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

Chelsea Farrell, assistant professor, criminology and criminal justice

Bing Mu, assistant professor of Chinese

Nikolaos Poulakos, teaching professor of communication studies

Karen Sweeting, assistant professor, political science (co-chair)

Shahla Yekta, assistant teaching professor of chemistry

Rosaria Pisa, teaching professor of sociology, chair of gender and women’s studies

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. This shall include, but not be limited to, matters related to Goal 4 of the College of Arts and Sciences Strategic Plan 2018-2022.

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.