Dear NYU Abu Dhabi,

Where do I even begin? There are too many people to name and thank, too many hilarious stories to recount and too many swells of pride which can not adequately be captured on the page.

“Goodbye” seems an insufficient way to bid farewell to a place that has been home for the most challenging and rewarding years of my life. Abu Dhabi has been the place where I celebrated my daughter’s first birthday and watched my son grow into a bit of a football phenom. It is the place where I forged airtight friendships with people with whom all I had in common were the longitude and latitude lines of our new home. These friends’ rhythmic shouts of “Aye!!!!!!!!!!!” have been the wind beneath my wings. Their prayers to various gods have covered me and carried me forward when I have experienced great personal loss, self-doubt or humiliating discrimination.

The people I have come to know and love while working at NYUAD are the gifts of my time here.

This is the place where I have finally asked myself tougher questions about love, family, God and myself. I hear myself say what many of you have heard me say during various training sessions: “If you leave here with more questions than answers, we have done our jobs.” Wallah, I am leaving with many answers about life, but also a heightened sensitivity to nuance, a deeper line of inquiry and exponentially more questions about my purpose in this world. So I suppose, it can be said that NYUAD has done its job in my life.

In keeping with the spirit of nuance and contemplation, I’d like to do what I think I do best: frame a situation and present options. Inshallah, you will bear witness to much good in this life. But you will also witness wrongdoing, discrimination, harassment and abuses of power or people. Your options may include, perhaps in the order of cost to you: (a) minding your own business; (b) saying a prayer or otherwise calling on the universe on behalf of the oppressed; and (c) intervening. Since we were all raised to think that some of these responses were acceptable and others not, I invoke the familiar adage: to whom much is given, much is required.

If you are reading this article, yours is a position of incredible privilege. It is not necessary that all of your identities be privileged, or that they have positioned you for an easy life. Yet your affiliation with NYUAD puts you in the 6.7 percent of people who attend university. To the degree that history repeats itself, your preferences will set trends; your unconscious biases will set tone. Yours will be the voices ringing through echo chambers at tables where critical decisions are made. Look around you.

Might not our world be shifting?

The voices of the historically unheard and underprivileged have broken through long-standing silences, and long-denied human rights and dignities are being demanded. The righteous shouts of the people are piercing the thought bubbles in those echo chambers. Develop a habit of choosing option C. Leverage your respective privileges to intervene in the face of wrongdoing, and advocate in the defense of others when yours is a voice that will be heard.

I often ask people, “What would it cost you to consider that yours is not the only truth?” The current socio-political moment has shown us that hearing and validating new stories or shifting one’s perspective may actually cost us rapport with people we thought were friends. It may cost us closeness with people we love. We may feel the urge to be frugal in the face of such a high cost. But I implore you: pay up. Be willing to admit that your truth does not equal universal truth.

In a previous article on The Gazelle, one of your peers framed the support that I have been for her, and Black students in general. I was moved beyond words. It was deeply humbling and affirming to take in her gratitude, and to hear colleagues confirm what she offered. I leave knowing that I have watched and listened, assessed, tried to be strategic about what my team and I built, and worked to strengthen the institutional capacity to understand and meet campus needs broadly.

I am proud of what I have given to NYUAD, but, as most practitioners can attest, the demand continues to outweigh the supply. There are some communities I know only as acquaintances, some relationships I did not develop as deeply as I would have liked, some seeds I left unwatered.

I can say this, though: one Wednesday afternoon back in December 2015, I think, I helped a student submit a reimbursement request. They thanked me for supporting their Student Interest Group’s event and I said flippantly, “You’re welcome” before turning to go back to my desk. They stopped in the doorway and said, more emphatically this time, “No, Alta, thank you. I had never really met a Black person before, and now, I know I need to find a way to go home and tell my family that some of the things we think are true, are not.” We both fought the urge to get too emotional as we moved through a discussion of how they would attempt this, it being important to share new truths and critically important to show respect and preserve family ties.

Without saying much more about this exchange, I want to say that I do not take this for granted, that I have either presented or created opportunities for members of our community to understand people beyond the veils of what we think we already know about them. I am fine knowing that some of what I have tried to impart over these six years will only sneak back into your consciousness long after your time at university.

To my colleagues: A single twig is weak, but a bundle of twigs is strong.

No one person or one team can be all that a student community needs them to be. I am a better professional having learned with and from you, having faced challenges alongside you, and having been encouraged by you. I am happy to go to Harvard, but am sad to leave NYUAD. Not only because there is still work to be done, but because I worked alongside such impressive colleagues here who are now my closest confidants and chosen family. There are others who have presented some of the most significant professional challenges I have faced. Iron sharpens iron, so I am grateful for them, too.

To Black women at NYUAD: Ubuntu. I am, because you are.

A final word to those who remind me most of myself: the Black women students, alumnae, staff, faculty (oh wait) and contracted colleagues, who have held me up when I needed to rest but there was no time, and held me down when all felt adrift. I affirm you, your dignity and the value you bring to any space. I see the ways you extend grace to others who don’t always even know how heavily they trample on your spirits without repercussion. I understand the lengths to which you go to deflect rather than reflect. I feel you resist internalizing the vitriol at the intersections of your skin and your heritage and your womynness.

It is a tough row to hoe, this lane of ours, and still, We Rise, Alhamdolilah. I thank God for the ways you have received me, looked out for me, challenged me and held me accountable. You reflect parts of my own experience in the magnificence that is you. I borrow Oprah’s words now: “When the time comes to bet on yourself, I hope you double down.”

Thank you to each member of this community for every moment I have spent at NYUAD. I have either loved them or learned from them, or both, thus I remain grateful for them all. I will remember you well.

Ma’a Salama, for now.

Alta