coe-staff: [Cphs-faculty] A Notice of Departure: An Open Letter to the COE Community

Wed Jul 6 08:48:05 PDT 2022

The following message is sent on behalf of Dr. Tiffany Brown (queued 7.1.22)

Subject: Re: [Cphs-faculty] A Notice of Departure: An Open Letter to the COE Community

Thank you, James and Bertranna, for sharing your experiences and naming - so clearly - the truths of this community. It is surely a significant loss for UO that you have found a new academic home. I am grateful for your openness – it’s easy and routine for white faculty to dismiss the realities of this community and of Oregon. The CPHS department, and certainly the COE, will be significantly impacted by your departure and we must wrestle with the meaning and implications of our loss. Your contributions have been significant and meaningful in immeasurable ways.

I am deeply appreciative for your activism in this statement – offering the truths, unapologetically, and giving COE faculty and staff an opportunity to wrestle with the realities experienced day in and day out by racially diverse faculty, staff, and students.  I am hopeful that your departure will translate into action within our college in many, many ways. I am grateful for your transparency.

COE – we have work to do! And CPHS – I am hopeful we will experience this as a call to be better, do better, and lead accordingly. It’s a loss on many levels – but I am mostly saddened by what this means for students.

Tiffany

----
Tiffany B. Brown, Ph.D., LMFT
[She/Her]
Senior Lecturer; Clinical Director
Couples and Family Therapy Program
University of Oregon
(541) 346-2117 (office)

I support all students regardless of immigration status or country of origin. For more information and resources please visit the UO Dreamers page (https://blogs.uoregon.edu/dreamers/) and the Immigration FAQs page (http://international.uoregon.edu/immigration_faq). Remember, when interacting with faculty, staff, and offices around campus you are never required to reveal your status.

From: <cphs-faculty-bounces at lists.uoregon.edu<mailto:cphs-faculty-bounces at lists.uoregon.edu>> on behalf of James Muruthi <muruthjr at uoregon.edu<mailto:muruthjr at uoregon.edu>>
Date: Thursday, June 30, 2022 at 12:53 PM
To: "coe-staff at lists.uoregon.edu<mailto:coe-staff at lists.uoregon.edu>" <coe-staff at lists.uoregon.edu<mailto:coe-staff at lists.uoregon.edu>>, "cphs-faculty at lists.uoregon.edu<mailto:cphs-faculty at lists.uoregon.edu>" <cphs-faculty at lists.uoregon.edu<mailto:cphs-faculty at lists.uoregon.edu>>, "cphs-instructors at lists.uoregon.edu<mailto:cphs-instructors at lists.uoregon.edu>" <cphs-instructors at lists.uoregon.edu<mailto:cphs-instructors at lists.uoregon.edu>>, Lisa Fortin <lfortin at uoregon.edu<mailto:lfortin at uoregon.edu>>
Cc: Yvette Alex-Assensoh <yalex at uoregon.edu<mailto:yalex at uoregon.edu>>, Provost <provost at uoregon.edu<mailto:provost at uoregon.edu>>, Kendra Duncan <kendrad at uoregon.edu<mailto:kendrad at uoregon.edu>>
Subject: [Cphs-faculty] A Notice of Departure: An Open Letter to the COE Community

Hello COE Community,

We are writing this email to communicate that we will be leaving the University of Oregon at the end of this summer. We have accepted job offers elsewhere and are enthusiastic about the opportunities that await. We have enjoyed working with our colleagues, and the students have been a great joy to teach and mentor. And, of course, we all know that the COE does not function without the stellar skills and efforts of the COE staff. Thank you all.

As we leave, many people will reasonably ask why. Ultimately, we have decided that Oregon is not a place we want to live and work. The White Utopia and racist history of Oregon still hold a pungent stench in the way people do their business here. And quite honestly, the university is not immune to the White supremacy culture. For example, James was a direct target of racism when he received racist (xenophobic and homophobic) emails (see example attached) in response to his participant recruiting materials for LGBTQ and caregiving studies. Another case included racist chants yelled at our family as we looked for housing - our first week in Oregon. Our friends with school-age children express that their children are undergoing chronic racially related bullying and sidelining under the watch of teachers. Allies speak cliche social justice language without knowing the core of diversity issues while forcing their allyship on groups that do not deem them as such. The list could go on.

While the characteristics of Oregon cannot be controlled, the university and the COE (particularly) can do better to address the needs of racially diverse faculty. For example, leveraging the recent openness to online learning can ensure Black faculty can still work for the university while living in more racially welcoming environments. For instance, we must express our disappointment in the lackluster efforts to work with us to explore the off-site route. Our interpretation of the response from university leadership was that our feelings and experiences did not matter as long as the students who came in did not feel like the university environment was not conducive for Black professors who worked off-site.

We decided to use this tone of voice as the last act of activism for other racially diverse faculty and staff (and students) who remain at the COE or the ones that will join. We believe that this honest expression of our stories opens a window into the lived experiences of racially diverse faculty (staff and students) and encourages more profound empathy and activism across the board. Best of luck to you all.

With Gratitude,

Drs. James & Bertranna Muruthi
______________________
James R. Muruthi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
College of Education | University of Oregon
Office: 350 HEDCO
Phone: 541-346-2344
Email: muruthjr at uoregon.edu<mailto:muruthjr at uoregon.edu>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.uoregon.edu/pipermail/coe-staff/attachments/20220706/2af6e8c4/attachment.html>