In 1956, speaking at a victory rally following a U.S. Supreme Court decision desegregating buses in Montgomery, Ala., the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said that the outcome of a critical mass of people committed to nonviolent protest will be a “beloved community.”

The term was coined in the early 1900s but it was King who popularized it, capturing the imagination of people around the world, according to the King Center, an institution committed to nonviolent social change.

The concept undergirded an annual luncheon Jan. 23 that celebrated King’s legacy and people at the University of Oregon who have furthered his work through their exceptional efforts. 

During an event hosted by the Division of Equity and Inclusion with more than 150 people in attendance, President Karl Scholz and guest speaker Tia McNair spoke about flourishing and creating diverse and engaged flourishing communities, and six employees were honored.

The recipients of the 2025 Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Awards are: 

• Lorena Landeros, assistant director of First-Year Experience in the Lundquist College of Business, and Danielle Mericle, curator of visual materials for UO Libraries, who received the award for exemplary leadership.
• Jim Brooks, interim vice president for Student Services and Enrollment Management; Laura Pulido, professor of Indigenous, race and ethnic studies; and Cecile Gadson, a senior staff psychologist with Counseling Services, who received the award for institutional transformation.
• Daniel Gyekye, a doctoral student and graduate teaching fellow in the School of Journalism and Communication, who received the award for student leadership. 

The award recipients “are making the UO a place where each student can flourish by achieving their potential,” said Yvette Alex-Assensoh, vice president for equity and inclusion. “Their amazing work is, at its core, about equity or removing barriers and creating pathways for equal opportunity.” 

The equity and inclusion division seeks to transform the UO into a “beloved community” and in this work, the unit is anything but alone. The university has made it a strategic priority to ensure the institution is one in which all groups can flourish.  

Scholz expanded on the concept of flourishing, noting that for him, it includes the values of wellness, growth and resilience.

“The UO also has a deep, long-standing commitment to creating a diverse and engaged community that welcomes a rich range of perspectives, lived experiences, and cultural and religious backgrounds,” Scholz said. “This commitment is grounded in our mission as a public university to serve and advance society.”

Equity was a core message of keynote speaker McNair, vice president in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Student Success at the American Association of Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C. Through the association, McNair runs a program that partners with higher education institutions to remove barriers to equal treatment and opportunity on campuses across the nation.

McNair challenged the audience to reflect on their role in cocreating a flourishing community, adding that there is a commitment at the UO to an inclusive, respectful approach to the work.

“What the institution is doing is saying that in order to create this community, this flourishing and this beloved community we are going to do certain things,” McNair said. “We are going to respect each other, we are going to engage with civility, we are going to have integrity, we are going to engage across our differences, we are going to respect and acknowledge our differences — not as what divides us, but what unites us in this work.”

During a Q&A after her speech, McNair was asked how to talk with those outside one’s community when it seems that “fear and hatred are winning.”

“Keeping us in a place of fear is a strategy, let’s just realize that,” McNair said. “When we let [fear] center where we are, it takes us away from being able to explicitly articulate the work that we do — the work that we do to help veterans and first-generation students and rural and urban students and those from different backgrounds based on their sexuality, their gender, their racial identity.

“My choice in this is to not react in a place of fear but to react in a place of promise and truth,” she added. “Because I know what I do on a day-to-day basis. I respect the dignity of every single person in our community. Every single person.”

Leigh Ann Stephens, financial services manager for University Housing, was happy to see the honorees recognized for their DEI work and came away from the luncheon with fresh motivation to help move the university closer to the “beloved community” of which King spoke.

“I like the idea of ‘sit and listen’ sessions,” Stephens said. “I would like to encourage more opportunities for my department and other UO employees to sit and listen to the experiences and perspectives of marginalized communities.”

—By Matt Cooper, University Communications