Harlon Hodge, adjunct instructor in social work at UMSL, facilitates a forum on Ferguson Aug. 27 in the Millennium Student Center Pilot House on North Campus. A second forum was held the next day on South Campus. Both were well attended by members of the campus community. (Photo by Bob Samples)

It’s a month on from the unrest in Ferguson, and the only thing that’s for sure is that there are no easy answers or quick fixes.

Hoping to harness the energy around peoples’ hopes for the future, the Chancellor’s Cultural Diversity Council and the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity at the University of Missouri–St Louis sponsored back-to-back campus community forums.

Harlon Hodge, adjunct instructor in the School of Social Work at UMSL facilitated the forum on Aug. 27 in the Pilot House at the Millennium Student Center. Jermine Alberty, with UMSL’s Missouri Institute of Mental Health, moderated the Aug. 28 forum in the Boeing Auditorium in the E. Desmond Lee Technology and Learning Center.

Faculty, staff and students shared their concerns, personal narratives and strategies for moving forward. Both gatherings attracted large groups of the campus community.

“The way our university has stepped up on many fronts to everything that’s happening, I couldn’t be more proud,” said UMSL Chancellor Tom George, who attended both sessions.