Democracy Matters: Dismantling Systematic Racism

JMU’s second conference on engagement, Engagement for the Public Good (EPG), was scheduled for October 19-21, 2020. The plans for the conference were right on target, however, due to travel and budgetary restrictions caused by COVID-19 we made the difficult decision to postpone the conference. Currently we are discussing hosting our next conference, in Spring 2022.

With the recent developments involving race relations, the Engagement for the Public Good (EPG) Executive Committee, in partnership with JMU Civic Engagement, proudly presents a conversation with Dr. Mildred Garcia and President Jon Alger on "Dismantling Systemic Racism in Higher Education and Building a More Equitable and Inclusive Society.” The plan is for this to air the week of October 19, 2020.

Carol Fleming, EPG Chair said, “This is not the conference, but we hope this podcast will be a catalyst for other conversations that need to happen on college campuses as well as communities."

The EPG executive committee has not discussed themes for the rescheduled conference, but they do have thoughts about how to focus the conference. One idea is to focus more on the priorities in Harrisonburg. With JMU more vocally articulating our role as an anchor institution it could be quite powerful to join with key community stakeholders to plan a conference that addresses community priorities and delivers JMU, community, regional, and possibly national expertise to those topics.

Hope to see you in 2022!