Everyone wants to say and act as if working in an arts organization with people you love is just easy, dreamy, and full of laughs all day, but the days are also just as long, hard, exhausting, and bring us to the edges of our human capacities. To quote joyUS justUS, “If we belong to each other, we participate in our creations: we are because you are, and since you are, definitely I am.”

Resilience is more than our ability to survive through tragedy. How do we maintain love, compassion, empathy - the things that make us human - when our circumstances are less than ideal and our world is riddled with death and hate?

The global movement to free Palestine from senseless murder, attempted genocide, and decades of oppression by the Israeli government, has further exposed the contradictions, shortcomings, and gut-wrenching truths that is the backbone of higher education in America. Some of these terrifying truths are very reminiscent of the Jim Crow era - which begs the question: is history repeating itself?