Drawing a Larger Circle

September 23, 2024

Dear University Community, 

What a time. If you are paying attention, it would be easy to succumb to a sense of overwhelm. Retreating to our ideological corners seems easier than engaging others with diverse opinions. We all, to varying degrees, are seeking a semblance of certainty as things feel increasingly unstable. As a community, I hope more of us are brave enough to choose another path forward - to draw a larger circle. Pauli Murray, the American civil rights advocate, lawyer, scholar, and priest, shared this strategy as her response to demoralizing circumstances: “When my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a larger circle to include them.”

On October 9 at noon, I invite you to join me for the inaugural Navigating Tensions, Affirming Community Lecture titled “Staying Resilient, Drawing a Larger Circle.” Kazu Haga, a leading Kingian Nonviolence trainer and the author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm, will help us to grapple with why the choice to draw a larger circle is important and share practical strategies to enable us to do so. Register now for what promises to be an impactful talk that will be hosted in person with a virtual option.

Beyond attending the talk, I want to encourage you to take steps, even seemingly small ones, to engage. University Equity and Inclusion launched the Education as Disruption webpage that shares resources that provide comprehensive materials on hate and bias, including antisemitism and Islamophobia, and expanded the Respect Faith Practices webpage to provide an introduction to faith without the distortion of hate. Hate and experiences of identity bias will happen. How we respond — individually and as a community — will make all the difference. I hope you will adopt our community commitments that challenge us all to reject hate and meet this moment with humanity.

My hope for you is that you choose to cultivate resilience. To help on that journey, starting next Wednesday, I will share one idea a week that can ignite change via the diversity mailing list. These will be small but significant behaviors that can enable us to build and sustain our community instead of coexisting in hostile proximity. Be sure to join our mailing list,  follow us on social media @RUDiversity, and visit diversity.rutgers.edu to stay informed.

In service, 

Enobong (Anna) Branch, PhD 

Senior Vice President for Equity and Professor of Sociology