Speech and Hearing Science Statement on Equity
Dear SHS Students and Alumni:
We write to you as protests are happening throughout our country and our community, in the aftermath of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery among others. We stand in solidarity with our Black community. We acknowledge and condemn the current and historical disproportionate use of excessive force by police against Black communities and unarmed peaceful protesters nationwide. As individual faculty and as a department we recommit our efforts to advocate for an accessible, safe, and respectful environment to enhance the living, learning, and working community at University of Illinois and in our communities.
In the words of Chancellor Jones of UIUC, “The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a community committed to the scholarship, engagement, equity, inclusion and leadership that dismantles systems that utilize power, privilege, and violence to disenfranchise, diminish and destroy.”
For some of you, the painful events from the past few weeks are even more personal. You may feel alone and fearful. We want to say to you that we are with you and support you. We encourage you to contact any one of us (https://ahs.illinois.edu/shs-directory) if you wish to talk or just touch base.
Our commitment and our work to build a better department and community cannot be short-lived. In the near future, we will set up a series of talks addressing racism and social and economic inequities. We hope to come away from these talks with a series of steps we can take as faculty and staff, as clinicians, and as students to build a better present and transform our future.
More information about the University’s commitment can be found here.
Campus resources:
Information about campus counseling services and other resources can be found here.
The Student Assistance Center (SAC), in the Office of the Dean of Students, also supports students in crisis: (217) 333-0050, helpdean@illinois.edu.
Information from our professional organizations, including ASHA, is here.
In kindness and solidarity,