 I'm Shirley Mark and I work at the Tisch College of Civic Life. I'm pleased to be your emcee for tonight. Our first speaker who will welcome everyone is Nadine Arbri. Provost Arbri is Tufts Provost and Senior Vice President. And she is a member of President Monaco's senior leadership team. Along with her many other responsibilities overlooking Tufts 8 schools and a number of interdisciplinary centers, the Office of the Chief Diversity Officers of Tufts are integral members of the Office of the Provost. Prior to Tufts, Dr. Arbri was Dean of the College of Engineering at Northeastern University for seven years. Before Northeastern, Dr. Arbri was head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and University Professor at Carnegie Mellon. Dr. Arbri is an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics to name just a few. Welcome Provost. Thank you so much, Charlie, for this very humbling introduction. So good afternoon and welcome everybody. Thank you so much for joining us for today's Tufts table as we continue to work together on making our institution Tufts a more inclusive, just and equitable place. As part of bridging differences Tufts table is our signature program that promotes dialogue across divergent perspectives among faculty, students and staff across the university. The goal of such discussions is to advance understanding and communication through effective programming and to enable all members of the Tufts community to experience a sense of belonging. Today's Tufts table is the second part of a series of two events related to the important work on anti racism taking place across our institution, and focus on a topic that is at this time more pertinent than ever. Anti Asian and anti Asian Americans and pacifist lenders API racism in the United States. This event is entitled anti Asian hate and systematic and systemic racism, sorry, breaking the cycle sponsored jointly by the Office of the Provost, and the bridging differences initiative. I would like to thank Aaron Parano, director of the Tufts Asian American Center will give introductory remarks, and all involved in the organization of this event, particularly our associate provost and chief diversity offices. Rob Mack, and Joe Saki. It is now my pleasure to introduce Joyce, who will say a few words to you. Thank you again. Thank you for the short introduction for Dr. Saki. Dr. Joyce Saki is associate provost and chief diversity officer for Tufts Health Sciences schools, and she heads the newly formed bias education and resource team for the same campuses. At the university's academic and provost councils, she works closely with leadership to fulfill the goals for diversity and inclusion among the schools and centers on the Boston and Grafton campuses. In the School of Medicine, Dr. Saki is the Dr. Jane Murphy, go and Professor and Dean for multicultural affairs and global health. She co chairs the bridging differences initiative. Welcome Dr. Saki. Thank you so much Shirley, and really appreciate that warm introduction. Welcome to all of you. I'm delighted to welcome you to Tufts table and as you heard from Provost Albury, Tufts table is one of our signature events as part of the provost office and also bridging differences. I might just share a couple of words about how we've previously done Tufts table just to pick your interest and hopefully give you a taste of what we should all be looking forward to. So Tufts table the reason is called Tufts table was intended to be an occasion for breaking bread and engaging in difficult conversations it always goes a little easier when there's food around when you're discussing difficult topics. We have previously done several Tufts table events, co sponsored by various schools and units over dinner. And so, fortunately tonight you're we're not going to be able to serve you dinner but we do hope that you have some dinner prepared after this. And the goal as you heard from Provost Albury is for us to really begin to engage in perspectives that are different from our perspective, and to learn from one another. And so this topic for today is absolutely fitting and appropriate, not only in terms of what Tufts table is about or what bridging differences about and and also really fits into anti racism initiative. So it gives me great delight as many of you who attended last week's presentation from Erica Lee, she really set a stage for us to engage in this conversation so I hope that many of you were there last week. And I'm looking forward to really delving more deeply into some of the concepts that she raised last time. So thank you again for coming in and I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I'll turn things back over to Shirley. Thank you. Thank you so much for your words. Next, I would like to introduce Aaron Pirano. Aaron is the director of the Asian American Center, which is one of six identity centers within the division of student diversity and inclusion. A graduate of Boston College where he earned both his bachelor's degree and a master's degree in higher education administration. Aaron has spent his career supporting Asian American students and advocating for the community. He is currently a doctoral student studying higher education. Welcome Aaron. Thank you Shirley. And thank you to Provost Aubrey the bridges bridging differences planning team and everyone attendance. Last week, Dr. Eric Lee shared with us a brief history connecting what continues to happen in the country Asian Americans to a history of violence linked to white supremacy capitalism and colonialism to name a few structures. While she was speaking, you know, the verdict for the Derek Chauvin trial is also waiting to be announced. Connecting the issues now and broader movements for solidarity, like linking the work between the CDO's office and what's been happening for the division for student diversity and inclusion is important. Well, yes, some of the statistics that were, you know, mentioned the email for the event, like how the impacts of violence have increased in the Asian American community statistics also show that this is still not to the same history that impacts that the black American community faces. This is not to put trauma into a competition, but instead implicate the correct structures that place black and brown bodies at risk. Well, yes, all oppression is connected. Our liberation is also connected as well. And that separate violence happening in the Asian American community from the violence that's happening in black communities in the LGBT community or the Latinx and other marginalized communities. This is a great report by Janelle Long and Karthik Ramakrishnan from AAPI data. Did a report on this, looking at statistics of how violence has impacted communities of color since the start of the pandemic and, you know, what are the important takeaways from, you know, what's being reported. Yes, it is important to recognize the violence that's happening to communities, especially to our elders. It is also important to recognize that this violence has been ongoing, and it's only now that there's been attention paid to this. You know, connecting this to what's happening on our campus, it's important to emphasize that most anti-racist practices that this university has implemented has not considered Asian and Asian American students, faculty and staff. There have been violent events in Atlanta where eight lives were taken, six being Asian American women, to the violence in Indianapolis where Sikh Americans were targeted to on our own campus this week, where students were being targeted for their race. The university's response has been to ask those who look like the victims to reach out to be the ones that teach you how to remedy the situation. We're facing the solutions of remedying racism on those who are experiencing its impacts. The university and higher education generally operates under a scarcity model of equity, that there's only enough resources around to remedy certain issues of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice. Where we saw that this year that resources can be mobilized to solve issues such as they arise, like a global pandemic. Critical race theory reminds us that racism is persistent and permanent, and that our actions to dismantle these racist structures must also be as persistent and permanent. Reliance on models like the model minority myth, how Asian Americans have been de-racialized and used as a racial wedge in politicking have impacted the community in a way that renders the Asian and Asian American community invisible and issues of equity and inclusion. Even on the understanding of who is Asian kind of emphasizes this as well. Oftentimes, the face of Asian America is one that focuses on East Asian ethno hegemony. Violence has been happening in our communities, but why is it only now that folks are choosing to pay attention? I think it's important to say what we mean and what we say when we're saying that there is violence in our communities. Often the phrase of late has been to stop AAPI hate when community leaders in our Pacific Islander communities have been important to emphasize that this is not an issue that is broadly impacting Pacific Islander communities. That this is an issue that is broadly impacting mostly Asian American communities. And that certain aspects in certain communities within the Asian American umbrella have been consistently facing violence like our South Asian community has been since 9-11. It must be in systemic and state of, I mean, sorry, if the university is committed to stopping AAPI hate and AAPI violence, then this needs to be looked at beyond the interpersonal acts. It is also be looked at in systemic and state sponsored acts as well. How are we responding to what is happening in our AAPI undocumented communities? How are we stopping the participation in our own erasure of Boston Chinatown? Yes, we must stop Asian hate, but to use a phrase that absolves the white supremacist structures without interrogating this hate will lead us to not break the cycle if that's what we're looking to do. If that's why we're all here at this tough table is to break the cycle of hate. What work needs to be done now is that there needs to be a greater emphasis on ethnic studies, including Asian American studies, but not only for the people that would more directly benefit from those classes, but everyone. I think everyone here has it in the capacity to involve themselves in local politics and their school boards to demand that ethnic studies be emphasized in K-12 curriculum. We need to disaggregate our own data on our campuses to see who our Asian American students are and what ways can we serve them better, knowing that there are educational disparities amongst Southeast Asian, South Asian, East Asian, and Pacific Islander communities. We need to look at the demands from students. We need to be a student-centered university that centers those needs of our community. But also look at where the work is already being done. Look at the work like the Tufts Action Group, which has been doing amazing work to really transform this university into truly being an anti-racist institution. But lastly, you know, I'm going to say this selfishly, invest in the work that we're doing. The colleagues that I have in the Division for Student Diversity and Inclusion are working and have been working to not look at just Band-Aid solutions, but solutions for systemic problems. So if we're all committed to doing this work, we can't just attend this one event and event last week and consider ourselves absolved. We need to continue to do this work and have a commitment to not only solving anti-Asian racism, but solving issues of racism across the board. And with that, I would like to make sure that the students have time to really emphasize their own experiences and, you know, things that we all can do to serve them better. Thanks. Thank you so much, Erin, for your wise and insightful words. I want to introduce the two students who will speak next. Matthew Kim is a senior in the School of Arts and Sciences, studying computer science. He's the media chair for the Korean Students Association, and his interests include Asian representation in media and telling stories through music and film. June Park is a first generation immigrant student from South Korea with a passion for social justice and equity in healthcare access and quality. He is a senior in the School of Arts and Sciences, studying community health and sociology, and he will be pursuing a master's degree in public health at the Yale School of Public Health this coming fall. June is also treasurer for the Tufts Korean Students Association. Welcome, Matthew and June. Thank you for that introduction. So, as Erin said, we're here to talk about our perspectives as Asian students, as well as represent the perspectives of some of our peers. First, we want to address the assumption that Asian students at Tufts don't face any type of serious racism. And we'd like to start by bringing awareness to two incidents that happened just this past week to some of our friends. On Sunday, a group of Asian students was walking on Professor's Row, when a truck filled with white males pulled up and began threatening them with derogatory and racist remarks, some of which are listed here. The very next day, another group of Asian students was driving on Winter Street in broad daylight, when another white male individual yelled at them to quote unquote go back to fucking China. So these incidents have been reported and we're still waiting to hear more information about whether the perpetrators are part of the Tufts community or not. But we're also aware of several other incidents that happened this past year, both on the SMFA campus and Tufts campus with more that we're probably unaware of. I also want to repeat and emphasize that this is, again, nothing new this there's a long history of racism against the Asians at Tufts that reflects the even longer history of racism against Asians in the rest of the country. In 1982, the Zeta sigh fraternity crowded around the Asian house chanting derogatory remarks and insults such as the gooks. In April 2009, a freshman started a fight and assaulted several members of the Tufts Korean Student Association, as they were practicing for a cultural show. As you can see the same type of language has been used over the past 30 years to threaten Asian students at Tufts. And these are just two examples not including instance that reported or micro aggressions in between. Oh, I don't know what happened one second. So, one second. So, I'll just have to do without the PowerPoint screen but between March 19, 2020 to February 28, 2021, there has been a total of 3795 incidents that were reported to stop API hate which is a nationwide organization that is devoted to making sure that the rising trends of Asian American violence and xenophobia and hatred against Asian Americans are being publicized and made aware to general public. So it shows, and it proves Aaron's point or made earlier that this is an ongoing trend is it hasn't just begun with the Atlanta shootings or the massacre at Indianapolis it has been ongoing for years and years. And so we'd like to talk more about Tufts response to these hate crimes from the perspective of the students. In December 4 2020. Tufts hosted an event called voices from Chinatown, which was an event planned by Aaron along with the other directors of diversity and inclusion health science campuses, and the International Center and we appreciate your, your efforts in creating that event. But by February we had yet to see a statement from Tufts condemning the violence. And overall it really just felt like not enough. All the API culture clubs felt like the university really wasn't doing anything to work against or at least condemn the the existence of hate crimes against API on campus and beyond. Whereas we saw where other universities pledge concrete action and we're quick to condemn these these threats. So we as the API culture clubs issued a statement to be administration demanding action and a statement from the university. President Monaco replied a week later, saying that they plan to take an action oriented response which mainly focused on an event that the office of the I would plan which is this event, but there didn't seem to be a promise of him making a statement. So after meeting with Aaron Emily and Andy we learned that for sure a statement wouldn't be coming from the office of the president, which was, you know, disappointing for us to hear. But we as all the culture clubs decided to move forward with other actions on our own, such as fundraisers and speaker events. Then finally, on March 18 after the Atlanta massacre President Monaco decided to send us the announcement to the entire school. The question remains, why did it take so long for President Monaco and other members of the university administration to condemn violence and xenophobia against API. First, we would like to acknowledge and thank DOSA DNI and the Asian American Center for issuing a statement condemning these violence and xenophobia. But we have to recognize that this method that this letter was only targeted towards undergraduate students, faculty, staff and parents, not to the general tops community. We hoped that a letter from President Monaco from the Office of President would be delivered to the entire top community Grafton met for Somerville Fenway and Boston. So that the entire top community knows how dedicated the university is towards this violence that they are willing to condemn these violence and work towards resolving it in our community. So the question remains, is the university serious about its commitments to be an anti racist institution. Matt and I admit the, these violences against Asian Americans, it wasn't, it wasn't widely recognized until very recently. It wasn't on CNN, it wasn't on MSNBC, it wasn't on the New York Times, but that doesn't relieve the University of its responsibility to its Asian American students and other students of color. So it's the university cherry picking which issues to stand by, is it only standing by issues that are public and will recognize by the American public. So in other words, is this all for a show, or are we all actually dedicated towards the commitment to be an anti racist institution. And on a more practical matter, Matt and I as representatives of a culture club on campus, we have this question of who do we contact when we experience a hate crime on campus. According to Aaron current protocol is to call to PD, or to submit an anonymous complaint to ethics point which at that point will be delivered to DOSA and OEO. We have to think about these option reporting options. We have to be concerned about under reporting. We have to recognize that there are some students were privileged enough to know that when they call to PD that they will be protected by the police that they will not experience police brutality or any incidents that we hope that will not have to any students or faculty or staff members. There are students on campus, there are faculty members or staff, there are people in our community who do not want to call the police who fear calling the police. We say the, the only options to report hate crimes on campus is to call to PD. Are we concerned about under reporting. And on another note, Matt and I have received. Incidences of hate crime through our social media through messages from students. We are not sure if they have reported them to the university administration in the first place, which brings up another important question. Are students aware of who to call, of who to contact when they experience a hate crime on campus. Is there even a resource that they can centralize resource that they could contact with everything so decentralized at this point. What are the statistics, how many hate crimes have happened on campus this year, our university administrators aware of the numbers. I remember that the lack of transparency and the lack of knowledge in the number of these bias incidents undermines the issue that's happening at our community. It doesn't allow us to realize the importance of how many of how frequent these incidents are happening and remember, last week there were two incidents to target towards Asian American students. I want to echo what Aaron said. One, we really just can't focus on just one event and call it quits because there's so much other work to be done. And two, we can't really just focus on hate crimes are interpersonal issues. While ignoring the largest systemic issues that affect not only us but other other communities of color and other communities that are underrepresented. So if you truly want to support Asian students at Tufts. Discussions like these will only go so far if they don't need to actual change, we reached out to some of our peers and these are just some of the responses on how to help Asian students. One example was great diversity and required first year classes, students felt like in white dominated classes it was hard to speak up as minorities, as other students would be very little room for their opinions. And that would be awareness of micro aggressions where students have to face the load of, you know, defending an entire people from drug or comments, just a few examples that we've heard our, our comments like if the US had not intervened in South Korea, we would have ended up starving like North Koreans, and K pop men are gross for wearing makeup. Like, what do you say to that. It's, it's, it's wild. That students and faculty really shouldn't be imposing on Asian students their opinions on how we should process trauma. Finally, and definitely most importantly, possibly most importantly is easier access to resources. This is something that affects all vulnerable groups first gen and international students, especially but students that we heard from could rarely find this information on Tufts websites and constantly had to send emails to find out more. Through multiple ways, like Aaron said, said, funding through, you know, the Asian American Center and student groups as well as directly from other university offices is definitely a great place to start. And, you know, these are comments that we've heard from our students in one day so I hope that as we move forward students and the administration can work together to make these changes happen in an ongoing dialogue. And on a final note, Matt and I are graduating this year so our time on campus is limited. But that doesn't mean that our efforts to encourage to urge Tufts to be an anti racist institution and to protect defend all students of color is going to end. As soon to be alumni we look forward to hearing more about the university's continued commitments as an anti racist institution. We look forward to hearing from our students are faculty members are and staff members to hear about what Tufts is helps has been doing to be more anti racist and to protect defend and advocate for Asian American students for LGBTQ students and other students of color. And with that, we would like to thank everyone for giving us the opportunity to talk today and we look forward to engaging in conversation today and beyond. Thank you. Thank you, Matthew and June for sharing your perspectives and other students perspectives and congratulations on your upcoming graduation. Next, everyone is going to go into small group breakout groups. Everyone's going to be assigned, and you'll be in your breakout group that is will be facilitated until 530pm so there's about half an hour. And when we reconvene associate provost and chief diversity officer Rob Mack will facilitate the report backs. Thank you. Wait for your assignment. All right, welcome back. Welcome back everyone. I hope that you had an excellent discussion with your groups and I know it's hard to join these group larger discussions and I get to hear from everyone. But oftentimes the smaller groups really allow to hear more voices and have more opportunity for people to engage so we hope that there was a good experience and the opportunities to learn from one another was present. So we're going to do a what we're going to call lightning round of report backs, because we had about 10 groups, and we want to definitely hear the highlights from each group. And we're going to call on, I'm going to call upon the facilitators to do a quick report back on their highlights groups and we will, you know, bring this to a close so we're going to start with hope Freeman. I know you were going to call me first. So my name is so Freeman you she heard hers for my pronouns. Our group had a really great discussion just around how talking about how a lot of these kind of hate like folks have been a lot more brazen during this time around like hate and attacks and things, and how that's definitely intensified a lot around this time and then just having political or public figures exacerbating it has been really challenging. And one of the things that we talked about was the role of the model minority myth and what it how it plays. And some of the folks in the group says it plays a lot into hate crimes, especially when thinking about how Asian Americans are API folks are seen as meek or seen as quiet, and the quiet ones won't resist that's a direct quote from someone in the group. And as a result, folks will definitely be a lot more or try to do a lot more harm. Also talked about the other end around like folks being really smart, really successful and as a result people don't need like mentorship, or folks are like well what are you complaining about because you're smart you get more money you do all of these things. And so talking about how that's really harmful, especially when we're thinking about how folks are just interacting in general. A lot of things we also talked about was someone in our group brought up around faculty evaluation so faculty finding ways to intervene or think about how they can intervene when these things happen and bringing it up more in conversation. We talked about there being way more resources if we're thinking about education for Asian American and Asian studies, as well as like degree studies, so this idea that it builds up to something instead of it just being like an add on, and also talk about how we develop in curiosity when students come into Tufts around how I can take these classes or have a different major, or even get a better framing of Tufts anti racist approaches. I think that was it. We had a really good conversation so I wanted to thank my group for that. Thank you so much for the lighting round otherwise I would ask folks if they want to add but I appreciate that thank you so much hope. Next we'll call on Steve. Yes, thank you Rob. In the spirit of the lightning round. I will say that in an effort to center student voices we began with the students in our group. We picked up on the experiences that Matthew June and Aaron spoke to that language is important when the leadership at the head of the nation uses very lent hate speech, and communicates a message to the public that this is really a huge part of the problem that too bad, we don't have leadership where leaders are able to take responsibility for their own actions and support others. It was also observed that this sort of gathering is preaching to the choir, and the people who make the kinds of comments that Matthew and June spoke about are not on the call. That being said, I also want to add that in the spirit of a lightning round. I was so impressed with the genuineness and authenticity and emotional aliveness of the members of my group and what they had to say. We didn't get past the first question. And the whole issue of opening up these spaces and the time urgency that we all live with is such a quandary. We don't have a solution, but we could have spoken for hours on this. The simplicity, the feeling the immediacy is there. These issues are so central to the well being in life of our community. I just hope we can find other ways to continue to deepen this process. Thank you. That's great. Thank you, Steve and appreciate those notes. Next Adriana. Hi everyone. I'm Adriana Black. I use the she series. I really want to give a huge shout out to my group everyone present spoke and shared something which I value so much. And we talked a lot about kind of, I think we talked a lot about history we talked a lot about present and we talked a lot about the future. I think that centering on the history. One of the things that we discussed is the fact that history just continues to repeat itself, and giving a huge shout out to Eric Ali who discussed the historical perspective of racism and hate and the API community, and how we need to know that and realize that so much of that is still alive and well today, which brings us to the present, where we talked about really being able to be able to do things as a community we need to build that community. And we know that the Tufts Health Sciences campus is located in Boston, and the fact that that is in Chinatown, and being able to work with communities in Chinatown to be able to not assume, but to ask what it is that they need, and how we can support one another. And then really looking towards the future, we discussed the reality of various systems, as well as interpersonal relationships that are at play that perpetuate the systems of oppression and this hatred and this white supremacy culture, and that we really need to in the future to ensure that we're focusing on all various aspects of oppression to be able to unite and move against the common foe, and ensure that that's not something that that we're not dividing ourselves and that we're really building coalitions together. Thank you. Thanks so much Adriana. Next, Marin. Alright, so our group talked about, you know, just, we really started off our conversation talking about the fact that, you know, anti Asian racism is a serious issue that often goes unaddressed. And there's a lot of frustration around that. And so we talked a little bit about sort of where that comes from, whether that be not perceiving Asian and Asian American members of our communities as, you know, racialized. It has to do with just a number of different issues. But these issues go unaddressed and one of the bigger concerns that was raised during our discussion was really talking about how do we address these, you know, these instances of hate and hate crimes at Tufts. There needs to be greater education across the board. For faculty, staff and students on things like the model minority myth on things like anti Asian racism, frequency, and, you know, the presence of it on college campuses. Schools have to a few schools in our group, we have some wonderful folks from the dental and veterinary school who shared with us that they're doing some programming with Asian American and Asian students to try to mitigate some of the impact of this on their, you know, day to day studies. But really there needs to be a major cultural shift to share stories about a PI people, ones that break down stereotypes, ones that create sort of, you know, opportunities to challenge tropes. And then there really need to be more concerted efforts to assist students on campus before an event happens and to be proactive, as well as, you know, provide education in terms of events like these to to ensure that the university is developing collectively a base level of knowledge that's needed in order to engage effectively with their peers. That's all. That was a lot. Thank you, Mary. Let's go to Kelly. Hi, I'm Kelly a burn. And thank you to my group as well we had great discussion. I think we started with just the general surprise and and shock at what goes on at the university that we may not be aware of. And the fact that everyone being remote, we don't, we feel even maybe more disconnected to events that are going on. We also talked a lot about, you know, the concern for students and how to support best support our students, removing those obstacles that, you know, they need to feel safe and to move forward. And we also talked about it, just that whole theme of what actions, can we, can we take, and you know, maybe feeling like we haven't, you know, necessarily taken enough action in the past. And what resources can we provide when, you know, we're faced with people or people in our groups our schools, our teams that are struggling with things. Who should we go to. And it's also about the model minority and that this, this is still happening, even to our younger generations, coming out of public school or schools, high schools, elementary schools. There's this, even though this generation was raised with more inclusive education, it's still existing. We talked a little bit about how to take action when you witness some of these things happening, but how that can also be difficult and especially difficult for the particular group that is targeted if you will. You know, feeling kind of, you know, tired and not putting the onus on, you know, whether it be Asian people of color LGBTQ women, whatever it, whatever that might be. And, you know, when, when to speak up and when not to and what factors influence that. I think there's a little bit about art in how art plays into this as well. So using art for the good to educate to showcase, and then also how do you deal with, you know, potential issues and art that can be triggering. But yeah, could potentially start good discussion. So, I think I think I summed up. Oh, and that we're lucky to be at a university at least that is taking time to address this as well. Next Monday. Yeah. So I will try to keep it brief. But we spent a lot of our time in our group talking about how the model minority myth really manifests throughout the institution right so not just as people may often first think in a classroom space or in with students but also as it reverberates through faculty and in the ways that they feel like they can and cannot show up for each other we spent a lot of time also talking about, you know, how, how to transition to community oriented political action, right and also creating coalitions across different identity groups to to sort of combat white supremacy right overall and recognizing that that's where we really need to be focusing attention. And, and then finally we did take a little time at the end just to think about to focus on the joy right. We had a person sort of say that in our group that said that it often feels like you're sort of in a black hole with the power inundated with all of these really difficult pieces and to also think about the places of connection that people have been able to make in community and on campus and hold that in balance as we move towards making change. So, I will stop there. Really appreciate that. Next Katrina. Oh my gosh I almost hit the leave button. It's been a long day. I had a really great conversation with our group and we, we had a lot of really great sharing and talked a lot about not just the, there was sharing around experiences that people have had either on campus or off and what's happening we had someone who is working at a hospital in in Kittery main and the experiences that they are having just trying to do their job actually. But the main focus of our conversation was around the meaning of white supremacy and what, how that plays into all of the things that that are happening across the country on Tufts campus. How that is the foundation and the root of how this country was built and how that manifests itself in the things that are happening because I think that there was someone who said that being Asian doesn't really count or ingrained attitudes that that that perpetuate the notion that white is baseline and everything else is other. And until we are really willing to grapple with how white supremacy and systemic racism works and plays out. We will not be able to make the necessary changes that will need to be made to be able to move from having wonderful conversations like this but into having actionable things change to help us to make change. I'm really hoping that this Tufts table will be the start of us being able to do a lot of self reflection a lot of education. And I'm hoping that as much as we can about how the country really operates and and how we dismantle the fact that it was not built for us to succeed. Also, thank you Katrina. Hi everyone I'm Abigail and wonderful to be filled in with the group today I wanted to share something that weren't said yet by the other groups. My group really talked about, you know the need for all members of the Tufts community to not just those who are experiencing incidents of violence to really lean into the discomfort of having these challenging conversations regarding race and oppression and violence and really having students experiences in deciding next steps. And one thing that was brought up in my group was the need for, you know, diversity, equity and inclusion and justice education to being a requirement for all students but also all faculty whether that be through disciplines and classes and training for all that are really a part of the university, because there are gaps in education as we talked about in those questions and it is the institution of Tufts is obligation to address those gaps as best as it can. And also really paying attention to that the university cannot pick and choose what acts of hate are responded to because that only feeds into this model minority myth that just because racism might look differently depending on the group that's affected it doesn't mean that it's not there and it doesn't mean that all members of Tufts community should feel supported and addressed when incidents or acts of violence either are happening or extremely visible or if they aren't as visible and under reported like the students before shared with us so bravely and confidently and yeah wonderful discussion today and hoping for many more dialogues and conversations like this. Thank you. I appreciate that next Jared Smith. Yeah, so we had a lot of great themes I'm just going to try and quickly like bullet point them. So number one, we talked about the eraser of, you know, impact and presence in this nation for as long as it's been around. We talked about the power of language and how its youth has either vilified or impacted the way that folks within this country view and understand politics globally so specifically in the realms of Asian countries. And we also talked about how the statistics that we were describing also don'ting are not the full picture. So like the internal ramifications of racism and white supremacy have an impact that we will never be able to quantify and the, the realm of the impact that we were having. In addition, we also talked about how the model minority myth will never save any person from the impacts of racism and white supremacy, and how there is a in a sense of double consciousness of the bootstrap politics of like I've succeeded hard while also having, you know, the, the, the conflict of if I don't adhere to this form of expectations and what does that mean and how do I navigate those systems as an individual. And then one resource was shared that I really wanted to share with the rest of the group, which was a book I wrote Asian American achievement parent of the Asian American achievement paradox as a resource that very much worth reading. So I'll be taking a look at it. And thank you to my group for a great conversation. Great. Thank you, Jared. And to our last group, the unknown facilitator in room number eight. Well, our facilitator is Nancy Thompson but she had to leave early so I'm, I'm substitute Nancy for right now Kevin Kraft from Student Affairs. So really quickly. You know, probably the things that are most useful from our conversation to report out are the action items that we talked about so we spent a little bit of time thinking about, you know, what are the kind of things that, that tops could do that we could do to try and make improvements and we started with listening to the things that were asked for by the students in the presentation before the breakout room. And we talked about a couple of things, you know, one is this idea that we really need to think about the first year experience at Tufts, both from, you know, right from first year orientation, all the way through the rest of the first year experience you know how are people assigned to rooms how do we help people develop empathy for each other, you during this process you know it's the curriculum requirement also part of this you know we've talked about reorienting the world civilization which is something that would address this a little more directly and I think there was an idea that that could be supportive and part of that experience. A second big one that I think people were thinking about that was responsive to what was shared was this idea of transparency. Both in terms of, you know, there were there were fairly straightforward calls for just information and data that were shared at the beginning and it seems like it'd be reasonably easy to put that information together. And to to think about how do we use that information to create timely responses, you know, and also ultimately to get to proactive responses and not just sort of responding and after things have happened but to really kind of reorient the idea of what the university is doing to think about how do we proactively address these things. And then we did talk about a couple of things on the on the reactive side after something has happened. You know how do you feel seen and how do you know what to do after you have a report after something's happened to you that you want to report. So we talked about a couple ideas with that. So I'll for the lighting round I'll stop it. Thanks to all the facilitators for both facilitating and reporting back and doing so in a speed round so we can finish our program on time so many thanks to all of you. Certainly don't like to bring a program of such importance with such important dialogue happening to an end but on behalf of Provost Aubrey joy Saki and myself and the bridging differences committee we really appreciate all of you for attending. The words today by Aaron Matthew and June were humbling and I felt that a lot of the conversations from the report back really reflected the power of their words and that opportunity. We have to move forward as a university collectively we must look at the systems and we must look at our actions and we must look at our responsibilities to be reflective in this work. I think all that has really been highlighted here and really greatly appreciate everyone as a community coming together to join us for this Tufts table event. We are excited that we were able to provide it but we know it is just one program and lots of real work and action needs to take place and that is not lost on us. So with that, I think all the organizers all the behind the scenes people and everyone else who contributed in a way that made this a positive experience. Have a very good night.