Dear colleagues!

Abstract

Welcome back! I hope you all had an enjoyable and restorative winter break. I have a number of updates as we get ready to begin the spring semester: " Racisms' Adaptations Since the Civil Rights Movement, " Gore Auditorium. All welcome. Please join us for both events. Robin's talk will help us continue to think about what is happening on campuses across the country and ways forward. o Tues 1/19-Thurs 1/21: Campus-wide Conversations to Acknowledge Lived Experiences. Please join us at one of the following times where students, faculty, staff and alums are invited to open a space to acknowledge and enter into conversations about different lived experiences that exist on our campus. What is it really like to live, learn, and work at Westminster? Morning, afternoon, and evening sessions have been scheduled to accommodate school and work schedules. Information from these sessions will be used by the Culture Initiative group to inform short and long term planning. If you are not able to join us at one of these times, there will be a web opportunity for your input (details will be communicated as they are set). (we are still working on start time and location for this-once set, it will be updated at the link above). o Fri 1/22: Day of service activity in partnership with the Office of Civic Engagement/ Promise South Salt Lake's After-School Program. The service activity is scheduled from 2-4 p.m. in the Bassis Center and other locations across campus. • Follow-up from the December Faculty Meeting. At the December faculty meeting, the students that joined us asked to meet with the President. That meeting happened before winter break. Students expressed concerns about/had questions on 5 main topics: student recruiting (John Baworowsky will be at the Diversity Council meeting on 1/15 to answer questions), student retention, presence of a diversity center/ " safe " spaces on campus, long term goals, and short term goals. In addition they asked about faculty recruiting and our College diversity and inclusion statement. The campus-wide conversations about lived experiences (above) and diversity and inclusion website (below) are a start. This is not being communicated in any way to indicate that our work is done, but rather to give us all a working knowledge of where we are. Once the conversations about lived experiences have taken place, the notes will go to the group working on the culture initiative and …