As marked by Mines’ senior leadership: “It has been difficult to watch and to process—the wrongness of the death, the intense anger and emotion of the protestors and the widely varying responses of our elected leaders. Events like this and others over the past few years force us to face the uncomfortable reality that racism and bias are prevalent and persistent. They also provide the impetus for us, as individuals and the Mines community, to reflect on who we are, what we stand for and what we should do going forward.
The Trefny Center is deeply saddened by the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, as well as all others who have lost their lives as a direct result of institutional and systemic racism in our country. Institutional racism is a long-standing and systemic problem that permeates much of higher education and STEM fields. The Trefny Center at the Colorado School of Mines is focused on leading efforts that promote research-based teaching and learning at the university. The Trefny Center provides leadership, consultation, resources, and programs to support our faculty and to build convergent learning and working communities that embrace diversity of thinking and welcoming environments where all (regardless of skin color, national origin, gender, or other racializing characteristics) can feel safe and secure to learn and work. We will continue to work to address racism through our institutional and national efforts. We will address it directly in our program offerings, our hiring and management practices, in our research, and in our engagement with the broader campus community. We are currently addressing it through our Diversity, Inclusion, & Access implementation plan. We will continue to monitor our efforts and progress. We support Black Lives Matter.