Racial equity and creating a safe campus

September 22, 2020

University Relations

— by Marie Skanis, counselor, UAF Student Health and Counseling Center

As we return to university life, I want to recognize together how much we are all contending with this semester. For instance, our lives have and are continuing to change due to COVID-19. Travel for many has likely been a confusing process. Daily activities have become more complicated. Jobs and finances for many have been in flux. Parts of day-to-day life are under the political spotlight in new ways – going to the grocery store, for instance. While COVID-19 has made accessing healthcare more complex for everyone, political decisions have resulted in major shifts in healthcare coverage and rights for members of the LGQBTQIA+ community.

For some, the experience of racism and advocating for racial equity is ongoing, and has been part of life for a long time. For some, issues of racial equity are more recently entering into awareness. As one of your campus counselors, I want to share my thoughts and hopes for our university. I am fallible like anyone else, so I write to you from a place of openness, knowing I will have more to learn. UAF is a space for learning, and I encourage everyone to give themselves and others similar grace to learn and contribute.

My hope is that, as we all consider how to maintain safety on our campuses related to COVID-19, we can also each think about our role in racial equity in this community. We have inherited systems that work against many of us. We have inherited biases that work against many of us. My hope is that everyone at UAF takes time to consider ways to encourage change, safety, acceptance and equity. Everyone has something to offer.

You won’t be on the journey alone. The UAF Student Health and Counseling Center will share more about anti-racism this semester, alternating between education and ideas for entry points to allyship and action. We invite you to join us to find ways to carry some of the burden that racial equity brings so that no one group shoulders it all. Let us find ways towards change together. Some of what I will share is inspired by the writings of Ibram X. Kendi, Grace Lee Boggs and Jenna Arnold. As time allows in your lives, I invite you to join me in seeking out such voices to inform our self-growth and advocacy.