Mission

The College of Arts and Sciences is committed to the recruitment, retention and diversity of our faculty, students and staff, and actively engages in creative initiatives to support these endeavors.

A&S Equity & Anti-Racism Committee Members*

Kamilah A’Vant, assistant dean, Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office liaison

Bing Mu, assistant professor of Chinese

Nikolaos Poulakos, teaching professor of communication studies

Shahla Yekta, assistant teaching professor of chemistry

Hanan Mogawer, assistant teaching professor of chemistry

Luzi Shi, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice

*Each one year term, there are two undergraduate students and one graduate student who are appointed by the Dean.

Charge: The Arts and Sciences Committee for Equity and Anti-Racism shall counsel the Dean by advocating for equity and anti-racism in the College. The Committee shall primarily focus on ways to repair and improve the experience of racialized and other minoritized students, faculty, and staff in the college. 

Anti-Racism: In this context refers to the work of actively opposing racism by advocating for changes in institutional systems and life in the college. These institutional systems may never mention any racial group, but their effect may still create oppression and disadvantage for Black, Indigenous and people of color. We recognize that the intersectionality of race and other minoritized characteristics creates special challenges.

Equity: In this context refers to: one’s condition, opportunity and voice will not depend on race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, status as a parent or intersections of these characteristics. To address inequities, the creation of targeted programs is often crucial. 

The University of Rhode Island Land Acknowledgement

The University of Rhode Island occupies the traditional homelands of the Narragansett Nation. What is now the state of Rhode Island occupies the traditional homelands and waterways of the Narragansett Nation and the Niantic, Wampanoag and Nipmuc Peoples. We honor and respect the enduring and continuing relationship between these nations and this land by teaching and learning more about their histories and present-day communities, and by becoming stewards of the land we too inhabit. In addition, let us acknowledge the violence of conquest, war, land dispossession and of enslavement endured by Black and Indigenous communities in what is now the United States. Their contemporary efforts to endure in the face of colonialism must be acknowledged, respected and supported.

This video, a Newscast produced by the 5 Cent Cigar, explores the history of the URI campus and its complex and often contentious history of building on Indigenous land.