SLU Faculty Letter to the Community About Systemic Racism in America
SLU Faculty Letter to the Community About Systemic Racism in America
Canton, NY - June 11, 2020
Note: The list of signatories below is being updated regularly.
We, the undersigned members of our local AAUP chapter and other professors of St. Lawrence University, wish to express our solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of people across the globe marching in the streets and holding vigils to protest the recent murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Manuel Ellis, Breonna Taylor, Maurice Gordon, George Floyd, and Tony McDade. We condemn the police violence being unleashed upon peaceful protesters in several American cities and we mourn the deaths in police custody of countless other people of color of which we are yet unaware. We are proud of the many SLU students, alumni, staff, faculty, families, and allies who have been on the streets raising their voices and expressing their sorrow and outrage. We are heartened that so many groups of people representing all ages, ethnicities, genders, and political adherences have come together to join the Black Lives Matter movement in demanding an end to the systemic racism and police brutality that has allowed these horrific killings to continue unabated in the U.S.—not just in the first half of this year, but since the nation’s founding. We grieve with the families who have lost loved ones to police violence and hate crimes. We recognize the many macro and microaggressions people of color experience every day, including members of our own St. Lawrence University faculty, staff, and students. We must do better. We must dismantle the structures of white supremacy and inequality that unjustly harm and disenfranchise entire communities while bestowing unearned privileges on others.
At the same time, while we grieve with all those mourning the deaths of loved ones who have been stricken with COVID-19, we recognize that this disease disproportionately affects people of color. Systemic racism is a public health crisis that sees communities of color chronically underserved. Moreover, people of color have been disproportionately affected by the economic downturn resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
It has never been enough to say that we are allies to the people of color in our communities and across the globe. As Dr. Angela Davis, who spoke at St. Lawrence in April, 2017 for the Kathryn Fraser Mackay Memorial Lecture, instructs us, “You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” We, the undersigned, vow to do more and to be better agents and allies of this radical transformation. We vow to join those members of the Saint Lawrence University community who are already on the front lines as active anti-racists in everything we do: in our pedagogy, in our creative work and scholarship, and in how we form and support our communities.
Dismantling over four centuries of white supremacy and structural inequality is not something that will be done with good intentions alone. We must listen intently to those who have been harmed by racism and by microaggressions in our communities and beyond. We must be active anti-racists in how we convene conversations in the classroom and in our homes and schools and offices and among friends. We must reconsider who is in the classroom teaching, what texts we teach, who we teach, and how we teach. To be actively anti-racist means that we educate ourselves on how unfair and uneven structures of power have benefited some of us and excluded others historically, and continue to do so today in our university setting and beyond. It means thinking about how we got here and creating a vision and a commitment and a plan to do better. We must speak up against racist behaviors regardless of where they occur. And we must accept criticism when we fail to deliver on our promise to be active anti-racists.
We are committed to engaging in the difficult work of building an explicitly anti-racist curriculum and reconsidering the hiring practices that have failed to break the hold of white supremacy on our campus. We believe that by working purposefully to be anti-racist, we can create a St. Lawrence that is not only diverse and inclusive but is a model of how a campus, even in a remote setting like ours, can begin to dismantle those centuries-old structures of unequal power and privilege and to treat everyone with abiding respect and dignity. We will work with those who are suffering to create a community in which each of us has a voice. Even more than this, we can equip future Laurentians with the critical tools they need to analyze and disassemble those power structures as graduates, and to be active and effective advocates for justice and equality wherever they go.
With love and in solidarity,
Natalia R. Singer, Professor of English
Jennifer Thomas, Associate Professor of Performance and Communication Arts
John Collins, Professor of Global Studies
Stephen Barnard, Associate Professor of Sociology
Jacqueline Pinkowitz, Visiting Assistant Professor of Film Studies
Kristen Loutensock, Adjunct Instructor of Film Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Global Studies, and Public Health
Ronnie Olesker, Associate Professor of Government
Chris Buck, Associate Professor of Government
Rosa Williams, Assistant Professor of History and African Studies
Lorraine Olendzenski, Associate Professor of Biology
Judith DeGroat, Associate Professor of History
Alice Tarun, Assistant Professor of Biology
Angela Sweigart-Gallagher, Assistant Professor of Theatre, Performance and Communication Arts
Kristin McKie, Associate Professor of Government & African Studies
Mert Kartal, Assistant Professor of Government
Marcella Salvi, Professor of Modern Languages & Literatures
Kathleen Stein, Adjunct Instructor of Art and Art History and Film Studies
Katharine Wolfe, Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Matt Carotenuto, Professor of History
Pedro Ponce, Associate Professor of English
Steven White, Professor of Estudios Hispánicos
Loraina Ghiraldi, Associate Professor of Psychology
Mindy Pitre, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Donna Alvah, Associate Professor of History
Patti Frazer Lock, Cummings Professor of Mathematics
Erin McCarthy, Professor of Philosophy
Dorothy Limouze, Professor of Art and Art History
Elyssa Twedt, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Allie Rowland, Associate Professor of Performance & Communication Arts
Paul A. Siskind, Adjunct Assistant Professor of the First Year Program
Wendi A. Haugh, Associate Professor of Anthropology and African Studies
Melissane Parm Schrems, Associate Professor of History, Native American Studies Coordinator, MacAllaster Professor of North Country Studies (2018-2021)
Laura Rediehs, Associate Professor of Philosophy
Sarah Gates, Craig Professor of English
Pamela Valley Thacher, Professor of Psychology
Jeff Maynes, Associate Professor of Philosophy
Neil Forkey, Assistant Professor of Canadian Studies
Amanda N Oldacre, Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Shuwei Zhang, Assistant Professor of Economics
Rafael Castillo Bejarano, Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures
Shinu Anna Abraham, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Erika L. Barthelmess, Piskor Professor of Biology
Valerie Lehr, Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies and Government
Christopher Watts, Associate Professor of Music
Zenel Garcia, Visiting Assistant Professor of Government
Sahar Milani, Assistant Professor of Economics
Chandreyi Basu, Associate Professor of Art & Art History
Liz Regosin, Professor of History
Cathy Crosby, Associate Professor of Psychology
Natasha Komarov, Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Paul Doty, Special Collections and Archives Librarian, SLU Libraries
Guanyi Yang, Assistant Professor of Economics
Jon Rosales, Professor of Environmental Studies
Eloise Brezault, Associate Professor of Francophone and African Studies
Sarah Barber, Associate Professor of English
Catherine Tedford, Director of Richard F. Brush Art Gallery
Mark Sturges, Assistant Professor of English
Jennifer Hansen, Professor of Philosophy
Jeff Chiarenzelli, Charles A. Dana Professor of Geology
Bill DeCoteau, Associate Professor of Psychology
Judith Nagel-Myers, Associate Professor of Geology
Grace Huang, Associate Professor of Government
Carolyn Twomey, Visiting Assistant Professor of European History, History Department
Nicholas Hughes, Instructor of Philosophy; Head Coach, Women’s Rowing
Gwendolyn Cunningham, Science Librarian
Adam Fox, Associate Professor of Psychology
Sandhya Ganapathy, Assistant Professor of Global Studies
Claire Burkum, Assistant Course Coordinator, Biology
Paul Graham, Professor of English
Marina Llorente, Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures
Stephen Papson, Professor of Film and Representation Studies
Daniel M. Look, Associate Professor of Mathematics
Kristine Hoffmann, Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology
Evelyn P. Jennings, Professor of History and Caribbean, Latin American, and Latino Studies
Aaron Iverson, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
Jennifer L. Baker, Assistant Professor of Design, Performance and Communication Arts
Robin Rhodes Crowell, Director of International Student Academic Support, Modern Languages and Literatures
Gina Marie Breen, Visiting Assistant Professor of Francophone Studies
Alessandro Giardino, Associate Professor of Modern Languages
Ana Y. Estevez, Associate Professor of Biology and Psychology
Peter J Bailey, Piskor Professor of English Emeritus
Michael Jenkins, Associate Professor of Economics
Cheryl Stuntz, Associate Professor of Psychology
Barbara Phillips-Farley, Instructor of Music
Cynthia Bansak, Professor of Economics
Megan Carpenter, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Barry Torres, Director of Music Ensembles
Joe Erlichman, Professor of Biology
Sam Byrne, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
Roy Caldwell, Professor of French and Film Studies
In-Sil Yoo, Associate Professor of Music
Ed Harcourt, Charles A. Dana Professor of Computer Science
Tom Fraatz, Adjunct Assistant Professor of the First Year Program and Religious Studies
Melissa Schulenberg, Professor of Art & Art History
Thomas C. Greene, Professor of Psychology
Jessica Sierk, Assistant Professor of Education
Arun Brahmbhatt, Assistant Professor of South Asian Religions
Lisa Torrey, Associate Professor of Computer Science
Rachael M. Jones, Visiting Assistant Professor of Ceramics & Drawing
Adam Harr, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Tina Tao, Instructor in the First Year Program; Coordinator of Academic Support
Emily Dixon, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biology
Mark Denaci, Associate Professor of Art and Art History
Abdelwahab Sinnary, Academic Director of the St. Lawrence University Kenya Semester Program
Jessica Chapman, Professor of Statistics
Yesim Bayar, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Michael Schuckers, Professor of Statistics
Catherine Jahncke, Associate Professor of Physics
Jennifer MacGregor, Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies
Mark MacWilliams, Professor of Religious Studies
Celeste E. Orr, Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies
Karl Schonberg, Professor of Government
Daniel Gallagher, Professor of Performance and Communication Arts
Aileen A. O'Donoghue, Henry Priest Professor of Physics
Matt Higham, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics
Fred Exoo, Emeritus Professor of Government
Erica Morrell, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Kathleen M. Self, Associate Professor of Religious Studies
Margaret Harloe, General Biology Course Manager (Retired)
Ann Hubert, Assistant Professor of English
Sarah Beck, Visiting Assistant Professor of Performance and Communication Arts
Brian Watson, Emeritus Associate Professor of Physics
Peter Pettengill, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
Ivan Ramler, Associate Professor of Statistics
Leah Rohlfsen, Associate Professor of Sociology
Marianna Locke, Adjunct Instructor of the First Year Program
Rebecca Daniels, Emeritus Associate Professor of Performance and Communication Arts
LeAnn M. Holland, Assistant Professor of Education
Howard Eissenstat, Associate Professor of History
Elun Gabriel, Associate Professor of History
Juraj Kittler, Associate Professor of Performance and Communication Arts and English
Sara Ashpole, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies
Emre Balikci, Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics
Jeff Frank, Associate Professor of Education
Brook Henkel, Assistant Professor of Modern Languages
Sarah Knobel, Assistant Professor of Art and Art History
Rhonda Courtney, Librarian of ODY Library
J. Michael Martinez, Visiting Assistant Professor of English
Adam D. Hill, Associate Professor of Chemistry
Laura Mills-Smith, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Sookyoung Lee, Assistant Professor of English
Eve Stoddard, Emeritus Professor of Global Studies
Penny Vlagopoulos, Assistant Professor of English
Carol Cady, GIS Specialist of the Library
Banner image: George Floyd mural outside Cup Foods, Minneapolis, MN, 2020