Marty Matlock Named Chair of National Council's Racial Justice Committee

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Marty Matlock, executive director of the University of Arkansas Resiliency Center, has been appointed chair of the Racial Justice Committee for the National Council for Science and the Environment.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Marty Matlock, executive director of the University of Arkansas Resiliency Center, has been appointed chair of the Racial Justice Committee for the National Council for Science and the Environment.

This ad hoc committee was formed by the council's board of directors to examine the council's institutional structure, operations and governance documents to identify where those are complicit with systems that maintain inequities, and to make recommendations for changes necessary to become clearly antiracist.

The Racial Justice Committee will outline a specific plan to review and make recommendations for immediate, initial steps forward, with insights and support from the 110 member universities across the United States. The first report will be submitted to the board in August.

"I am honored and humbled by this leadership opportunity," Matlock said. "Our efforts at the University of Arkansas in expanding opportunities for Native American students have demonstrated how difficult it is to overcome hundreds of years of systemic alienation and disenfranchisement. The NCSE committee allows us to engage colleagues from across the spectrum of the academic community to have this important conversation, and to act on our learning. We will define explicit actions we can take now to expand our understanding of what we are doing wrong, what we are doing right, and to change our behaviors to be more just."

The committee also includes Maria Boccalandro, professor at Dallas College; Chris Boone, dean of Arizona State University's School of Sustainability; Kerry Duggan, founder and principal of SustainabiliD; Valerie Luzadis, chair of the NCSE board and professor in the College of Environmental Science and Forestry at the State University of New York; Tony Michaels, managing director of Proteus Environmental Technologies; Tom Richard, director of the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment; Frank Sesno, director of strategic initiatives at George Washington University; Michelle Wyman, executive director of NCSE; and the Hon. Shirlee Zane, former Third District Sonoma County (California) supervisor.

The U of A Resiliency Center is an interdisciplinary research and outreach center hosted by the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, in collaboration with the College of Engineering and the Walton College of Business. The center coordinates sustainability programs across the U of A, including the Office for Sustainability and the Sustainability undergraduate minor and graduate certificate programs. The U of A Resiliency Center works closely with the U of A Community Design Center, the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies, and other communities of scholars across Arkansas and around the world.