{"id":2354,"date":"2021-01-11T09:29:28","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T17:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/?p=2354"},"modified":"2021-01-11T09:29:55","modified_gmt":"2021-01-11T17:29:55","slug":"recast-responding-to-recent-events-in-the-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/2021\/01\/recast-responding-to-recent-events-in-the-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Recast | Responding to recent events in the country"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> McAvity, David &lt;mcavityd@evergreen.edu&gt; <br> <strong>Sent:<\/strong> Friday, January 8, 2021 3:47 PM<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dear Colleagues,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am following\nup&nbsp;on&nbsp;the email message&nbsp;that was sent to our entire\ncommunity&nbsp;from Senior Leadership yesterday.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The troubling events in\nWashington DC, and in our own Capitol Campus,&nbsp;followed unprecedented\nchallenges to our democratic norms since the elections, and&nbsp;the\npolarization&nbsp;in the country that many of our&nbsp;political&nbsp;leaders\nand media figures have fanned.&nbsp;At the same time,&nbsp;hopeful signs of\nprogress in the long march to equality in America are&nbsp;evidenced&nbsp;by\nthe election of the first Black, Asian, female vice president in the country\u2019s\nhistory and the first Black and Jewish senators in Georgia.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These events and many others this\nyear have surfaced strong&nbsp;emotions. They&nbsp;raise questions\nand&nbsp;provide&nbsp;opportunities for dialogue and learning about\ncontradictions in our country:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Democratic&nbsp;institutions\nand values are being undermined in&nbsp;a&nbsp;country\nfor&nbsp;which&nbsp;democracy is fundamental&nbsp;to its&nbsp;identity.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><li>The rights&nbsp;to\nprotest&nbsp;and&nbsp;to&nbsp;free expression&nbsp;are&nbsp;being marred by\nriots, calls&nbsp;to&nbsp;violence, and deliberate misinformation.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Grief and frustration\nabout years of racism and injustice are being compared to anger stoked by false\nclaims of massive fraud.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Truth and\nfacts&nbsp;are&nbsp;obfuscated and diminished&nbsp;for many Americans&nbsp;by\nlies,&nbsp;distortion, and distrust in&nbsp;expertise&nbsp;and&nbsp;science.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Social media with its\npotential to connect, share&nbsp;and inform has&nbsp;led to\nincreasing&nbsp;polarization,&nbsp;isolation&nbsp;and factionalism.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of you may plan to address\nsuch questions and contradictions in your classes&nbsp;and\nprograms,&nbsp;while&nbsp;others may decide that&nbsp;the classroom is not the\nplace for this&nbsp;type of engagement. Either way,&nbsp;I believe that\nit&nbsp;is important for&nbsp;us as&nbsp;educators&nbsp;to understand what is\ngoing on in&nbsp;our democracy&nbsp;and&nbsp;to&nbsp;create&nbsp;opportunities\nfor our students&nbsp;to grapple with such contradictions and tensions, with\nthe hope that from understanding will come&nbsp;reason,&nbsp;common ground, and\npositive change.&nbsp;&nbsp;In collaboration with others in our leadership\nteam,&nbsp;I&nbsp;would like to&nbsp;support faculty&nbsp;interested\nin&nbsp;responding in real time to these events by having&nbsp;some kind of\ndialogue&nbsp;or panel about these issues in the coming weeks. Some faculty\nhave already approached&nbsp;us&nbsp;with such a suggestion.&nbsp;Let me know\nif you are interested and I will&nbsp;help&nbsp;bring&nbsp;folks\ntogether&nbsp;who may want to plan and organize something.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Please also let me know if I can\nsupport you in any other way.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Best wishes and stay safe,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>David&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From: McAvity, David &lt;mcavityd@evergreen.edu&gt; Sent: Friday, January 8, 2021 3:47 PM Dear Colleagues,&nbsp; I am following up&nbsp;on&nbsp;the email message&nbsp;that was&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4996,"featured_media":1714,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_s2mail":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2354"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4996"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2354"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2355,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2354\/revisions\/2355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}