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[ Text: Welcome to SUNYDelhi Convocation 2020 ]

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[ Text: Convocation marks the official start of the academic year. ]

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[ Text: We hope these messages will leave you with advice you can apply to your life here at SUNYDelhi. ]

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Welcome!
I'm Michael Laliberte, the college

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president and welcome to the incoming
classes

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of new students to SUNY Delhi. I am
delighted to welcome more than 800 new

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students who are joining
our SUNY Delhi community today becoming

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the present
and future of SUNY Delhi. I know that

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about a year ago
you were engaged in the process of

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trying to make up your minds about where
you wanted to spend your collegiate

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years and just what exactly you wanted to

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study. You were also involved in other

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activities that were preparing you
to take the next step in your academic

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pursuits such as finishing high school, studying

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for the S.A.T. or readying yourself for a life on

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campus. Then in early 2020 all that changed.

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Due to the COVID 19 pandemic we were all
forced into a new reality, one that

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included staying indoors,
staying online, wearing masks, and of

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course dealing with the horrific illness that

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has touched so many of our lives. This was not the

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reality that any of us were expecting,
or that we anticipated.

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This new way of being created an air of
uncertainty

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and anxiety that made us fearful and
questioning our future.

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However by your presence here today you
have shown

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that you have persevered. You are showing
us at SUNY Delhi and the rest of the

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world that you are able to deal with adversity

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and challenges, and you are willing and capable to be

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flexible, adaptable, and accommodating as you

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continue on the path in pursuit of your goals and

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your dreams. This is what we call grit.

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According to the Merriam-Webster
dictionary, grit

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is defined as having firmness of
character and indomitable spirit.

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Characteristics of grit include courage,
conscientiousness,

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persistence, resilience, and excellence. These are characteristics that you have

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already displayed in some form in order to be with us this

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academic year. At SUNY Delhi we recognize grit as a

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distinguishing trait demonstrated by many of our most

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successful students and alumni, as well as in our talented

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faculty and staff. Your grit has guided
you thus far in your life

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and will continue with you on your path
to excellence,

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in pursuit of your goals we celebrate
that aspect of each

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and every one of you today. As you know
a pandemic is not for the faint of heart

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or for quitters. Grit is what drives you and will be your

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constant companion, now
and well into your bright future. We

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are excited to have you join our
community

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and look forward to assisting you in
further developing your skills

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and characteristics in order for you to
become your best selves.

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To complement your academic curriculum
the campus community provides

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opportunities to learn outside of the
classroom.

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This year in addition to COVID 19
our country has been fraught with

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protests and demonstrations
that are calling attention to the many

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injustices that have been inflicted
upon people of color in our country, in

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particular Black and African-American people. The

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Black Lives Matter movement
has called our attention to some of the

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issues and disparities that exist
in our society. In order to have a

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society that is able and willing to address

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these disparities everyone needs to be educated on how and

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why these issues have come to exist
as well as how to respond and address

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these inequalities. At SUNY Delhi
we are committed to providing an

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education that will support our
community

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as well as ultimately improve our
society.

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As such, throughout the academic year
there will be a number of anti-racist &

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decolonization workshops and programs
provided

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so that you can begin this process of
education.

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Delhi Today will contain announcements
about these opportunities.

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I encourage each one of you to take
advantage of these programs and

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workshops. Together we can learn how we can improve

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ourselves, our community, and our society. It is

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opportunities like these that will
provide you with the necessary skills

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and abilities to be successful in the
ever-changing, diverse

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world in which we live.

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In closing, I warmly welcome all of you
to the SUNY Delhi family. I look forward

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to having a productive, valuable, and memorable year

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where we will learn and grow together.
Thank you.

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Welcome to convocation. I am Dr. Susan
Deane,

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interim provost here at SUNY Delhi and I
am very excited to be starting the new

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academic year with you all. Although it
may

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look very differently for all of us,
starting or continuing your educational journey is what is important.

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On behalf of all the faculty and staff
here at SUNY Delhi

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we wish you all the successes and
accomplishments throughout the school

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year. We are pleased to welcome Dr.Vijay

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Pendakur, Cornell University's Robert W. and

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Elizabeth C. Staley dean of students and presidential

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advisor on diversity and equity,
as our guest speaker for this year's

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convocation. Vijay has devoted his professional

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career to improve access equity and social justice

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for students in higher education and his
scholarly work

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focuses on diversity strategies, higher
education administration,

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and leadership development. Vijay's
wealth of experience and knowledge,

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as well as his humorous and, approachable
personality

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is sure to captivate you in this session.
Please welcome Dr. Vijay Pendakur.

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Welcome incoming class to the fall
convocation

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for the 2020 academic year. It is such a pleasure to be your

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convocation speaker.
I can only imagine what many of you must

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be feeling, starting your education at SUNY Delhi.

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I'm sure there's quite a bit of
excitement and maybe even a little bit

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of anxiety about this big life change. All of those

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things are natural and perfectly healthy.
Anytime we start big new things,

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particularly ones as important as
college,

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it's only human to feel a mix of
emotions to kick off the journey.

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And, we are in unusual times.
I can bet that you did not plan on

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starting your journey at Delhi in a
pandemic.

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Well please know that none of us wanted
your start to be this way. I wish I could

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be with you in person in a warm happy gathering

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right in the heart of your campus,
but this virtual convocation will have

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to be our way for now.
Speaking of unprecedented times, we are

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also in the middle of another
season of major activism in our nation

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on core issues of racial justice
fairness and inclusion.

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Did you catch that I said another season?
For while this summer's activism has

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been impressive, and we've started to see
some shifts in our society as a result,

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the movement for full inclusion is as
old as the history of racial exclusion

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in this nation. Across those centuries
there have been countless major

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movements for racial justice -
each holding the potential for

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incremental change
and the potential to help this country

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live up to its full ideal. Your institutional leadership at SUNY

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Delhi invited me to serve as your
convocation speaker today

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because they too believe that this is a
potent moment

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for racial equity and wanted me to share
some thoughts that may

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challenge and inspire you to get
involved and make a difference.

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Over the next 10 minutes or so I would
love to tell you a little bit about

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myself and some of the experiences that made me

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commit my life to this work. I'll then explain, at a high

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level, what diversity, inclusion, and equity are.

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And finally I'll wrap up with some ideas
on how and why

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equity and justice work broadly is all
of our work,

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including you. My parents are immigrants
from two villages in southern India

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they came to North America in 1969 and
eventually made their home in Chicago.

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I grew up at the northern edge of the
city right at the street that separates

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Chicago from a suburb
called Evanston. Sociologists would call

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my neighborhood
a borderland, a space between

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two cultural zones. My borderland
experience had a profound and lasting

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effect on the arc of my whole life until now.

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See, my neighborhood was predominantly
black with some pockets of new

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immigrants from Central America
and the Caribbean. It was low income and

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it had been for decades. It was high on crime, high on drug abuse,

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and filled with hopelessness. This was
the north side of Chicago in the 1980s.

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And two miles away there was a place
that was predominantly white,

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upper income, and extremely well
resourced.

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Just two miles north, but it might as
well have been a different planet.

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I used to ride the Chicago transit
authority bus to high school

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and over the three mile ride the
complexion culture and privilege

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privilege level of that bus would change
dramatically.

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When I turned 16 the bus once again
became a largely

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black and brown. low income zone as many
of the kids from north Evanston

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got cars as presents and stopped riding
the bus. I went to a high school that was

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celebrated for its diversity, for how
well resourced it was,

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and I hated it. High school was an
unprecedented disaster for me.

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It felt like two worlds collided in that
building.

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Three thousand kids with two different
passports.

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We were all supposed to coexist in one
space.

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Needless to say it just didn't work. 
Daily,

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weekly, monthly, I saw examples, extreme
examples,

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of how the house you were born in seemed
to shape so many experiences in your

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life. If you were lucky enough to be born two

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miles north of me it appeared like
things were quite rosy.

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I'd hear stories of sleep away summer
camps and

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new cars for birthdays and designer
clothes at the change of seasons,

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and other markers of wealth and access. And if you grew up in my neighborhood it

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appeared that there was a much higher
chance that you're getting hit up

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for gang initiation by the time you
cleared eighth grade.

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Violence and drugs were abundant and
despair

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was the eau de parfum. I graduated from
high school with a strong sense that

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something was deeply broken
with a society that could produce this

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kind of extremes. We don't control where we're born but by

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the time I went to college
I had seen repeatedly that this singular

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factor had an enormous shaping power
over someone's life.

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It doesn't make it impossible to succeed,
but boy

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there are fewer chances that it'll
happen. Conversely, you're not guaranteed

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to succeed if you grow up in privilege
and affluence,

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but you sure are more likely. So I went
to college with all these feelings,

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not a lot of academic knowledge, but a
deep visceral sense that something

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Isn't right and I wanted to know what
was going on.

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This inner sense of discomfort impelled
me to take classes in history and ethnic

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studies, in urban sociology, and other
disciplines

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that could offer answers to my burning
questions.

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And while this academic journey was
progressing I also needed to make some

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money, so I searched for an on-campus job. On a

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total fluke I walked into the multicultural student

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center at my alma mater
and asked if they had paying work. I

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didn't even know what a multicultural
student center was,

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I just wanted my minimum wage job. Ah,
well that changed my life. That job

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changed everything. At the center I met the first adults at

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college that truly looked out for me. They were

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interested in my story and they were
interested in me

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as a whole person. Because many of the activists and racial

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justice student organizations also met
at the center for their weekly meetings,

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I got to see many of them in action
while i was working my late night shifts.

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This encouraged me to join a few
organizations and I slowly gained an

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identity as a student activist. By the time i graduated from college my

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coursework, my job at the center, and my

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participation in student organizations
had fully shaped my college experience

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and made it so much better. There's a message here for you, you've

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got to get involved in
something if you're going to squeeze the

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juice out of your time
at SUNY Delhi. Why squeeze the juice?

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Well because college unfortunately can
be a transactional experience

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or it can be transformational. It can be
a place where you sleepwalk through some

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classes and write those tuition checks
and

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leave with a facile diploma, or it can
change

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who you are as a person. Who wouldn't
choose the latter? I came into my true sense of self at college just as you will at Delhi

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if you take the risk and try new things. As you heard in the introduction that

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preceded my remarks, I've stayed
committed

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to that inner feeling of unease and
discomfort my whole life.

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Something isn't right here and sadly
the inequalities and inequities that

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shaped my youth in the 1980s are still a
hallmark of our society.

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So let me get to the academic stuff i
mean this is a university convocation

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address right? What do we mean by diversity, equity,

0:14:26.000,0:14:31.519
and inclusion? Three values that are
really important to your university.

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Let me offer you a super basic,
applicable way to understand these terms

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just for the sake of this keynote. If
this stuff is interesting to you,

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you will have many opportunities in
college to explore these ideas

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in much greater detail and complexity. Diversity at its most basic level is

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just valuing difference, seeing some greater

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good, and having difference of all kinds in

0:14:55.600,0:15:00.320
the room, in the school, in the workforce, in the

0:15:00.320,0:15:04.800
government. Diversity pushes us to ask the important

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question "who's in the room?" Inclusion

0:15:09.040,0:15:15.199
is valuing the experiences of the people
in that room. Do all those different

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people feel safe? Do they feel like they truly belong? Do

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people feel treated fairly? Inclusion requires us to go beyond just

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valuing difference and begin to understand and commit to

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the experience that people, especially people who aren't

0:15:31.600,0:15:37.440
in the majority, have. Equity, that third term, is a bit more

0:15:37.440,0:15:41.360
complicated. First because it's often incorrectly

0:15:41.360,0:15:44.720
used interchangeably with the word
equality.

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Watch the news for 10 minutes you'll
probably hear politicians say something

0:15:48.240,0:15:50.959
like "we need a more equal and equitable

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society" and they're using those words as

0:15:53.680,0:15:57.920
synonyms when they're not. Equal is a powerful aspiration,

0:15:57.920,0:16:01.680
especially in a country like America
where we live in the central

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contradiction of equal being baked into
our founding documents

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while our society was designed around
numerous inequalities,

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from the time of this same founding. We've been questing for equal for

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centuries- but equal is about the aspiration that

0:16:17.680,0:16:22.560
everyone gets treated
exactly the same. And while this is a key

0:16:22.560,0:16:28.079
idea at a larger societal level,
equity is actually a very different idea.

0:16:28.079,0:16:32.000
Equity at its core is the idea that you
can put a lot of different people in the

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room, doing the work of diversity, and you can

0:16:35.360,0:16:38.000
even treat them all nicely and fairly, doing the work of

0:16:38.000,0:16:40.880
inclusion. But if you really want to provide the

0:16:40.880,0:16:45.360
conditions that optimize
outcomes for people, you have to change

0:16:45.360,0:16:50.160
the systems and structures that create
the conditions of our experience.

0:16:50.160,0:16:55.279
Equity is the process of transforming a
school, a company, a team, or a country

0:16:55.279,0:16:58.639
into a place that allows all of those
different people

0:16:58.639,0:17:03.199
to truly thrive. So while diversity is
challenging us to ask

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"who's in the room" an equality is
challenging us to commit to those that

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are in the room being treated well,
equity is pushing us to consider all the

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barriers to getting in the room in the
first place, or

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the conditions in the room that will
likely lead to some people succeeding at

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far greater rates than other people - to no

0:17:20.559,0:17:24.799
merit of their own. Equity can get really complicated really

0:17:24.799,0:17:27.679
quickly and this is a convocation
address not

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a classroom lecture, so let me put it
like this -

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we are living in a moment of
extraordinary activism

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for racial equity. This is a movement
focused on race

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and the movement isn't saying please
just admit us into your organizations, or

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your schools, or your government,
or please just treat us a little better.

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It's a movement calling
for the fundamental transformation of

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the structures that produce
differential and unfair outcomes for

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people of color in
almost every sector of life, whether it

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be policing, the employment market, schools, or health

0:18:02.240,0:18:04.880
care, this is a mass movement for racial

0:18:04.880,0:18:08.080
equity and it's about changing the
fundamentals

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so people of color don't have to
continue to just survive

0:18:11.440,0:18:16.080
in this country but they can actually
begin to thrive.

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To be coy about it, inclusion might have
us clapping

0:18:20.080,0:18:24.160
that NASCAR finally decided to stop
allowing folks to fly the confederate

0:18:24.160,0:18:28.320
flag inside their events - equity is saying um,

0:18:28.320,0:18:30.880
that's nice, but let's look at all the barriers to

0:18:30.880,0:18:34.480
meaningful participation
that have kept people of color out of

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this lucrative industry
since its founding, and let's do

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something about that. Diversity, inclusion, and equity are core

0:18:41.760,0:18:45.840
values for SUNY Delhi. Your university leadership truly

0:18:45.840,0:18:48.400
believes that a complete college
education

0:18:48.400,0:18:51.760
also means gaining some confidence in
these ideas and understanding how

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critical they are
for our society, for american democracy

0:18:55.520,0:18:59.200
to flourish. The good news is that there are so many

0:18:59.200,0:19:04.240
ways for you to engage in the social
transformation that these ideas call for.

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You can take classes on these subjects
or join student orgs

0:19:07.520,0:19:12.320
that care about these ideas, or get a
paying job where these ideas are in the

0:19:12.320,0:19:15.679
job description. I mean
i've sort of made a career out of doing

0:19:15.679,0:19:19.360
this work! You know,
you can watch youtube videos, or ted

0:19:19.360,0:19:21.919
talks, or tv shows, or movies on these
topics

0:19:21.919,0:19:26.480
and then talk with your friends about
what you've been learning.

0:19:26.480,0:19:31.120
You can name problematic behavior
respectfully,

0:19:31.120,0:19:35.760
even when it's your friends or family
doing it.

0:19:35.760,0:19:39.200
There are countless ways to make these
values a part of your life

0:19:39.200,0:19:44.559
at Delhi and beyond. And to help you get
started this fall the MOSIAIC cultural

0:19:44.559,0:19:48.080
center at Delhi, in collaboration with other

0:19:48.080,0:19:51.840
units on campus, will offer a semester long 10-part

0:19:51.840,0:19:54.960
series designed to assist you along your

0:19:54.960,0:19:58.320
journey of unpacking some of the content
that i just talked about.

0:19:58.320,0:20:02.400
In addition the MOSAIC multicultural
center will offer learning opportunities

0:20:02.400,0:20:05.600
throughout the semester
to help you think about your role in

0:20:05.600,0:20:10.720
creating a better world where everyone
can truly thrive at the organizational

0:20:10.720,0:20:13.520
level. Staff and faculty will continue their

0:20:13.520,0:20:16.559
efforts within the Equity and Inclusion
Advisory Board

0:20:16.559,0:20:19.679
of reviewing and revising policy and
practice

0:20:19.679,0:20:24.080
so that SUNY Delhi becomes a place that
is enriching as possible

0:20:24.080,0:20:27.679
for all of its students, staff, and
faculty.

0:20:27.679,0:20:32.320
Let me conclude by saying how proud I am
of each and every one of you.

0:20:32.320,0:20:36.240
A college education can be a revolution,
not just for the individual that

0:20:36.240,0:20:40.559
experiences it, but also for their whole family. Some of

0:20:40.559,0:20:44.000
you may be the first in your families to
go to college and I am especially

0:20:44.000,0:20:47.679
beaming for you on this big day. Your journey

0:20:47.679,0:20:50.240
isn't easy, but please know that the staff and

0:20:50.240,0:20:54.940
faculty at Delhi have got your back. You can do this incoming students and we

0:20:54.940,0:20:58.700
will all be here rooting for you throughout. Have a great

0:20:58.700,0:21:00.080
start to the year.

0:21:00.080,0:21:02.680
[ Text: Welcome to the Bronco family!  Use this community to help you realize your passions and achieve your goals.

0:21:02.680,0:21:04.300
[ Text: We are here to support each other on this incredible new journey

0:21:04.300,0:21:06.380
[ Text: SUNY Delhi. It's a great day to be a Bronco!

0:21:07.460,0:21:08.640
 

0:21:08.640,0:21:10.640