Here in Charlottesville, the violence at the US Capitol last week was especially painful to watch, challenging beyond what our usual messages about self-care can address. In the more than three years since August 11-12, 2017, we have seen so many of you engaged in working for equity and justice, and we know that seeing lessons not learned more widely since then makes this work more daunting. We take as one of our most serious responsibilities our role as a support unit, and we are reaching out right now in the hope that you will find at least one of our planned events helpful in this moment. As with our students and staff, I hope that our colleagues, alumni and friends throughout the UVA community will check in with and lean on trusted friends and loved ones.

I hope, too, that many of us can come together (virtually) for the timely events below. Following the three sessions with Austin Channing Brown that we hosted for our staff, our interns, and young Black women from local high schools in February of 2020, interest quickly surfaced in bringing her back to speak to a larger audience during this month's Community MLK Celebration. With each month that has passed since then, the need for more of the insights she brings has been affirmed to us over and over.

With gratitude,

Abigail L. Palko, Director

In conversation with Austin Channing Brown 

Join us on Wednesday, January 20, 2021, at 5pm for our 2021 Community MLK Celebration event, a conversation with the author of New York Times Bestseller, I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. RSVP 

Creating a Culture of Curiosity 

Join us for a fireside chat with Melissa C. Thomas-Hunt, an expert on building inclusive, global teams and current Head of Global Diversity and Belonging at Airbnb. She will share her insights into building diverse teams and encouraging leadership skills among them. RSVP