Liaison’s new blog series highlights shared values and partnerships for equality.
February is Black History Month, an important time for celebrating the accomplishments of Black Americans and recognizing their central role in the development and identity of our country. As we saw during the demonstrations last summer, we are still a nation divided along lines of race and ethnicity. We also know that Black communities today bear injustices resulting from the long shadows cast by slavery, Jim Crow and systemic racism.
It is central to Liaison’s mission that we remove barriers and provide equitable pathways to higher education for everyone. We pledged last summer to better serve our communities, investing both our funds and our time to achieve this important goal. We’re doing this through giving — an example being our donation to food pantries across the country earlier this year. But we’re taking other tangible actions as well through our products and our partnerships.
Committing to Year-round Change
This month we will dedicate this series of blog posts to highlighting some of the unique challenges Black Americans have historically faced on higher education campuses and in the workforce. We also plan to announce actions we will take in the name of furthering racial equity in higher ed admissions. While we understand the problem is too pervasive to be solved in a press release, we want to document our commitment to change and hold ourselves accountable within the areas we have the greatest influence and control.
One of the most impactful and informative events we hosted over the past year was a series of workshops and conversations with author and Harvard professor Anthony Jack, Ph.D., who challenged us to rethink several of the assumptions we take for granted in our efforts to increase diversity on college campuses. We recognize how fortunate we are that our platform allows us to organize these important discussions, and that our community includes so many brilliant and innovative thinkers.
That’s why this year we are committing ourselves to increasing the diversity of our webinar and conference speaking panels as a way of ensuring a diverse array of perspectives and experiences. The power of the shared knowledge within our community has always been our strongest feature, and we want to more effectively use our resources and partnerships in service of addressing systemic inequality.
Every week during Black History Month we will highlight a new challenge and share information about our plans moving forward. Thank you for joining us in the important work!