In the spirit of #UMBCTogether, the Women’s Center is committed to providing care space for faculty and staff to truly come together as we continue remote work, distance learning, and navigating the ever-evolving context in which our lives go on.

We invite faculty and staff interested in coming together to explore various topics like grief + loss, empathy, wholeness, and showing up for others and how these experiences intersect with the necessary physical isolation of working and living through a pandemic. This care space will also be intentional in holding space to explore the ways in which these topics intersect and inform our experiences with the movement for racial justice, healing, and accountability. 

In this 4-part summer series, the Women’s Center staff, along with its Advisory Board members, will carve out large and small group discussions online. Over the course of 90 minutes, all participants will begin the conversation together by exploring the topic/issue of the day. Topics may be explored through the discussion of an article, podcast, or a presentation/speaker.

Participants will then be invited to break out into smaller group discussions to dig deeper into the topic based on the social identities/roles/situations they are navigating through the pandemic. Proposed affinity groups may include Parents, Caretakers, Partnered Relationships/Cohabitation, and Singles/Independents (though we are open to other suggestions or the idea that different break-out groups may be needed for different sessions). Participants can switch groups from session to session or choose to not select a particular affinity group by selecting a heterogeneous discussion group.

After the conclusion of the small group discussion, participants will rejoin the larger group to discuss important take-aways with the goal of informing our perspectives for greater care and empathy for ourselves and others moving forward in the day and beyond. 

Discussion dates and details will be posted on our myUMBC group soon with the hope to have one discussion in late June, two in July, and one in early August.

• Participants will be required to RSVP via the myUMBC event post prior to the discussion taking place in order to receive a pre-discussion survey that will help us prepare for and assign the small group discussions.

• Participants are not required to participate in all 4 discussions and can sign-up for discussions based on interest and availability.

• Participants are encouraged to engage in whatever time frame is most accessible to them and to not view the 90-minute session as a barrier to participation.

• Access to the discussion link will be sent via email to registered participants. 

The faculty and staff of UMBC’s Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies (GWST) department want to affirm our support for and solidarity with our Black students, faculty, and staff at UMBC and beyond. Black Lives Matter. Black Women’s Lives Matter. Black Trans Lives Matter. Black Queer Lives Matter. Now and Always.

We also acknowledge that it is not sufficient to say that and go back to business as usual. GWST is committed to doing the hard work of reckoning with institutionalized racism, white privilege, and white supremacy in our own practices, and in the practices of the university. 

To this end, we make the following commitments and demand that the university do the same:

1. We all take an intersectional approach to our research and teaching, addressing the complex intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, disability, nationality, and other cleaving social differences to understand the operations of power, oppression, and freedom in historical and transnational perspectives. We will deepen this commitment and center the research and contributions of Black scholars in our classes. We must cite Black women scholars, artists, and activists.

2. UMBC sources many supplies, including university furniture, from Maryland Correctional Enterprises (MCE). We understand that the system of mass incarceration is rooted in the logics of white supremacy and chattel slavery, and that Black and Brown people, including queer and trans people, are incarcerated at incredibly high rates compared to their white peers. MCE claims the program gives incarcerated people job experience and satisfaction, but we understand it as part of the production of a material interest in extending the system of mass incarceration. We demand that UMBC lobby for the repeal of the state requirement to purchase from MCE. This is an important material step to take on the road to ending systems of incarceration for all. We commit to beginning this work at UMBC.

3. While UMBC has been a forerunner in recruiting and admitting Black, Brown, and other minority students, we push for the increase of admission of Black students. We will continue our commitment to their success at UMBC by working to sustain and expand the necessary tools and resources to succeed during their time here.

4. We will push the university to invest in hiring and retaining Black faculty members by supporting the Faculty Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship program and in our own hiring priorities. UMBC faces a hiring freeze, and when it thaws, increasing the number of Black faculty members on campus needs to be an institutional priority. We will make this argument in larger institutional settings and push for real material changes.

5. It isn’t enough to bring Black and Brown faculty to campus. We must work to address the institutional, organizational, and individual iterations of white supremacy and multiple forms of racism that create hostile and unsustainable climates for BIPOC faculty. Part of our retention plans must commit to the work of anti-racism on the campus as a whole.

6. We also commit to continuing to push the university to acknowledge, recognize, and value the invisible labor that our Black and Brown faculty, students, and staff do to build and maintain an inclusive culture on campus.

7. As we anticipate budget cuts resulting from the pandemic we commit to doing our part to ensure those cuts do not fall disproportionately on Black and Brown faculty, staff, and programs.

8. Many of the staff workers at UMBC are Black or Brown. We commit to working toward fair compensation for staff, both contractual and contracted, by pushing administrators to ensure fair contracts for all workers at UMBC.

These are big goals, but they are feasible goals that we are committed to honoring while working closely with faculty, staff, and students at all levels. We recognize that reckoning with anti-Black racism requires committing to a horizon that marks the world we want as we struggle, learn, and lead together on our way there. We see you, we hear you, we are ready to listen, and we are ready to work.

Signed,

Maria Celleri

Kate Drabinski

Elle Everhart

Katie Kein

Carole McCann

Mejdulene Shomali