During this time in America, each of us is faced with the challenge of understanding our position in society and our role in dismantling structural racism.

It is important to say the names on our minds—George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Sandra Bland, Korryn Gaines, Freddie Gray—and speak out against the police brutality that resulted in their deaths and the deaths of so many other Black people in this country. Action is essential to the future of our society, and action can take many forms, including protest, voting, and publicly acknowledging the pain of others.

It is also important to name the countless other forms of inequality that are just as deadly, including inadequate educational opportunities, lack of living wages and affordable housing, and unequal access to healthcare, healthy food, and high-quality public transportation. It is clear from recent protests across the nation and world that more people of all races and ages are seeing that structural racism permeates our society—our policies, laws, financial institutions, workplaces, academic and faith institutions, and our own actions and inactions. This recognition, while painful to many of us in different ways, should lead to actions that can build a stronger society.

Many in our community are asking what actions UMBC is taking now and how we can do more, both as individuals and as a campus. One of the most important things we can do is acknowledge that we as a campus and a community still have much work to do. We must take action, both on campus and through our engagement in the larger community, to address the impact of structural racism and inequality.

Moving forward with “business as usual” without acknowledging the lived experience of Black and other marginalized community members contributes to a pattern of harm for those directly affected. It is also important to learn about the historic roots of white supremacy, structural racism, sexual violence, gender discrimination, and other forms of systematic oppression and marginalization—in the wider world, and on our own campus.

We will continue to communicate about ways in which we are addressing these issues. Here are some examples of work that is underway.

• The Division of Student Affairs has developed a five-part workshop series focused on equipping faculty and staff with the tools and skills to engage in ongoing advocacy, self-work, and self-care in response to ongoing racial injustice and our current climate. Sessions will be open to faculty and staff across campus.
• There is a new [Free]dom Fridays weekly Webex. This student-centered program is designed to provide a virtual space to have an open dialogue about social justice and identity-based issues.
• The Black Faculty and Staff Association will be holding a Community Care Space for a facilitated discussion focusing on self-care, healing, shared processing, and resource sharing to support community members who may be feeling overwhelmed and angry.
• The Office of Equity and Inclusion has created this resource for Inclusive Excellence in Action, which provides resources for allies who are interested in actively supporting those most directly impacted by systemic racism and recent events.

UMBC was founded in 1966 in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. Our campus continues to partner with public officials and communities across the state and nation to address societal challenges. Faculty, staff, and students are supporting teachers, children, and families in Baltimore and surrounding school systems; helping young people develop job skills; activating communities to tell their stories through the arts and humanities; using the social sciences to address inequalities resulting from racial status and poverty; and working to address violence and enact criminal justice policy reforms, with special emphasis on youth.

We realize there is much more work for all of us to do. As we grieve over the many lives unjustly lost or limited by racism, we are encouraged by the outpouring of statements of solidarity and caring conversations happening within our campus community and beyond. Recalling Civil Rights protests of the 1960s led by Black children, we are moved to see people of all races and ages around the world risking their health and lives to demand an end to systemic racism. We must not let this opportunity pass.

– President Freeman Hrabowski and Provost Philip Rous

• The Division of Student Affairs has developed a five-part workshop series focused on equipping faculty and staff with the tools and skills to engage in ongoing advocacy, self-work, and self-care in response to ongoing racial injustice and our current climate. Sessions will be open to faculty and staff across campus. 
  
• There is a new [Free]dom Fridays weekly Webex. This student-centered program is designed to provide a virtual space to have an open dialogue about social justice and identity-based issues.
  
• The Black Faculty and Staff Association will be holding a Community Care Space for a facilitated discussion focusing on self-care, healing, shared processing, and resource sharing to support community members who may be feeling overwhelmed and angry. 
  
• The Office of Equity and Inclusion has created this resource for Inclusive Excellence in Action, which provides resources for allies who are interested in actively supporting those most directly impacted by systemic racism and recent events.

The members of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Public Health at UMBC stand in solidarity with those who are grieving the loss of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, David McAtee, Freddie Gray, and the too-long list of African Americans who have been killed by the police. We grieve the countless lives that have been cut short and minimized by structural racism and white supremacy. The incidents surrounding these recent murders and the disproportionate impact of the current pandemic on people of color highlight the violence, racism, and inequality that are entrenched in this society.

We stand with those harmed: they are our sisters, our brothers, our mothers, our fathers, our husbands, our wives, our sons, our daughters, our friends, our lovers, our teachers, our colleagues, our students, and people we have never met. To be silent as they are taken from us would support the violence and the systems of which it is part. We cannot and will not be silent.

We recommit ourselves to developing and sharing the intellectual and methodological tools needed to dismantle systems of inequality, to finding new ways to support each other, and to helping create the kind of change we want to see. We recommit ourselves to doing this in our classrooms through improved, compassionate, critical pedagogy (c.f. Freire 1970) and in our research as we engage with partners in disenfranchised communities here and around the world. We commit ourselves to working with students, colleagues, and community members to apply social science methods and results to address these pressing social problems.

We are also committed to supporting organizations that work for social justice in our personal lives. Together, we are making a donation to the Baltimore Action Legal Team (BALT), which “provides legal support to Baltimore communities as they exercise their civil liberties protesting against injustices rooted in structural racism and economic inequality” (https://www.baltimoreactionlegal.org/), one of the many organizations working to make a difference in our community. And, as individuals, we are supporting other organizations that work for social justice as well.

If you, too, are looking for ways to make a difference, seek out local organizations that have been involved in this struggle for a long time and see how you can help. Utilize opportunities to enrich and grow your educational and lived experience. Learn and listen and read about white privilege and white supremacy, alternatives to policing, and #citeblackwomen. Explore models for how to create social change and engage in productive conversations with people who are different from you. Seek out Black-owned businesses to patronize. Support each other, and take care of yourself. And please reach out to us if there is anything you want to talk about or any way we can support you.

We stand together in this fight against injustice.

Marina Adler

Anushka Aqil

Katie Birger    

Emily Byrne   

Jennifer Callaghan-Koru

Bambi Chapin            

Sarah Chard              

   Meryl Cozart              

Kevin Eckert       

Kate Hemmis            

Loren Henderson                   

Aubrey Jackson Soller           

Andrea Kalfoglou       

Camee Maddox-Wingfield     

Christine Mair

Dann Malihom

Julie Rosenthal          

John Schumacher     

Dena Smith

Brian Soller                

Jamie Trevitt                

Brandy Wallace         

Nick Welcome

Michele Wolff 

Takashi Yamashita

**To see what others in our UMBC community are saying about this, see UMBC Dr. Kimberly Moffitt, “For Black Mothers” (https://www.wypr.org/post/moffitt-black-mothers), as well as UMBC’s message supporting USM’s Statement on Injustice (https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/insights/posts/93513), which includes links to campus resources.

STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY

The members of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Public Health at UMBC stand in solidarity with those who are grieving the loss of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, David McAtee, Freddie Gray, and the too-long list of African Americans who have been killed by the police. We grieve the countless lives that have been cut short and minimized by structural racism and white supremacy. The incidents surrounding these recent murders and the disproportionate impact of the current pandemic on people of color highlight the violence, racism, and inequality that are entrenched in this society.

We stand with those harmed: they are our sisters, our brothers, our mothers, our fathers, our husbands, our wives, our sons, our daughters, our friends, our lovers, our teachers, our colleagues, our students, and people we have never met. To be silent as they are taken from us would support the violence and the systems of which it is part. We cannot and will not be silent.

We recommit ourselves to developing and sharing the intellectual and methodological tools needed to dismantle systems of inequality, to finding new ways to support each other, and to helping create the kind of change we want to see. We recommit ourselves to doing this in our classrooms through improved, compassionate, critical pedagogy (c.f. Freire 1970) and in our research as we engage with partners in disenfranchised communities here and around the world. We commit ourselves to working with students, colleagues, and community members to apply social science methods and results to address these pressing social problems.

We are also committed to supporting organizations that work for social justice in our personal lives. Together, we are making a donation to the Baltimore Action Legal Team (BALT), which “provides legal support to Baltimore communities as they exercise their civil liberties protesting against injustices rooted in structural racism and economic inequality” (https://www.baltimoreactionlegal.org/), one of the many organizations working to make a difference in our community. And, as individuals, we are supporting other organizations that work for social justice as well.

If you, too, are looking for ways to make a difference, seek out local organizations that have been involved in this struggle for a long time and see how you can help. Utilize opportunities to enrich and grow your educational and lived experience. Learn and listen and read about white privilege and white supremacy, alternatives to policing, and #citeblackwomen. Explore models for how to create social change and engage in productive conversations with people who are different from you. Seek out Black-owned businesses to patronize. Support each other, and take care of yourself. And please reach out to us if there is anything you want to talk about or any way we can support you.

We stand together in this fight against injustice.

Marina Adler

Anushka Aqil

Katie Birger    

Emily Byrne   

Jennifer Callaghan-Koru

Bambi Chapin            

Sarah Chard              

   Meryl Cozart              

Kevin Eckert       

Kate Hemmis            

Loren Henderson                   

Aubrey Jackson Soller           

Andrea Kalfoglou       

Camee Maddox-Wingfield     

Christine Mair

Dann Malihom

Julie Rosenthal          

John Schumacher     

Dena Smith

Brian Soller                

Jamie Trevitt                

Brandy Wallace         

Nick Welcome

Michele Wolff 

Takashi Yamashita

**To see what others in our UMBC community are saying about this, see UMBC Dr. Kimberly Moffitt, “For Black Mothers” (https://www.wypr.org/post/moffitt-black-mothers), as well as UMBC’s message supporting USM’s Statement on Injustice (https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/insights/posts/93513), which includes links to campus resources.

In mid-April, Room 27 at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Engineering building was abnormally empty. No prayers were uttered. No discussions initiated; no jokes told. Instead of meeting in this campus lecture hall as they did every other Thursday evening during the semester, the members of Cru, a nondenominational Christian organization, were logged on to Zoom.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, when UMBC’s physical campus closed, religious and spiritual student organizations have had to move their activities online, or cancel previously scheduled events. 

The UMBC chapter of Cru has partnered with Cru chapters on other campuses in the Baltimore area to host their weekly Thursday night meetings virtually. On April 24th, a total of 57 individuals from Maryland Metro Cru participated in the meeting via Zoom. 

Cru has been using Zoom and Google Hangouts to host daily devotion, weekly Bible studies, officer meetings, Thursday night meetings, and social events, according to Karyn Cruz, the president of the organization. 

At least two of the bible studies have had higher attendance than usual, said Cruz, due to the ease of logging onto the online platform. Prior to the campus closure, bible studies were held in a classroom during free hour or in the evening, Cruz said.

As a result of the pandemic and subsequent campus closure,  “a lot of people have been more intentional with one another in our community, just because they recognize it would be easy to get disconnected,” said Cruz.

Nonetheless, UMBC students’ attendance at the Thursday night meetings has declined since the campus closure, said Collin Brown, the treasurer of Cru. While Cru’s in-person meetings had an average attendance of between 60 to 85 people, Brown said, 30 to 40 fewer UMBC students are likely participating in the virtual weekly meetings.

He attributes this reduction in attendance to “a combination of [students being] sick of having to attend classes online and staring at a screen all day and you’re just not getting the in-person contact that you would have gotten on campus.”

Sam Dove, a bible study leader in Cru, has still been able to attend the Thursday night weekly meetings. Yet he agrees that not being able to meet in-person poses a challenge.

“I don’t think that having a bible study or worshiping online can fully replace doing it in-person. I think there’s something that’s lost there,” Dove said.

Jared Richard, the president of Catholic Retrievers, feels that the lack of in-person interaction has also contributed to the decline in engagement he has seen in his organization.

The men’s group in Catholic Retrievers was doing a Lenten challenge from February 26th to April 11th. This required them to alter their activities and what they ate or drank, every day except for Sundays. 

“That kind of fell apart when we went off campus because we couldn’t see each other anymore and all we could do was video chat,” Richard said, “it’s hard to bring everybody in when it’s video chatting and people are all with their families.”

The campus closure has also had a significant impact on the Muslim Student Association (MSA), according to Yusra Ahmed, the organization’s president. The Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which involves daily fasting from sunrise to sundown, starts on April 24th and continues until either May 22nd or 23rd. 

“We were fully funded for Ramadan by SGA [the Student Government Association] this year. So that means that every single night we would have been funded for iftars, which are the breaking of the fast,” Ahmed said. 

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Muslim students are unable to gather together in the Interfaith Center to break their fast, which they have done in years past.

Ahmed is also concerned about how the campus closure will impact the general body members of MSA. 

“My concern is that because of this, [the] general body will die down a little bit, just because they weren’t able to end off on a good note, so there isn’t really anything to look forward to when they come back,” Ahmed said.

The organization had to cancel several events planned for the month of April, as well as an annual end-of-semester potluck where they announce newly elected cabinet members.

Brown, the treasurer and incoming president of Cru, shares Ahmed’s concerns about the impact of the pandemic on next year’s membership. Cru elects officers, but also has a self-elected leadership team for their bible studies and worship.

“Not having the rest of the spring to kind of see some of the younger, the [underclassmen] kinda grow up and mature and just kinda see what their leadership skills are” has an impact on how the organization runs, Brown said. “We’re definitely [going to] have to cut down on the size of the team for next year.”

Brown is especially concerned that a prolonged campus closure could have a lasting impact on the membership of Cru.

“Especially if we come back in the Fall and we’re still online, there’s a big concern for trying to reach incoming freshmen,” he said. 

Written by Madeline Ross, Political Science major, Class of 2020

The post How to pray on Zoom: Religious and spiritual student groups move online appeared first on The Retriever.