Dear 2020 Graduates,
We began our journey at Lawrence together. It is hard to believe, but many of the circumstances that characterized that time four years ago are with us today. I started my work here in the wake of student protests around the country, and on our campus, calling for more diversity, equity and inclusion at colleges and universities and for the end of racist policing practices. The nation was also in the midst of a divisive presidential campaign. Today, as you mark this significant milestone of college graduation, people are once again in the streets voicing their protests while we prepare to elect the next president of the United States.
As you begin the next phase of your lives, these circumstances have only intensified. Struggles to reform policing continue and have come to a boiling point. President Trump has taken divisiveness in office to a level that I have not known in my lifetime. And a pandemic for which we have no effective treatment or vaccine is ravaging communities around the world. Something must change.
Equipped with your Lawrence education, ushered into adulthood in a time of unprecedented social and economic disruption, you are uniquely qualified to make the changes we need. I have witnessed your ability to learn and create new knowledge, to serve others and yes, to share your grievances. More than anything else I have seen your ability to respond to the suffering of others with both caring and strategic action. This is what it will take to transform our workplaces and communities into the just society most of us desire. So congratulations on this monumental accomplishment. Enjoy it and be proud. Then set about being the change the world needs. I am counting on it.
Kimberly Barrett, Ph.D.
Vice President for Diversity
and Inclusion and Associate Dean of the Faculty