PETITION IN RELATION TO PROPOSED ACTIONS NEEDED TO BE TAKEN BY UHP STAFF AND FACULTY

To Director Bethany Cobb Kung,

We the students of George Washington's University Honors Program stand in solidarity with the POC community in the need to reform the program’s history of inclusion and diversity within the UHP education and environment.

Therefore, we demand that the director of the UHP, Bethany Cobb Kung, and relevant administrators take the following actions:

1. Immediately release a statement condemning the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and countless other Black lives and state your devotion to upholding Black lives and supporting the Black community on campus as other departments in the university have done.
2. Send out an email to all UHP students by the end of June 2020 acknowledging the conversations on negative experiences POC have had in the program and detailing the actions you have taken thus far stemming from those numerous conversations.
3. Release a plan by the end of the Fall 2020 semester on how core faculty will integrate a diversification of their course material and teachings, especially within the curricula and classroom of HONR 1015 and 1016 Origins and Evolution of Modern Thought.
4. Increase the number of diverse course offerings for non-first year UHP students by the start of the 2021-2022 academic year.
5. Require unconscious bias training for students and core faculty in the UHP (while also strongly suggesting it for non-core faculty).
6. Release a plan by the end of the Fall 2020 semester on how the program will improve and implement diverse outreach for both incoming students and students already within the university.
7. Create a diverse committee composed of students, UHP administration, and faculty to advise on the reputation of the UHP concerning race and how it can be improved.This petition is supported by UHP peers who are willing to drop out of the program if the actions described above are not taken.