Building a Caring and Compassionate Emerson Community

To help bridge the divides that emerged in the community last spring and lean into Emerson’s strengths in communication and arts, the College has launched EmersonTogether. This campus-wide initiative looks to every community member to envision ways to move forward together.

Every Emersonian, no matter their role or length of time they’ve been here, is invited to propose events, workshops, performances, and exhibits that do the hard but necessary work of building and strengthening our shared sense of community.

“Many Emersonians may be feeling alone, upset, or cautious – and they want to play a part in helping to heal some of the divisions that have caused those feelings,” said Provost Alex Socarides, a member of the team leading the initiative. That team decided the community should ultimately share the responsibility for determining how this healing happens. 

“In other words, EmersonTogether is not happening to our people, but is being created by and with the people in our community,” Socarides said. 

To kick off this initiative the College will hold its first Community Conversation on Friday, September 6, at 3:00 pm. The EmersonTogether leadership team will be available to respond to community questions and will dedicate time for information sharing and discussion. The overarching topic for the Community Conversation will be crowd-sourced from Emersonians and communicated in advance of September 6.

While the ideas and inspiration for EmersonTogether will come from everyone, the organizational work will come from three teams, which will include faculty, staff, and students, and will be regularly updated on the EmersonTogether web page.

“We hope that everyone will collaborate on ideas and programs that will meet the needs of many different groups of people, including activities that bring people together to listen respectfully and work across different points of view,” Socarides said. 

All ideas and suggestions for EmersonTogether are welcome and should be sent to EmersonTogether@emerson.edu.

President’s Advisory Group on Equity

This past spring, Emerson relaunched the Presidential Advisory Group for Community and Equity (PAG), the College’s primary equity, access, and social justice advisory committee composed of students, staff, and faculty. The PAG advocates and advises College leadership on high-level strategic priorities and works to build community power in alignment with the principles of shared governance. Members applied or were appointed to ensure cross-representation of our campuses, community groups, social identities, and levels of leadership. Staff and faculty serve two-year terms, and students serve one-year terms.

The original PAG was formed in 2021 in response to the #ESOCWeekOfAction and Access Advocacy Project. Vice President for Equity & Social Justice, Shaya Gregory Poku, serves as the PAG’s Chair.

Over the summer, a significant portion of the group was on-boarded to their work by learning about accessibility best practices; definitions of equity, access, and social justice; and analyzing equity data from the Emerson community. They are supported by Dr. Mary Whitehead, the Administrative Coordinator of the PAG. This fall, they intend to focus on helping the College improve its communications with community members.

“This is an important body for College leadership and the institution. I look forward to continued engagement with the PAG and working together to make Emerson’s goals for equity and social justice a reality,” said President Bernhardt. 

You can expect to hear more about the important work of this committee in the coming weeks. Please email pag@emerson.edu with any questions or concerns.

Building a Genuine Community

As we head into Fall 2024 and students and faculty return to campus, Vice President Gregory Poku said she is leaning into the wisdom of author and activist Grace Lee Boggs, who said, “The only way to survive is by taking care of one another.” 

“We all must consider what it means to care for our community – to pour into it, to rebuild it, to tend to it,” Gregory Poku said. 

We are living in dangerous times, she added. The validity of diversity, equity, and inclusion work has come under attack, people’s humanity is negated and refuted, and the fact that our society is structured unjustly is being questioned, she said.

“If we are to thrive as a community and an institution, we have to entrench ourselves in moral courage. And we must do so in an ethic that centers compassion and curiosity and is unflinchingly committed to our shared investment in equity, access, and social justice principles,” Gregory Poku said. 

“That is the care to which I believe Grace Lee Boggs was referring, and I want to ground us in as we consider community-building.”