Tipping Point Podcast: ‘Audacious Moments’ spur movement to upend racism at UConn

By MAYA MOORE, UConn Journalism
Decem­ber 14, 2019

Not all inci­dents of racism that have occurred at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut are as bold as scream­ing the N‑word in a park­ing lot. Although the lat­ter inspired an impas­sioned response from the UConn stu­dent body, the “auda­cious moments” that take place behind the scenes were equal­ly as ener­giz­ing for a group of orga­niz­ers that say UConn has reached its tip­ping point.

In “Auda­cious Moments, “the first episode of the Tip­ping Point pod­cast, I sit down at talk to UConn senior Shel­by Felix about her per­son­al expe­ri­ences with racism on cam­pus and how they served as inspi­ra­tion for a Octo­ber 2019 ‘March Against Racism.’ Felix also offered a glimpse into the real­i­ties of orga­niz­ing and mobi­liz­ing students.

Lis­ten:

 

Stu­dents from a mul­ti­tude of orga­ni­za­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut joined forces for a march for social jus­tice on Nov. 19, 2019. The march was orga­nized by UConn Coali­tion for Col­lab­o­ra­tive Orga­niz­ing (UCCO), the UConn chap­ter of the NAACP and the UConn chap­ter of Fri­days for Future. (Pho­to by Maya Moore)

In the next episode of “Tip­ping Point”, I’ll pick up where I left off in my con­ver­sa­tion with Noel Cazenave, a soci­ol­o­gy pro­fes­sor at UConn and a staunch sup­port­er of the move­ment.  Then I’ll catch up with UConn Coali­tion for Col­lab­o­ra­tive Orga­niz­ing founder and senior, Kat Mor­ris, who orga­nized a sub­se­quent march focus­ing on inter­sec­tion­al­i­ty on Nov. 19, 2019.

Learn More

Read about the Octo­ber 2019 racist inci­dent here and here.

Read Prof. Noel Cazenave’s Let­ter to the Edi­tor here, and UConn Pres­i­dent Thomas Kat­souleas’ response, here.


The orga­niz­ers

 

Shel­by Felix is a senior major­ing in Speech, Lan­guage and Hear­ing Sci­ences with a Minor in Lati­no stud­ies. Although Felix is grad­u­at­ing in Decem­ber 2019, she hopes to pur­sue a grad­u­ate degree at UConn. “I always want to empha­sis to peo­ple I just hap­pen to be a stu­dent who cared enough,” Felix said.

Katharine (Kat) Mor­ris is a senior hon­ors stu­dent dou­ble major­ing in Cog­ni­tive Sci­ence and Anthro­pol­o­gy while work­ing on a Mas­ters in Pub­lic Pol­i­cy in an accel­er­at­ed pro­gram. As a BOLD Schol­ar in the BOLD Women’s Lead­er­ship Net­work, she spent this sum­mer research­ing Cross-Cul­tur­al Engage­ment and Inter­sec­tion­al Activism Among UConn Affiliates.

Kat is the founder and pres­i­dent of UCCO, the UConn Coali­tion for Col­lab­o­ra­tive Organizing.

Her ulti­mate career goal is to bridge the gap between activism and acad­e­mia, inspir­ing pos­i­tive change along the way.

To learn more about Kat Mor­ris and UCCO you can fol­low her on Twit­ter. And Shel­by Felix can be reached at shelby.felix@uconn.edu.

The Host

Maya A. Moore is a jour­nal­ism major and polit­i­cal sci­ence minor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut. She has an inter­est in top­ics includ­ing race and social jus­tice and want­ed to explore the his­tor­i­cal impor­tance of this move­ment at UConn.

Vis­it my pod­cast site here.


TOP PHOTO: Stu­dents protest­ing a string of racist inci­dents at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut on Oct. 21, 2019, shared their own per­son­al expe­ri­ences with racism on cam­pus. (Pho­to by Maya Moore)