Dear Colleagues,

I’ve tried and failed several times to write this.  I suspect that much of my failure is a result of the swirling and painful emotions and anger that have emerged from our raw sentiments about how the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and now Rayshard Brooks, have highlighted the continuing and pervasive inequities and bias that exist in our country, in our neighborhoods, in our minds.  Even today, I continue to wrestle with the painfulness and anger of how phenotype so strongly determines our trajectory.  As a community of scholars and scientists, we are forced to examine the evidence and reckon with what it tells us.  If we are truthful with ourselves, the evidence paints a stark and sobering picture of our society and our educational system.  We must and will do better to highlight and correct these pernicious biases and effects.  Our project is only one of many individual, small, and local efforts to combat racial disparities, bigotry and biases.  Yes, the problems are larger and more complex that our project, but the more serious injustices highlighted in recent events compels us to do better.  Collectively we must do better as a program, we must do better as an institution, we must do better as individuals.  We must pledge and BE more compassionate, BE more understanding, and listen more empathically.

All lives matter when black lives matter.

Jose Herrera, Ph.D.

Our initiative

Mercy College’s Inclusive Excellence initiative represents a commitment to shape institutional practices and strategic planning through evolving equity-minded principles that foster a sense of belonging and will enhance the diversity of viewpoints, confidence, creativity, innovation, and citizenship in the college community. Through this culturally sensitive, data-driven dynamic framework, Mercy College will cultivate student and faculty-centered organizational initiatives through a lens that recognizes and addresses the broad range of challenges faced by our diverse community.