Messages from the Vice President

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.

The former academic adviser, who died Aug. 22, was a beloved member of the campus community.

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. 

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.

Very similar to all meaningful heritage and history commemorations, Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM) is an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the many contributions that Americans of Jewish ancestry have made to our country, our world and, indeed, our campus.

In this episode we provide deeper insight into all that the Center for Multicultural Academic Excellence (CMAE) has to offer. By providing advising appointments, workshops, tutoring, cultural study halls, and more the CMAE supports students who belong to historically underrepresented and underserved populations. We interview Rosa Chavez, J.D who is the Associate Director for the Center for Multicultural Academic Excellence (CMAE) at the University of Oregon.

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. 

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.

Virginia Beavert, a much-loved Yakama Nation elder and an honored UO graduate who dedicated her life to preserving Native languages and culture, died Feb. 8 at the age of 102.

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.