Last week we had our first Community Day of Learning where the campus paused so that we could dig in and have difficult conversations about race and ethnicity. In our closing session, we wrote down what our hopes are moving forward. My hope is that this wouldn’t be something future students would look back on and say that this is something Bryn Mawr used to do – I don’t want future students, like myself, to discover all of the programs and discussions that Bryn Mawr used to have. I also don’t want students to find themselves repeating history by having the same conversations about the same problems that I experience now and that students who graduated before me experienced.

So what now? It already seems like the energy from last week is starting to fade and I urge people to keep going. Anyone and everyone can be responsible for continuing the conversations and moving words to action. I think it would be great if we could bring back some of the presentations that were given during the community day so that people who didn’t get to attend can go and learn. What if we made these types of sessions a norm? What if we always got to hear from faculty and staff about their experiences? What if we always had workshops available for community members to be enriched and talk to people they may otherwise never encounter? What if community members always had a chance to learn about where people are participating in activism?

As a community we need to bring the energy and willingness to learn and act with us throughout our time at the college because there is always #Mawr2Learn.