Our Statement of Partnership and Solidarity, June 1st, 2020

June 1, 2020

Breathing is fundamental. Whether it is a knee on the back of your neck, decades of air pollution in your neighborhood, or a contagious respiratory virus run amok in your city, at the end of the day, the adverse effects are the same. You can’t breathe.

It is no coincidence that each of these attacks on health affects some communities more than others, in a country with a long history of racial injustice and socioeconomic inequality. And it goes beyond air; environmental hazards like extreme heat and polluted water disproportionately affect communities of color and low-income communities in our country.

In the BU URBAN Graduate Program in Urban Biogeoscience and Environmental Health, we work to equip PhD students to help cities tackle environmental challenges such as air pollution and climate hazards by uniting dissertation research with intentional partnerships with local government, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector. Given this focus, we want to lend our support and solidarity for the many hard-hit communities across the country.

But support and solidarity are not enough. As a National Science Foundation Research Traineeship Program, one of our core goals is to Broaden Participation in STEM by tackling systemic barriers that keep science exclusive. We are committed to working toward a world where scientific experts reflect the communities we ultimately serve, in every shape and form. We will freely admit that we are not there yet, but we are working hard every day to make this a reality.

It shouldn’t be the case that institutions such as BU URBAN make statements like this only in response to the most visible of crises. Rather, every institutional action should be a statement in and of itself of its commitment to diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion, and to tackling the challenges at the root of inequality. Only by tackling these root causes, including our original racial sins as a country, can we start to address the environmental challenges that confront us.

We look forward to continuing this work with all of you, in partnership and in solidarity.

The BU URBAN Leadership Team

P.S….

  1. Join us this week in celebrating and amplifying #BlackBirdersWeek on twitter and Instagram!
  2. For students in need further support, here are some additional BU resources (free and available remotely):
    Behavioral Medicine
    24/7 Phone: 617-353-3569
    Fax: 617-353-3557
    http://patientconnect.bu.edu/
    Dean of Students Office
    617-353-4126
    dos@bu.edu
    Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground
    617-353-4745
    thurman@bu.edu
    Marsh Chapel, Boston University
    617-353-3560
    chapel@bu.edu
  3. And here is a non-exhaustive list of resources and actions you can take, compiled by the Ecological Society of America:

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