Dear members of the Lasell University community,

What does social justice even mean? The term is thrown around and politicized so often that we lose sight of what we’re talking about. Social justice refers to ensuring that every person is able to thrive with fair access to resources, opportunities, and dignity.

Often, people tend to either focus on being performative or feel paralyzed by the enormity of social justice issues. Meaningful change takes time, consistency, and balance. Take posting on social media, for example. For many, the goal of posting content is to inform others about intentional actions that can be taken to effect change. For others, however, their motives for posting are to signal that they are involved in “good causes” and to earn praise.

Conversely, as big as the issues may seem, small steps do matter. You don’t have to devote your career to social justice, like our alumni in our feature story. You also don’t have to exhaust yourself emotionally to make a difference. A few of our alumni talk about ways to accomplish this here. Don’t let the big picture cause you to doubt that your individual, day-to-day actions can make a true impact.

On campus, we’ve tried to engage social justice issues in the curriculum and through programming. We want all members of our community to take part in in difficult discussions and to develop the skillset to interact and converse with folks with different lived experiences and viewpoints. These skills are not only critical during our college years, but throughout our entire personal and professional lives, too.

I am proud to share that we were recognized this fall by INSIGHT Into Diversity as a Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) award winner. The award, granted by the oldest and most comprehensive DEI-focused magazine and website in higher education today, acknowledges our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. This achievement is one of many affirmations of the hope and strong expectations we have for the future. In the same breath, I  also acknowledge that there are members of our community who have felt hurt, invalidated, and unseen at Lasell. I do believe we have taken meaningful strides to reduce that and, when possible, repair the harm that has been done. Your feedback on this is always appreciated and can be shared with me and our team at alumni@lasell.edu.

Jesse Tauriac, Ph.D.
Associate Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer
Director, Donahue Institute for Equity & Social Justice