School of Art Statement to recent events
We have now crossed the threshold of over 110,000 deaths in the United States and 400,000 deaths worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We want to extend our condolences to our students, staff and faculty who have, or will, face the tragic nature of this disease – either with family members, friends, or co-workers. This crisis and the steps we’ve had to take as a society to mitigate its impacts have disrupted family and work life. They have also dramatically impacted the educational experiences of all of you, and have further affected you and other participants in our learning community via loss of employment and income, intensified food and housing insecurity, tolls taken on both physical and mental health, isolation and separation from places and networks of support, difficulties in accessing resources and services, and a variety of other stresses on families and communities.
The COVID-19 pandemic also has further exposed, via the grossly disproportionate numbers of deaths among people of color, the intersection of systematic racism and public health. This has coincided with a nationwide upwelling of protest brought to the forefront by the Black Lives Matter movement and driven by the tragic deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, David McAtee, and Breonna Taylor, among so many other Black Lives lost at the hands of law enforcement, vigilantes, and murderous groups and individuals, making all too clear that we also are at the breaking point of a crisis that has been building for a very long time at the intersection of systematic and societally ingrained racism, policing, violence, authoritarianism, incarceration, and the management and distribution of resources and services in communities across our country...
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