News

A Message from Wilder School Dean Susan T. Gooden

June 1, 2020 

We can be a part of the solution!

Racism. COVID-19.  These are two major pandemics that, despite our best yearnings, cannot be wished away. In fact, we’re seeing the blatant intersection of the two. African-Americans are disproportionately dying from COVID-19, assuming higher levels of risk in front line or near front line positions to enable social distancing of the privileged, all while also having limited access to quality health care. Then, to see the life of George Floyd literally ended by the police over a counterfeit $20 bill only adds a down pouring rain of insult to the on-going heavy rains of injury.

The L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs is nationally recognized for our commitment to social equity in our teaching, research, and service.  As its Dean, it is important that I simultaneously support our employees, students, faculty, and staff, while also aggressively contributing to the solution. We are not bystanders to social injustice. Like COVID-19, institutional racism does not take time off. But, also like COVID-19, we can aggressively work together to assure its demise.   

- Wilder School Dean, Susan T. Gooden, Ph.D.