Native American Heritage Month 2024: Finding Liberation in the Celebration Native American people were our nation’s first artists, inventors, scientists, and stewards of the land where we live, learn, work and play today. In Oregon, their descendants make up 4% of the total population and live in every county of our state. They are not a monolith: some are members of the nine federally-recognized tribes, others are not.
National Disability Awareness Month 2024: Workplace Equity Benefits Everybody October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM), a month dedicated to celebrating the value and talent Americans with disabilities contribute to our nation’s workplaces and economy. This year’s theme, “Access to Good Jobs for All,” reminds us that everyone, regardless of ability, deserves an opportunity to prepare for, obtain and succeed in meaningful employment.
Latinx Heritage Month 2024: Embracing the Spirit of the Possibility of Change, on Campus and Beyond Since its evolution from a week-long to month-long observation, Hispanic Heritage Month, also known as Latinx Heritage Month, has proven staying power. The nationally recognized month (September 15 through October 15) celebrates the countless contributions of Americans with ancestral ties to the Caribbean Spanish-speaking nations, Central America, Mexico, and South America.
Celebrating 2024 LGBTQ+ Month and Juneteenth As a UO community, June is an opportunity to celebrate our students as they graduate and move forward to achieve their next levels of success. June is also the month for celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride and Juneteenth.In 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton declared the month of June as “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month”. In 2016, President Barack H. Obama used a presidential declaration to announce June as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month”, and indeed as a way of being more inclusive to a broader constituency.
Bridging Histories and Shaping our Future: In Celebration of Asian, Desi, Pacific Islander American Heritage Month The origin of the celebration of what we now describe as Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage dates back to the 95th Congress (1978-79) and a set of joint resolutions for a week-long celebration instituted by the Administration of then President Jimmy Carter in 1978. President George H.W. Bush expanded the celebration to a full month in 1990. On May 1, 2009, President Barack Obama signed Proclamation 8369, earmarking the month of May of each year as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
Welcome to Spring Term 2024: A Time of Light and Hope Ultimately, Springtime in Eugene is beautiful, but that beauty only emerges after months of a dreary sky and rain. The fact that beauty can and, often does, emerge from the rainy seasons of our lives is an encouragement, as people across our world experience wars, conflicts, unnecessary suffering as well as death at home and abroad.
Happy Women’s History Month! The world-wide celebration of Women’s History Month began in 1917, when March 8 was initially earmarked as International Women’s Day. Under President Jimmy Carter, a 1980 proclamation recognized National Women’s History Week, which the U.S. Congress, in 1987, used a law to rename as “Women’s History Month” in March of each year. Celebrating Women’s History Month on our campus is an opportunity to recognize and also celebrate the progress that the UO is making in leveraging equity and anti-discrimination as important tools in building a thriving and flourishing campus.
Black History Month 2024: Education Is Freedom For All Education has always played a pivotal role in Black History. As enslaved people in America, beginning in 1619, African Americans were either denied the ability to learn or to have any meaningful education. Individual slaves, who endeavored to read and also to teach others to read were deemed criminals, punishable by violent lashing and, in some cases, even death. Deemed properties of their owners, Black people were also prevented from either learning about their history or to utilize their native African dialects.
Moving Beyond Land Acknowledgements at the University of Oregon Equity work is constantly evolving. As institutions, we are obligated to continually update and investigate our policies and practices because systemic racism is deeply embedded in all facets of society and the process of building towards real justice requires just as deep of a level of engagement. This doesn’t mean just having hard conversations to tell people we had them.