One thing that drives hope for me is remembering that I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams. I am living the science fiction that was imagined and hoped for against all proof of reality for enslaved Africans on stolen American soil. I and my comrades, my family and my folks are all the substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not ever perceived.

This is why I know that hope is a necessary component of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work. As a faculty member and administrator, hope is my constant companion. It helps me as I work with colleagues and students to build knowledge, develop skills, offer support, produce ideas and co-create learning and working environments for a community in which each person feels and lives with a sense of belonging. My courses as well as the DEI efforts at Bucknell are about creating a context, community and capacity in which each person can thrive. The work is about place-making and social transformation. It is about shifting the perspectives about inclusion and equity. Even more, it is about building on the vulnerability of our desires and knowing that the Bucknell for which we hope may be something not yet imagined.

We may be proud of Bucknell’s public identity as an innovative, research-focused, community-oriented, and leadership- and opportunity-driven learning community, but facing our progress on diversity, equity and inclusion can be a humbling experience. It’s hard to admit that we have work to do: relationships to repair and/or build, behaviors to shift, policies to change, an environment to reshape and more. When doing this work, we will be answerable to our past and present as an institution but also accountable to the future Bucknell that we want to exist. Sure, it is frightening and destabilizing to long for a university (and a world, for that matter) that histories of oppression and current realities of injustice suggest is not possible. Yet I know that many of us have the courage and nerve to desire and anticipate an inclusive, equitable and diverse community. This audacity fortifies our capacity to work for things beyond what we know, above what we expect and outside of that with which we are comfortable.

But we have to dare to dream.

Bucknell has lots of potential; I can perceive and feel the rumbling of possibilities. Many of us are oriented to change and poised for the shifts in culture and community that will engender both a sense and the experience of belonging for all of Bucknell’s constituents.

Hope suggests that we can (and perhaps ought to) long for different circumstances, social and political contexts, relations and more, because doing so is ethical work. And as ethical work, hope both comes out of and directs us back to virtues like humility, vulnerability, accountability, audacity and tenacity — all of which are necessary for the kind of joy-filled community transformation that can help us foster an equitable, inclusive and diverse community at Bucknell.

— Professor Thelathia “Nikki” Young, women’s & gender studies and religion, and interim associate provost for diversity, equity & inclusion