Students standing in front of Ursuline Hall at Brescia

King's/Brescia Joint Presidents' Anti-Racism Working Group

The King’s/Brescia Joint Principals’ Anti-Racism Working Group has been established to better understand our campus climate—particularly from the perspective of ethno- cultural, indigenous people  and racialized groups—and to make recommendations that aim to make the King’s and Brescia campuses safer, more respectful and more equitable environments in which to study, research, work and live.

While some of the work of the group can be developed jointly, some activities may be focused on specific campus culture and policy. The group will make use of special interest groups to focus on the gathering of information and formulation of draft recommendations, to be discussed, reviewed and incorporated within the final recommendations presented to senior administration and the King’s/Brescia community.

Specifically, the group will focus its attention on five themes:

  1. gathering of lived experiences of racism in all its forms (e.g., anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, etc ) from our students, staff and faculty as well as from the broader community;
  2. identifying opportunities in King’s and Brescia’s policies, programs and practices to address racism;
  3. reviewing and collecting information on other universities’ efforts to counter racism, with particular attention paid to the KUCSC white paper presented and the Western ARWG report and recommendations;
  4. reflection of our unique cultures as Catholic universities to inform our context and commitment to social justice;
  5. recommending initiatives that aim to enact systemic change against racism at King’s and Brescia.

Terms of Reference 

KB-ARWG Members October 2020-September 2021

Brescia King's
Nivedita Varagunan, Student Vidya Natarajan, Co-Lead
Birabwa Serumaga, Student Deborah Kamba, Student
Marley Fisher, Alumnae Zainab Al-Jaiashi & Roshaydia Morgan, KUCSC Representatives
Yvonne Asare-Bediako, Faculty JK Kato, Faculty
Tim D’Souza, Equity Committee Esra Ari, Equity Committee
Matthew Nguyen, Staff Amna Wasty and Nikki Sasso Mitchell, Staff
Lissette Ochoa, Co-lead Sihan Elkassen, Alumna

Archived Communication