The AES department has been my academic home for about two decades now; this was where I embarked on my very first job as an assistant professor right out of graduate school! So, you can just imagine my thrill in leading it starting schoolyear 2020-21. Over the years, I’ve seen this home grow into a distinguished and dynamic producer of cutting-edge research in race and ethnic studies with the enhancement of our outstanding faculty from a variety of intersecting disciplines and fields. We have flourished as a nurturing home for teachers, students, community service workers, and allies. And our collective has continued to take pride in offering curricula that are multivocal, relevant, and empowering – all honoring as well as constantly improving on the legacies we have inherited from those students and activists who fought for our establishment in the 1970s and 1980s. Our mission to research on, teach about, and serve communities in the quest for social justice persists in everything we do here at AES, especially during our most challenging moments right now, so it is in this spirit that I welcome you all into our home.
In solidarity,
Rick Bonus