SLU Faculty Letter to the Community About Systemic Racism in America

Moving with the country in the Black Lives Matter movement and striving towards changes, the faculty at St. Lawrence University shares their thoughts to the community about systemic racism in America. At the end of June 11, 2020, more than 120 faculty members have signed the letter. Read more of their statement here:

June 11, 2020

Canton, New York – We, the undersigned members of our local American Association of University Professors (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 Amaud Arbery, Manuel Ellis, Breonna Tayler, 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,

1. Natalia R. Singer, Professor of English
2. Jennifer Thomas, Associate Professor of Performance and Communication Arts
3. John Collins, Professor of Global Studies
4. Stephen Barnard, Associate Professor of Sociology
5. Jacqueline Pinkowitz, Visiting Assistant Professor of Film Studies
6. Kristen Loutensock, Adjunct Instructor of Film Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Global Studies, and Public Health
7. Ronnie Olesker, Associate Professor of Government
8. Chris Buck, Associate Professor of Government
9. Rosa Williams, Assistant Professor of History and African Studies
10. Lorraine Olendzenski, Associate Professor of Biology
11. Judith DeGroat, Associate Professor of History
12. Alice Tarun, Assistant Professor of Biology
13. Angela Sweigart-Gallagher, Assistant Professor of Theatre, Performance and Communication Arts
14. Kristin McKie, Associate Professor of Government & African Studies
15. Mert Kartal, Assistant Professor of Government
16. Marcella Salvi, Professor of Modern Languages & Literatures
17. Kathleen Stein, Adjunct Instructor of Art and Art History and Film Studies
18. Katharine Wolfe, Assistant Professor of Philosophy 
19. Matt Carotenuto, Professor of History
20. Pedro Ponce, Associate Professor of English
21. Steven White, Professor of Estudios Hispánicos 
22. Loraina Ghiraldi, Associate Professor of Psychology
23. Mindy Pitre, Associate Professor of Anthropology 
24. Donna Alvah, Associate Professor of History
25. Patti Frazer Lock, Cummings Professor of Mathematics
26. Erin McCarthy, Professor of Philosophy
27. Dorothy Limouze, Professor of Art and Art History
28. Elyssa Twedt, Assistant Professor of Psychology
29. Allie Rowland, Associate Professor of Performance & Communication Arts
30. Paul A. Siskind, Adjunct Assistant Professor of the First Year Program
31. Wendi A. Haugh, Associate Professor of Anthropology and African Studies
32. Melissane Parm Schrems, Associate Professor of History, Native American Studies Coordinator, MacAllaster Professor of North Country Studies (2018-2021)
33. Laura Rediehs, Associate Professor of Philosophy
34. Sarah Gates, Craig Professor of English
35. Pamela Valley Thacher, Professor of Psychology
36. Jeff Maynes, Associate Professor of Philosophy
37. Neil Forkey, Assistant Professor of Canadian Studies
38. Amanda N. Oldacre, Assistant Professor of Chemistry
39. Shuwei Zhang, Assistant Professor of Economics
40. Rafael Castillo Bejarano, Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures
41. Shinu Anna Abraham, Associate Professor of Anthropology 
42. Erika L. Barthelmess, Piskor Professor of Biology
43. Valerie Lehr, Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies and Government
44. Christopher Watts, Associate Professor of Music
45. Zenel Garcia, Visiting Assistant Professor of Government
46. Sahar Milani, Assistant Professor of Economics 
47. Chandreyi Basu, Associate Professor of Art & Art History 
48. Liz Regosin, Professor of History
49. Cathy Crosby, Associate Professor of Psychology
50. Natasha Komarov, Assistant Professor of Mathematics
51. Paul Doty, Special Collections and Archives Librarian, SLU Libraries
52. Guanyi Yang, Assistant Professor of Economics
53. Jon Rosales, Professor of Environmental Studies
54. Eloise Brezault, Associate Professor of Francophone and African Studies
55. Sarah Barber, Associate Professor of English
56. Catherine Tedford, Director of Richard F. Brush Art Gallery
57. Mark Sturges, Assistant Professor of English
58. Jennifer Hansen, Professor of Philosophy 
59. Jeff Chiarenzelli, Charles A. Dana Professor of Geology
60. Bill DeCoteau, Associate Professor of Psychology
61. Judith Nagel-Myers, Associate Professor of Geology
62. Grace Huang, Associate Professor of Government
63. Carolyn Twomey, Visiting Assistant Professor of European History, History Department
64. Nicholas Hughes, Instructor of Philosophy; Head Coach, Women’s Rowing
65. Gwendolyn Cunningham, Science Librarian
66. Adam Fox, Associate Professor of Psychology 
67. Sandhya Ganapathy, Assistant Professor of Global Studies
68. Claire Burkum, Assistant Course Coordinator, Biology
69. Paul Graham, Professor of English
70. Marina Llorente, Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures
71. Stephen Papson, Professor of Film and Representation Studies
72. Daniel M. Look, Associate Professor of Mathematics
73. Kristine Hoffmann, Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology
74. Evelyn P. Jennings, Professor of History and Caribbean, Latin American, and Latino Studies
75. Aaron Iverson, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
76. Jennifer L. Baker, Assistant Professor of Design, Performance and Communication Arts
77. Robin Rhodes Crowell, Director of International Student Academic Support, Modern Languages and Literatures
78. Gina Marie Breen, Visiting Assistant Professor of Francophone Studies
79. Alessandro Giardino, Associate Professor of Modern Languages
80. Ana Y. Estevez, Associate Professor of Biology and Psychology
81. Peter J. Bailey, Piskor Professor of English Emeritus
82. Michael Jenkins, Associate Professor of Economics
83. Cheryl Stuntz, Associate Professor of Psychology
84. Barbara Phillips-Farley, Instructor of Music
85. Cynthia Bansak, Professor of Economics
86. Megan Carpenter, Assistant Professor of Psychology
87. Barry Torres, Director of Music Ensembles
88. Joe Erlichman, Professor of Biology
89. Sam Byrne , Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
90. Roy Caldwell, Professor of French and Film Studies
91. In-Sil Yoo, Associate Professor of Music
92. Ed Harcourt, Charles A. Dana Professor of Computer Science
93. Tom Fraatz, Adjunct Assistant Professor of the First Year Program and Religious Studies
94. Melissa Schulenberg, Professor of Art & Art History 
95. Thomas C. Greene, Professor of Psychology
96. Jessica Sierk, Assistant Professor of Education
97. Arun Brahmbhatt, Assistant Professor of South Asian Religions
98. Lisa Torrey, Associate Professor of Computer Science
99. Rachael M. Jones, Visiting Assistant Professor of Ceramics & Drawing 
100. Adam Harr, Associate Professor of Anthropology
101. Tina Tao, Instructor in the First Year Program; Coordinator of Academic Support 
102. Emily Dixon, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biology
103. Mark Denaci, Associate Professor of Art and Art History
104. Abdelwahab Sinnary, Academic Director of the St. Lawrence University Kenya Semester Program
105. Jessica Chapman, Professor of Statistics
106. Yesim Bayar, Assistant Professor of Sociology
107. Michael Schuckers, Professor of Statistics
108. Catherine Jahncke, Associate Professor of Physics
109. Jennifer MacGregor, Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies
110. Mark MacWilliams, Professor of Religious Studies
111. Celeste E. Orr, Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies
112. Karl Schonberg, Professor of Government
113. Daniel Gallagher, Professor of Performance and Communication Arts
114. Aileen A. O’Donoghue, Henry Priest Professor of Physics
115. Matt Higham, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics
116. Fred Exoo, Emeritus Professor of Government
117. Erica Morrell, Assistant Professor of Sociology
118. Kathleen M. Self, Associate Professor of Religious Studies
119. Margaret Harloe, General Biology Course Manager (Retired)
120. Ann Hubert, Assistant Professor of English 
121. Sarah Beck, Visiting Assistant Professor of Performance and Communication Arts
122. Brian Watson, Emeritus Associate Professor of Physics
123. Peter Pettengill, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
124. Ivan Ramler, Associate Professor of Statistics
125. Leah Rohlfsen, Associate Professor of Sociology
126. Marianna Locke, Adjunct Instructor of the First Year Program
127. Rebecca Daniels, Emeritus Associate Professor of Performance and Communication Arts