Faculty and Staff Response to SSW SOCC’s “Expectations for Portland State University’s School of Social Work”

May 16, 2017

We, the undersigned faculty and staff, acknowledge the damage to students of color and all systemically targeted students and communities caused by the School of Social Work. 

We recognize the repeated and continual naming of concerns by students of color and all systemically targeted students throughout the school's history and our lack of sustained attention to structural change. We regret that our past responses have been inadequate and have depended upon students of color and students from other historically targeted identities continually educating faculty and staff through the narration of their experiences and scars. We regret that in order for us to be moved to action, it required personal testimony to once more be shared.  

We acknowledge all the students from intersections of historically targeted identities whom our programs have failed to support or retain due to institutional barriers, harassment, discrimination, and/or the resulting retaliation for speaking up against injustices. These students hold identities that include but are not limited to: poor and working class, sick and/or disabled, Queer/LGBTQ2S, gender nonconforming students, parents, students of color, and those who sit at multiple intersections of these identities. 

We recognize and affirm the tremendous emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical labor of students across the School of Social Work devoted to creating this list of expectations. We see and hear the harm that we, individually and collectively, have caused both through our action and our inaction. Therefore, we commit to sustaining our own attention and labor in crafting and implementing a meaningful response and determining actions steps in a timely and inclusive manner.