Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion’s (EDI) “One U Thriving Newsletter”—previously known as “People & Places”—will be the best way to keep updated on developments in the division, increase awareness on critical national conversations and align with EDI in building a more equitable, diverse and inclusive campus environment.

Learn from two folx behind the weekly newsletter on why you should subscribe below.

Transcript

Morgan Aguilar: Thanks for joining us, everyone. I’m Morgan Aguilar (she/her), communications specialist for University Marketing & Communications.

Today, I’m joined by two members of our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion team at the U, who I’m going to have introduce themselves really quickly. We’ll start with Pamela.

Pamela Bishop: Hi, everyone. I’m Pamela Bishop (she/her), and I’m the director of marketing and communications for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

Kaya Aman: Hi, I’m Kaya Aman (no preferred pronouns), and I’m the web and brand manager for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

Morgan Aguilar: Awesome. Thank you both for being here today, and we are going to start, again, with Pamela for our first question:

We are here to announce an update to what has long been called the EDI “People & Places” newsletter. But it’s now going to be called the “One U Thriving Newsletter.” So, Pamela, why is EDI changing the name of its weekly newsletter?

Pamela Bishop: Yeah, thanks, Morgan! You know, a couple of years ago, we launched a new EDI division. Originally, “People & Places” was part of the previous iteration of EDI, and it really spoke to what was happening with people, individuals, and places—just like the name was.

We’ve now built a platform called One U Thriving, and that’s really the platform across all of EDI. It’s the platform on which we will lead structural change towards building a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive environment for everybody on campus, so they feel a sense of belonging. Since that’s our platform, we really felt like, “what’s a better way for us to be able to drive home that message?”

By making that a part of our weekly newsletter, we reach out to thousands of people each week to talk about what’s happening in EDI. There are some themes that are across EDI that we want to incorporate into the newsletter as well. Some of the One U Thriving themes are:

“The Power of Naming,” and what does that mean? That really talks about how we must call out and name oppressive systems in order to transform them.

You will hear themes around “Leading from a Place of Discomfort.” That means we must be willing to have these difficult conversations and to be courageous in having these tense moments and conversations so that we can build on a foundation of truth and really bring about change.

And then, finally, the last theme of One U Thriving is “Unearthing, Replanting and Nurturing New Roots,” and that’s kind of what we feel like we’re doing here with EDI at the university. We are making strides to confront and untangle our own legacy of exclusion…but at the same time, we’re growing the EDI practice within the university, and integrating EDI into the fabric of the entire university.

So we really felt like this—renaming our newsletter—would give us the opportunity to really call the themes of One U Thriving, as we are continuing to build on the foundation that this is a platform for EDI.

Morgan Aguilar: Awesome. Thank you. So, Kaya, much of the look and feel and design fall under your purview. So what will be different about it for those of us who may be looking for a specific “People & Places” subject line or a specific layout that we’re used to in our inboxes?

Kaya Aman: Yeah, at least for the visual design, we will definitely be rolling out a new template on our newsletter that will be more streamlined and goes along with updates we are also currently trying to implement into our website.

The content on the newsletter itself will generally stay the same; there will still be a feature story, announcements out of EDI and across the university, and some upcoming events that we feel really align with what the mission and goals of EDI are at the U.

For the content on the website, we’re going to have more consistent, regular weekly stories we’re going to be releasing rather than being dependent on our events, as well as press releases and statements about current issues. These will come from various organizations and departments throughout our division and have more features, written pieces, and even videos like this from different leadership throughout our division as well.

Morgan Aguilar: Awesome. Okay, so this is really one of the best ways—I think—to keep up with EDI at the University of Utah as well as social media. Pamela, why should folx subscribe to this weekly newsletter? Kind of digging more into the content, what can we expect?

Pamela Bishop: Yeah, in addition to what I said before in terms of the themes of One U Thriving, it’s really going to be the place to know what’s going on in EDI. We’ll be bringing in parts of national conversations; you may get some opinion pieces based on what’s going on nationally. We just try to stay up to date whether it’s a heritage celebration or whether it’s something that’s happened in the news or critical things. We try to educate people about how they can become knowledgeable about these things that are happening.

We also highlight our EDI events; you know, we have themed events throughout the year. We will also be talking about some of the work that the One U Thriving Committees are doing because there are also four committees under One U Thriving. We will be bringing updates and sharing a lot of the work they are doing as well.

Morgan Aguilar: Okay, thank you. So, again, the “People & Places” blog from EDI is now going to be the “One U Thriving Newsletter,” so check it out!

You can subscribe at diversity.utah.edu/blog, and then, of course, you can always follow EDI on social media @uofuedi (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). Thank you, Pamela and Kaya!