
97. Karyn Boatwright<\/p>\n
98. Mikela Zhezha-Thaumanavar<\/p>\n
99. Marin Heinritz<\/p>\n
100. Masanori Shiomi<\/p>\n
101. Michael Wollenberg<\/p>\n
102. Chris Ludwa<\/p>\n
103. Will Georgic<\/p>\n
104. Michael Ott<\/p>\n
105. Peter Erdi<\/p>\n
106. \u201cC\u201d Heaps<\/p>\n
107. Menelik Geremew<\/p>\n
108. Ryan Fong<\/p>\n
109. Amy MacMillan<\/p>\n
110. Michael T. Walsh<\/p>\n
111. Robin Rank<\/p>\n
112. Lars Enden<\/p>\n
113. Lori Sands<\/p>\n
114. Mitch Wilson<\/p>\n
115. R. Amy Elman<\/p>\n
116. Jim Langeland<\/p>\n
117. Anne Haeckl<\/p>\n
118. Jan Solberg<\/p>\n
119. Christopher Latiolais<\/p>\n
120. Autumn Hostetter<\/p>\n
121. Kiran Cunningham<\/p>\n
122. Tim Shannon<\/p>\n
123. Stephen Oloo<\/p>\n
124. Anne Haeckl<\/p>\n
125. Duong Nguyen<\/p>\n
126. Susan Lawrence<\/p>\n
127. Alyssa J. Maldonado-Estrada<\/p>\n
128. Sara Tanis<\/p>\n
129. Amy Newday<\/p>\n
130. Carol Anderson<\/p>\n
131. Leihua Weng<\/p>\n
132. Rachel Wood<\/p>\n
133. Laura Livingstone-McNellis<\/p>\n
134. Andy Brown<\/p>\n
135. Sarah Frink<\/p>\n
136. Jory Horner<\/p>\n
137. Ann Jenks<\/p>\n
138. Audrey Bitzer<\/p>\n
139. Kim Aldrich<\/p>\n
140. Kerri Barker<\/p>\n
141. Christy Honsberger<\/p>\n
142. Renee Boelcke<\/p>\n
143. Katherine King<\/p>\n
144. Melanie Williams<\/p>\n
145. Jane Hoinville<\/p>\n
146. Sara Stockwood<\/p>\n
147. Kierna Brown<\/p>\n
148. Derek Mann<\/p>\n
149. Haley Mangette<\/p>\n
150. Jessica Fowle<\/p>\n
151. Joisan Decker DeHaan<\/p>\n
152. Hillary Berry<\/p>\n
153. Dana Jansma<\/p>\n
154. Lesley Clinard<\/p>\n
155. Abbie Dahl<\/p>\n
156. Shannon Milan<\/p>\n
157. Angela Batts<\/p>\n
158. Lynsey VanSweden<\/p>\n
159. Louise Tennant-Filkins<\/p>\n
160. Jessica Fowle<\/p>\n
161. Margaret Wiedenhoeft<\/p>\n
162. Sarah Matyczyn<\/p>\n
163. Jason Kraushaar<\/p>\n
164. Deia Sportel<\/p>\n
165. Jay Daniels<\/p>\n
166. Nicole Kragt<\/p>\n
167. Wendy Fleckenstein<\/p>\n
168. Jackie Srodes<\/span><\/p>\n 169. <\/span>Angela Erdman<\/span><\/p>\n 170. <\/span>Jon Reeves<\/p>\n 171. Kendra Leep<\/p>\n 172. Matthew Brosco<\/p>\n 173. Jess Port<\/p>\n 174. Claire O’Brien<\/p>\n 175. Yit-Yian Lua<\/p>\n 176. Laurel Palmer<\/p>\n 177. Kelly Kribs<\/p>\n 178. Tapiwa Chikungwa<\/p>\n 179. Jonathon Collier<\/p>\n 180. Roderick Malcolm<\/p>\n 181. Kathryn Lightcap<\/p>\n 182. Regina Stevens-Truss<\/p>\n 183. Cindy Cavanagh<\/p>\n 184. Kelly Esper<\/p>\n 185. Nicholas Wilson<\/p>\n 186. Brenda Westra<\/p>\n 187. Andy Miller<\/p>\n 188. Tom Wilson<\/p>\n 189. Alexandra Altman<\/p>\n 190. Joshua Lull<\/p>\n 191. Shelby Long<\/p>\n 192. Debbie Thompson<\/p>\n 193. Jeff Bartz<\/p>\n 194. Sandy Dugal<\/p>\n 195. Kathie Yeckley<\/p>\n 196. Elizabeth Lindau<\/p>\n 197. Betsy Paulson<\/p>\n 198. Deb Annen-Caruso<\/p>\n 199. Debbie Ball<\/p>\n 200. Tony Nelson<\/p>\n 201. Andrew Grayson<\/p>\n 202. Marcie Weathers<\/p>\n 203. Susan Lindemann<\/p>\n 204. Sarah Gillig<\/p>\n 205. Jenn Williams<\/p>\n 206. Erika Perry<\/p>\n 207. Kate Yancho<\/p>\n 208. Chris Buckhold<\/p>\n 209. Kristen Eldred<\/p>\n 210. Lizbeth Mendoza Pineda<\/p>\n 211. Teresa Denton<\/p>\n 212. Jennifer DiGiuseppe<\/p>\n 213. Peter Zillmann<\/p>\n 214. Becky Hall<\/p>\n 215. Nichole Real<\/p>\n 216. Carolyn Zinn<\/p>\n 217. Steve Lewis<\/p>\n 218. Mike Maxson<\/p>\n 219. Kathleen White<\/p>\n 220. Mallory Heslinger<\/p>\n 221. Katrina Naoko Frank<\/p>\n 222. Valerie Miller<\/p>\n 223. Jim VanSweden<\/p>\n 224. Stephanie Robison<\/p>\n 225. Margie Stinson<\/p>\n 226. Rick Amundson<\/p>\n 227. Anne Engh<\/p>\n 228. Paige Oudsema<\/p>\n 229. Danielle Turner<\/p>\n 230. Katie Miller<\/p>\n 231. Lauren McMullan<\/p>\n 232. Jennifer Combes<\/p>\n 233. Andrew Stone<\/p>\n 234. Ryan Orr<\/p>\n 235. Moises Hernandez<\/p>\n 236. Aaron Rice\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 237. Darshana Udayanganie<\/span><\/p>\n 238. Jen Bailey<\/span><\/p>\n 239. Maureen Yanik<\/span><\/p>\n 240. Jennie Hill<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear K College Students, The pandemic of novel coronavirus has reshaped our world and transformed our institution in profound ways. Over the last few weeks as we pivoted sharply to take our classes online, we have seen the painful and unequal impact of the virus-related changes and restrictions on our most vulnerable students. We have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[233,231],"tags":[],"post_formats":[],"class_list":["post-13482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty-staff","category-students"],"yoast_head":"\r\n