Mizzou officials: "We feel the weight of the world's eyes upon us"
COLUMBIA, Mo.-- The University of Missouri chancellors office released a statement on Wednesday addressing the "significant turbulence" the campus has seen in recent days.
The campus has been the site of increasing protests over the last week about the way racist incidents have been handled. On Monday, university system president Tim Wolfe and the top administrator of the Columbia campus, Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, announced their resignations.
On Wednesday, University of Missouri police arrested a 19-year-old man suspected of posting online threats to shoot black students and faculty, adding to the racial tensions at the heart of the protests.
The memo from University of Missouri leadership on Wednesday began, "Our campus has experienced significant turbulence, and many within our community have suffered threats against their lives and humanity. These threats are reprehensible."
The memo said the process of making the campus as inclusive as it should be won't be easy: "We have difficult conversations ahead, and we must all dedicate ourselves to learning together."
The statement continued by saying immediate needs must also be met.
"First, we have additional counselors available at the Counseling Center, Student Health, and Employee Assistance Program, including counselors of color," the memo read. "Second, faculty and staff have already begun organizing learning opportunities for us all. Some of these are campus-wide events. Others are designed for smaller groups."
The statement said that on Friday, the campus will feature a panel of faculty who will share their teaching experiences this week. And that these will be the first of many more events occurring on campus in the months, and years, ahead.
"For those of you who are discouraged, we hope you will see what we have seen in the last fifteen months and especially in the last few weeks," the statement read. "We have watched faculty, many of whom have great expertise in social justice, act with extraordinary compassion to our students, and we have benefited greatly from our amazing staff who are dedicated to making Mizzou the best it can be. Finally, we have witnessed our brave students who sacrificed their own needs to do work that should have been done long before they joined our community."
The memo, signed by Hank Foley, Garnett S. Stokes, and Chuck Henson, ended with, "We feel the weight of the world's eyes upon us. We will not flinch from the work ahead."