{"id":34681,"date":"2020-08-11T15:09:02","date_gmt":"2020-08-11T19:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/?p=34681"},"modified":"2020-10-22T11:11:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-22T15:11:52","slug":"injustice-race-and-equity-fiu-business-student-driven-panel-starts-an-important-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/2020\/08\/injustice-race-and-equity-fiu-business-student-driven-panel-starts-an-important-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Injustice, race and equity: FIU Business student-driven panel starts an important conversation."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-34683 size-full\" title=\"Injustice, race and equity: FIU Business student-driven panel starts an important conversation.\" src=\"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Injustice-race-and-equity.jpg\" alt=\"Injustice, race and equity: FIU Business student-driven panel starts an important conversation.\" width=\"1000\" height=\"414\" srcset=\"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Injustice-race-and-equity.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Injustice-race-and-equity-300x124.jpg 300w, https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Injustice-race-and-equity-230x95.jpg 230w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The killing of George Floyd in police custody galvanized the U.S., putting issues of racially-motivated violence, inequity and injustice at the center of a national movement. To address these issues at FIU Business, the Dean\u2019s Student Advisory Board (DSAB) has launched a series of \u201cConversations on Race and Equity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe know that this is not an easy or simple conversation,\u201d said David Garcia, president of DSAB, as he opened\u00a0the first session, held via Zoom on July 22, 2020. \u201cIt is very complicated and will take time for more people to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a wide-ranging, frank conversation, a four-person panel of Black faculty members and students took the first step, expressing hope that by putting their issues and hopes out in front of the wider community, the process of building a more inclusive college could begin.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Participants were Antoinette Smith, professor of accounting; Michele Anglade, lecturer at FIU\u2019s College of Law; students Alexandre Boucan and Akeem Green; and Brooke Buckman, a global leadership and management instructor, who moderated the panel. Guiding the panel\u2019s assembly: Donald Roomes, university instructor in international business and director of student success initiatives at the College of Business.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ew-v1ue6w2U?rel=0\" width=\"100%\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Participants welcome an opportunity to educate.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smith, who became the first Black woman to earn full professorship in the School of Accounting, noted the importance of representation to imparting a feeling of inclusion and called on FIU Business to make more of an effort.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34695\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34695\" style=\"width: 120px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-34695 size-full\" title=\"Antoinette Smith\" src=\"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/smitha-1.jpg\" alt=\"Antoinette Smith\" width=\"120\" height=\"170\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34695\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Antoinette Smith<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI do get bothered that Black students walk on the campus, go into the rooms at the College of Business, and they have to look pretty hard to find a photo of anyone who looks like them,\u201d she said. Seeing more representation of Black speakers on alumni panels, she said, would also give students of color a sense of their own potential.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smith also pointed to issues in the classroom. \u201cBlack professors have to stay on guard. They\u2019re held to higher standards in everything in life,\u201d she said. She noted cases where Black students were on the receiving end of micro- and macro-aggression tactics in finance, accounting, and information systems classes, where they were often isolated. Yet she also saw many acts of inclusion in response to these hostilities, and praised several students for their compassion and action.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">FIU Law Lecturer Michele Anglade, who has worked extensively with issues of racial injustice, analyzed the progression of multiple events including systemic racism predating the birth of the U.S. and the killing of Floyd. As \u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d echoed throughout these tragedies, it became compounded by COVID-19, a crisis that took a severe respiratory toll and hit the Black community with disproportionate impact.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34697\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34697\" style=\"width: 120px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-34697\" title=\"Michele Anglade\" src=\"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/michele-anglade-759x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Michele Anglade\" width=\"120\" height=\"162\" srcset=\"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/michele-anglade-759x1024.jpg 759w, https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/michele-anglade-222x300.jpg 222w, https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/michele-anglade-230x311.jpg 230w, https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/michele-anglade.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 120px) 100vw, 120px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34697\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michele Anglade<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The emotional impact was severe, and personal, she noted, yet she is optimistic, as the protests demonstrated the continued significance of constitutional values relating to freedom of speech and equal protection under law.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cMy optimism comes from the breadth of this movement has taken, the number of people involved, the diversity, the interests that have come together,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Modeling inclusion and representation.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sharing his perspective as a student, Alexandre Boucan,\u00a0Alexandre Buchan, who serves as president of the FIU chapter of the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA), noted that as he walks into a classroom where not many people look like him, he wonders if he was in the right spot.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u201cI would love to see more Black faculty members, Black people in these business courses,\u201d he said. He shared that as Black students, \u201cwe have a special case because we have a special history. We need a special effort from our business school. When you walk into a classroom, the first thing you think is, \u2018it isn\u2019t for me\u2019. We need to create an environment where black students can excel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hailing from a Jamaican background, student Akeem Green said, his experience was somewhat different. In the U.S., he has found racism to be part of other aspects of a challenging culture.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cPart of this conversation is challenging our own assumptions about ourselves,\u201d he said. \u201cMy ultimate objective: I want to live the life of someone who doesn\u2019t have to worry about his race. What better way than by bringing everyone into the discussion?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Boucan echoed, \u201cLet\u2019s come together in a kind light and make something happen so our children don\u2019t have to have this conversation when they come to FIU.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>To hear the full conversation,\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/ew-v1ue6w2U\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>click here<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>The second Conversation on Race and Equity, to be held via Zoom on September 9, 2020, will include an examination of how the college can be more inclusive. The third conversation in the series will look at the life after graduation in the workplace, helping students analyze issues and look for solutions.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The killing of George Floyd in police custody galvanized the U.S., putting issues of racially-motivated violence, inequity and injustice at the center of a national movement. To address these issues at FIU Business, the Dean\u2019s Student Advisory Board (DSAB) has launched a series of \u201cConversations on Race and Equity.\u201d \u201cWe know that this is not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":34685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[158,4631,4633,4649,4647,666],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34681"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34681"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34703,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34681\/revisions\/34703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}