Join us as we acknowledge the land and the people

Dear Cal Lutheran Community,

As we begin the second half of the academic year and the first part of 2022, I am pleased by the number and types of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs we are offering and the commitments we are actualizing. Though we have much ground yet to travel, we are making progress in building collaboration, relationships, and trust.   

Thanks to the efforts of our Core DEI team and many of the partners who have joined their efforts, Cal Lu kicked off the Spring semester with a Week of Service. Activities associated with this program paid tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. bringing members of our community together to participate in service that simultaneously benefited underserved women, children, and people of color and reinforced our own mission and values.

This week, other substantive programs have come together as a result of the ongoing efforts of an interdisciplinary team that has been researching meaningful and appropriate ways to engage in Land Acknowledgement proceedings. The interdisciplinary team includes the VP of Mission & Identity, Melissa Maxwell-Doherty; Director of Faculty Development & Inclusive Excellence, Dr. Lorri Santamaría; COAS Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Programs & Community Outreach, Dr. Colleen Windham-Hughes; COAS Associate Dean for Equity, Inclusion & Engagement, Dr. Lorena Muñoz; Director of the CEJ, Dr. Cynthia Duarte; Librarian/ Head Undergraduate Instruction & Outreach, Yvonne Wilber; and Director of Athletics, Holly Roepke. Thanks to their leadership, we have been able to invite Indigenous educators and knowledge keepers who will help Cal Lutheran take an important and healing step toward co-developing an authentic, respectful, and mutually serving Land Acknowledgement.

To this end, it brings me great pleasure to invite the whole campus community to gather on Thursday, Jan. 27 at 12:10 pm (just after Chapel) in Kingsmen Park. Please be a part of this special Cal Lutheran event that includes a Community Land Intention, a Sacred Tobacco Blessing, and an Eagle Dance.  Indigenous Educators, Kathy Willcuts (Lakota) and Steven Garcia (Tongva) will share some of the healing ceremonies that they offer at  the Satwiwa Native American Culture Center. We are honored to have our Guests invite the ancestors to offer healing to the land and wellness to our community.

Land Acknowledgment activities continue the next day. On Friday morning, January 28, at 10:00 am, please meet at the Luther Statue in front of the Pearson Library. We will march over the bridge connecting South Campus to North Campus for an additional land and community healing opportunity. This North Campus Bridging Land Intention ceremony will serve to ‘break ground’ on a new athletic field. The ceremony helps us pay our respects to the past while signaling the partnership we are forging and the opportunities that partnership holds for members of the community who use this land.

Following these important activities, the university will offer myriad programs, Honoring Black Excellence for Black History Month. Those programs begin on February 1, and we hope to see as many of you there as possible.

In community,

Lori E. Varlotta, Ph.D.
President