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BLM

GPB Statement on Recent Events and Racism

Dear GPB Student Family,

 

By now you have received multiple messages regarding the numerous recent tragic events. We are sorry for the delay in this message, we have been considering how we might recommit ourselves in actionable ways to foster equity in our graduate program.

 

We feel a sense of tremendous sadness and frustration at the extensive disparities and injustices that have been occurring.  In this month alone, we have seen the devastating and appalling murders of multiple Black people. Graduate Programs in Bioscience stands in solidarity with those who have taken up the call to demand justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery and the many other victims of police brutality and racism.  These events have shaken our nation to its core and once again tragically demonstrate the everyday danger of being Black in America.

 

These brutal acts come as we have observed the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black, Latinx and Native communities.  We recognize and acknowledge that these events are rooted in centuries of systemic and structural racism and we want to reaffirm our commitment to examine and advance our own practices targeted at dismantling racial inequalities in our graduate program. Graduate Programs in Bioscience commits to evolving and implementing culturally aware mentor training, unconscious bias training, restorative justice programming and practices, and to examining our own student outcomes data to uncover where inequities lay.

 

Graduate Programs in Bioscience aims to foster a community that embraces and honors each other’s differences.

 

As community members, faculty, researchers, learners, and staff, we embrace the following commitments adapted from the American Association of Medical Colleges.

  • We must acknowledge and speak out against all forms of racism, discrimination, and bias in our academic environments, communities, and society. 
  • We must stand in solidarity with the Black community and speak out against unjust and inhumane incidents of violence.
  • We must demonstrate empathy and compassion and acknowledge the pain and grief that the families and the communities of these victims are experiencing.
  • We must take the lead in educating ourselves and others to address these issues head on.
  • We must employ anti-racist and unconscious bias training and engage in interracial dialogues that will dispel the misrepresentations that dehumanize our Black community members and other marginalized groups. 
  • We must move from rhetoric to action to eliminate the inequities in our academic, research, and learning environments.

 

Black lives matter.

 

Diana Azurdia, PhD
Director for Recruitment and Inclusion
Graduate Programs in Bioscience

 

Greg Payne, PhD
Director
Graduate Programs in Bioscience