Director's Note
Our 2025-2026 theme at the Sarah W. Heath Center for Equality and Justice is 鈥淔ortitude and Reciprocal Care.鈥 Fortitude has long been one of my favorite words and it means 鈥渟trength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage.鈥 Another way I refer to fortitude is with the phrase 鈥渟taying power.鈥 For me, developing staying power (or fortitude) has been a crucial life skill applicable to the achievement of any of my goals and overcoming of obstacles.
Reciprocal care is a relational theory of care acknowledging that everything and everyone is connected. Being in community generates a duty of care, or a responsibility, to find ways to survive and thrive together, especially amid social and political destabilization, local and global tragedies, and personal hardships.
In many ways, we live in a world in crisis. Taken together, fortitude and reciprocal care are powerful tools for resisting hopelessness and oppression. When we are so overwhelmed that we feel incapable of fixing any of the big problems, it鈥檚 tempting to fall back into individualism as a coping mechanism. Over the next year, our programming will push us to ask ourselves who we want to be in times of crisis and then further push us to actively become those people. All our work will prioritize community, reciprocity, and hope. A popular call and response chant captures the essence of this year鈥檚 theme:
鈥淲ho takes care of us?鈥
鈥淲e take care of us.鈥
- Ashli Anda, PhD