Response to the Zoombombing of Nyumburu’s NewsBreak

Dear Nyumburu community,

I was horrified to learn about racial slurs and pornography interrupting NewsBreak - a terrible practice referred to as Zoombombing that is on the rise nationally - and I first want to check in with everyone and offer my support.

We as a university also immediately jumped into action. Please know that leaders at the university are addressing this matter head-on - putting every resource we can into finding out more about the incident. Equally as important, we want to offer assistance to all of you. We are living in challenging times, and to add racist attacks to the day-to-day issues we are already navigating is unthinkable.

My team and I are working directly with Nyumburu leadership and students and connecting them to UMPD and the Division of IT. It is also my hope that this message of empathy goes far and wide. If you know someone who was participating in yesterday's NewsBreak - or heard about this despicable act - please forward this note to them. They can reach out to our Bias Incident Support Services (BISS) and to the Counseling Center for additional support. It is also important that we support one another because we will continue to do the important work of advancing our communities, no matter what gets thrown at us. We are survivors.

We will be following up with any additional information that we can share, as well as further details that can hopefully prevent anything like this happening in the future.

We are here for you, Nyumburu!

Sincerely,

Georgina Dodge, PhD
Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion