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University of Wyoming

Undergraduate School

Mailing Address
1000 E University Ave
Laramie, Wyoming 82071
Phone
(307) 766-1121
Email address
admissions@uwyo.edu
School Information
"UW has since grown into a major teaching and research university with approximately 13,500 students and more than 700 faculty members. Throughout its existence, UW has been the only four-year university in the state of Wyoming, though it has maintained a close relationship with the state’s community colleges. "Programs such as athletics, agricultural extension, state and federal partnerships—and more recent initiatives such as the School of Energy Resources and the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center—have played important roles in the lives of many Wyoming residents and communities for almost 125 years." The university also has numerous academic programs across its 11 divisions. (Source: https://www.uwyo.edu/uw/aboutuw/points-of-pride.html)
General Information
The University of Wyoming has not yet instituted university-wide requirements for antiracism training or education. However, it has allowed individual colleges to take initiatives to teach critical race theory. Currently, the university's geosciences department has a course on diversity. No mandatory Critical Race Training sessions are yet required of students. However, see developments below:

Actions Taken

Admissions Policies
  • UW's 2023 Strategic Plan states that it would "increase enrollment and engagement with all student populations including tribal, marginalized, and underserved students."
Anti-Racism, Bias, and Diversity Training
  • The Search Equity Advisors Program at UW "pairs search committees with a neutral process advisor (search equity advisor) external to the unit to offer national best practices for promoting diversity, disrupting implicit bias, and ensuring an equitable faculty search." The process also involves a 14 hour workshop that "covers topics including: recruiting a diverse applicant pool, writing a welcoming job advertisement, [and] employing evidence-based strategies to disrupt implicit bias in selection processes...."
Program and Research Funding
  • In July 2022, UW hosted the "Black 14 Social Justice Summer Institute." This "multi-day overnight program... provides rising junior and senior high school students with the opportunity to research contemporary issues related to and important to the Black community at the local, state, national, and world-wide levels." (The next program takes place July 14-25, 2024.)
  • The DEI Office's Social Justice Research Center provides funding for social justice projects and research.
  • UW's Black Studies Center "employs multidisciplinary approaches to facilitate increased student collaboration with administrators, faculty, and staff in order to support research and related learning opportunities dedicated to creating innovative scholarship, pedagogy, service, and outreach opportunities that widen and challenge the mainstream historical narrative and provide the opportunity for students to not only learn but actively participate in ongoing social justice discourse."
Resources
  • The university will be hosting a series of a events during Black History Month under the theme of "The Death of Black Wall Street and the Myth of the American Dream".
  • "UW’s Black Studies Center and Advising, Career and Exploratory Studies (ACES) will offer the five-week study of 'How to be an Antiracist' by Ibram Kendi."
  • The library offers resources defining "microaggressions" and the need for anti-racism.
  • In April 2022, the Black Studies Center hosted the "Anti-Racism Collective Courageous Conversation" to "provide a safe space for students to dialogue with students on diverse campuses and fill the holes in the traditional diversity, equity, and inclusion endeavors."
  • UW announced its Strategic Plan for DEI for 2017-2022.
  • On March 31, 2023, UW News announced that the Black Studies Center would "virtually host the second annual Anti-Racism Collective Symposium" at which "[s]tudents from diverse institutions [led] a discussion that deconstructs complex problematic issues and provides practical solutions on how to become anti-racist."
  • One of UW's 2023-2026 Presidential Goals is to "[d]rive student success and enrollment growth through enhanced financial support, well-being, [and] diversity, equity and inclusion...."
  • On November 7, 2022, UW's Black Studies Center hosted an online event titled "The Power of Microagressions: Weapons of White Supremacy and Human Degradation." (Prior online events on similar subject matter is listed as well.)
Symbolic Actions
  • In July 2021, the Black Studies Center hosted the virtual inaugural Cultural Competent Summer Forum Series. As part of this series, it offered a mini-symposium discussing “What to the Slave’s Children is the Fourth of July?” and the “Deconstruction of the Neoconservative Movement to Erase Critical Race Theory from Public Education,” among many other topics.
  • In 2020, the Council on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion had subcommittees on "BLM and systemic racism," "inclusive physical spaces," "pay equity," etc.
  • The Black Studies Center issued a statement in response to "racist attacks" which reads in part as follows: "America's current social atmosphere of political populism and blatant racism has emboldened a critical mass of individuals and organizations to engage in racist, assaultive, divisive, and sometimes violent acts under the guise of 'Making America Great Again' and misguided patriotism. The ZOOM bombing that disrupted the Black History Month event on February 15, 2021, serves as a reminder and epitomizes the attitudes originating from America's long-standing and entrenched racial history and the white privilege, white supremacy, and systemic discrimination that continue to be its legacy."
Last updated February 23rd, 2024
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