June 15, 2020

Dear MICA campus community,

Our time prompts introspection as much as it calls for action. I share below my personal, albeit imperfect, reflections over the past weeks and extend an institutional invitation to all members of the MICA community. I hope you find resonance in this communication.

Reflections

This is and should be a soul-searching moment for me, for the institution, and for our campus community. The ruptures, protests, tensions, reflections, and insights gained in this moment will profoundly challenge, inform, and accelerate MICA’s transformation. College planning and actions in relation to race and diversity that seemed reasonable and thoughtful just three months ago now feel wholly complacent and inadequate in speed, relevance, and substance. In order to meet the promise of a tipping point demanding long overdue social and racial justice for Black people in the United States, we must summon a stronger institutional will, strive for a more pervasive level of mutual education and support, and collaborate in an uncompromised, constructive, and sustainable course forward.

I feel compelled to share here with the campus community what I have not done so previously. Like many, many others with whom I have spoken, I have struggled through and am still managing a self-questioning process as an individual and as MICA’s president. By sharing my personal reflections and grappling, I hope to offer some reassurance that we, each in our own ways, are on a similar journey seeking understanding—of ourselves and of one another in a relentless environment of overwhelming events, imageries, and information; seeking means to comprehend centuries of oppressive race-based structural inequalities that have caused pain, frustration, and rage; and, ultimately, seeking an authentic path of actions that could lead to healing, balance, and transformative change.

As a person of color and as an immigrant who grew up in colonial Hong Kong, I thought I had the requisite sensitivity and perspective to understand systemic power barriers and structural racism. As a higher education leader with a solid history in championing diversity, equity, and inclusion, my self-perception was that of an agent of change on the right side of action and I took pride in developing and advancing the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Globalization (DEIG) agenda at MICA. As an experienced administrator having handled a multitude of volatile situations, I believed in my readiness to assist MICA through a time of racial struggle in addition to the COVID-19 navigation. This month challenged, if not upended, these assumptions and proved tremendously humbling for me. I am now gleaning as many lessons as I can to guide my work forward and for personal growth. 

The Statement in Solidarity with Black Lives Matter and Against Discrimination issued on June 1 elicited polarized campus reactions from genuine appreciation too deep critique. The response to the June 4 follow-up communication appeared less divergent but still revealed a campus need of a stronger stance and more concrete actions. As MICA’s president, I saw myself reflected as the embodiment of a primarily white institution. While I had not chosen to view myself that way before, seeing myself through others’ eyes has instigated in me a new level of resolve to own my reality as a unique system of power on campus and to exercise that power even more to meet the needs and demands of our time. As a strategic administrator, I learned the limits of my cerebral response to extraordinary emotions and anguish in our community, especially as experienced by our Black community members. While I was enraged on a personal level by police brutality and the senseless repetition of Black lives taken as a result of structural anti-Black racism, I guided a collected institutional response in the June 1 Statement. A colleague wisely advised me and I fully agree with her that at MICA, where we model a community of care, there are times when feelings could show first and should lead.

In asking myself many questions and digesting their lessons, one question leads all others. The convergence of the pandemic and the fight for racial justice has posed an obvious question for me, to which the equally obvious answer will guide MICA’s actions forward.

This is the question: Since MICA is doing all we can to ensure health and safety for our community in the pandemic and would not hesitate to eliminate the novel coronavirus virus from our midst if we could, why would we not confront racism as an insidious social virus that has afflicted us far too long and do all we could to eradicate it for the safety, health and wellness of our community? 

There is no other answer but: Yes, we must. 

We may not have the immediate power to change the world, but we have the power to change MICA. We can start change where we are, right now.

Invitation

As I shared in the June 4 Statement: The road to social and racial justice involves a long march and not a short sprint.

Many of you want to hear what MICA is prepared to do, what resources will be allocated, and how policies and processes will change. This communication does not attempt to articulate such a list, but I am committed to provide a concrete set of actions in July. There are efforts presently underway by students, staff, and faculty to advocate for desired changes, and it is critical that any commitments made by MICA be informed accordingly. The College needs to invest the time and care to develop a thoughtfully comprehensive plan that is a collaboration between the administration and campus constituency leaders. I ask for your readiness to play a part in shaping what is to come.

In the meantime, I will form a Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) Advisory Council to guide me and the President’s Council on race matters and BIPOC support. In order to respect and empower the council members in the right way, I will work with a trusted group of campus members of color to shape the composition, charge, and resources of this council for its launch later this summer.

If we are to do the institutional reimagining and remaking of MICA correctly, we need to shift centuries-long systems, beliefs, myths, and practices of the College with who we have on campus while our membership evolves as a community. We need to build an effective shared governance model that requires not only a willingness by current leaders to share power but also knowledge building and leadership capacity development of the constituencies, especially those who have been under-supported. We need to continue MICA’s increasingly mindful and reciprocal practices in city communities. In addition, we need to consider the reality of resources in funding, time, and people power. 

It is an ambitious and complex transformation that cannot be achieved overnight. It is also a journey that we must undertake together. This work has no ending and will outlast my time and your time at MICA. Whatever that time period may be, we owe it to ourselves, each other, and future MICA members to double-down on this work now and cement the path of progress.

I firmly believe that if there is will, there is a way. Let me close by inviting you to join me on this critical MICA journey and to develop our will and our way together.

Yours,

Sammy