As an institution, the United World College-USA has a commitment to the health and well-being of the campus and larger community.
With that in mind, UWC-USA Dean of Students Naomi Swinton ’89 asked Dr. Selena Sermeno, ambassadorial chairperson for the Bartos Institute at UWC-USA, and residential life coordinator Nanette Phillips to work on a coronavirus resource list.
“It is important that we come together to console, comfort and encourage each other,” Sermeno said. “The resource list is not a prescription, but an honest and generous gesture of solidarity, a recognition of how hard many are working across the world to help us through this crisis. We have taken from other resources and curated it to make it more readable to our UWC audience.”
Phillips noted in our dominant culture, with its primary commitment to achievement and production, we can often forget to tend to our humanity, overlooking our need to slow down, be with our vulnerabilities, and take care of our essential longing for nourishment, care and connection.
“I believe we’re in a moment of redefining for ourselves and communities what it means to be a human — from valuing ourselves in terms of how fast we can run and how much we can achieve, to knowing ourselves as inherently whole and unconditionally worthy humans,” Phillips said.