This past Friday, many of us witnessed a video and images depicting the tragic death of an African American male by the name of Tyre Nichols, resulting from the reprehensible actions of five Memphis police officers.
As we try to process our emotions, let us come together as a campus community and focus our efforts on creating a safe, respectful, and just community at CSI and on Staten Island.
Executive Chief Diversity Officer, Dr. Jonathan Wesley, and the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI) will be working to make this a reality on our campus. Beginning in March, ODEI will launch a survey that we hope all staff and students will complete. (Faculty will be surveyed separately via COACHE). This activity will help us to further understand our current campus climate and provide a baseline to make data-informed decisions to create a better climate for our CSI community. In addition to these surveys, there will be focus groups held that provide a space for us to hear more of the narratives that we may not have heard in the past. Also, ODEI will be sure to work closely with our Office of Public Safety to ensure that we are able to better understand the impacts that policing has on marginalized communities. If you have additional ideas about how we can make our campus safer, please feel free to email ODEI directly at DEI@csi.cuny.edu as our team would love to hear your thoughts.
As always, our Counseling Center is available to support students. Students looking for assistance may drop into their office at 1A-109, or call 718.982.2391, Monday-Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm. You can also email counseling@csicuny.edu. Employees may seek counseling through our employee assistance program, CCA@YourService, via telephone at 800.833.8707.
Respectfully,
Timothy G. Lynch, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
