In honor of our graduate students’ graduation ceremony this Friday, we are sharing this post from Director of Campus Education, Dr. Déana Scipio:
“This week is the IslandWood EEC 2020 cohort graduation. My grad students would ordinarily be team teaching in the almost summer PNW woods full of the voices and laughter of children. We’re not able to gather in the great hall as we ordinarily would to celebrate with the grads, their friends, and family. I’m feeling tender about it. I’m delighted with the work Theresa Song Ichien and Kathie Bradford have led to create graduation in a box. I’m also aware that this is happening in the midst of multiple pandemics that are threats to public health: institutionalized racism, police brutality, and COVID-19. Today in staff meeting we were talking about how to center Black Lives in our graduation ceremony. I think I have a way to do it now. I plan to briefly share Louis Micheal’s image and story and then donate to his GoFundMe. I’m putting my trust in the investigative journalism of the staff at Refinery29 to have identified a legitimate GoFundMe. Hopefully the story explains why I’m going to do this.”
To read more about Louis Michael and Deveonte Joseph; the extraordinary circumstances that they and their fellow 2020 graduates are facing; and the resilience, excellence, and strength of Black youth fighting for justice, check out Refinery29’s article.
If you are able, please also consider supporting Deveonte Joseph’s college fundraising campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fundraiser-for-deveonte039s-futu…
Photo: Courtesy of Nathan Aguirre via Refinery29
