Villanova, Pa.- Villanova women's soccer graduate student, Sam Rosette spent her summer as an intern working to educate people on issues that she has been passionate about for a long time.  When she accepted the position, she did not know that the nonprofit organization would be the busiest it had ever been but as a result gave her insight into how she can be a champion for racial and social justice.

Rosette was a leadership and education intern with a focus on curriculum at the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality (RISE).  RISE is, a national nonprofit that educates and empowers the sports community to eliminate racial discrimination, champion social justice and improve race relations.  They are creating a nation unified through sports committed to racial equity and social justice.  Some of the sports organization that RISE has partnered with are the NFL, NCAA, and BIG EAST, just to name a few. 

In her role, Rosette worked with leadership and education team to create the content for training that went out to their partners and worked behind the scenes to help facilitate discussions in sessions. During this time, Rosette worked with the YMCA of South Florida and hosted education leadership workshops around the ideas of race, ethnicity, diversity, and inclusion.  With this partnership Rosette shared,  " we were educating and empowering the youth that were involved to continue that conversations and what it is and how they can then use their platform as athletes or in their schools to champion that issue."

The content that Rosette helped to create in her role can be found on the RISE website, one is a prospective piece that she wrote relating the events of the murder of George Floyd and police brutality.  Her focus was understanding it through the lens of unconscious bias and the role that plays in our society. As an intern group, Rosette and the others created an entire module on racism. The modules cover eight different topics, Rosette worked on creating one on anti-racism. She said, "we created content and activities to help you recognize your own interpersonal racism and ways you can enact anti-racism action within your own circle or platforms."   

These modules are available on the RISE website and Rosette used this as an opportunity to bring them to the team.  "I think is very important for everyone at Villanova and all over the world to be participating in," said Rosette.  Rosette was able to lead weekly discussions with the women's soccer team over zoom around issues of race, racism, and privilege.  Even with her final collegiate season not going as expected, Rosette is still being a leader in any way she can. "In quarantine that very much came from off the field and I was humbled and gratuities to jump into that leadership role in regard to issues of diversity and inclusion on our team," shared Rosette.  She continued, "it was never something we really discussed as a team, and I don't think it's something many teams do, which should change and needs to change.  I was happy to jump into that role and it gave me this different lens of leadership as opposed to just being a player on the field."

At Villanova, Rosette is also a member of the UNITAS leadership team.  UNITAS is a framework to build a welcoming and supportive athletic department through constructive dialogs, educational programming, and community engagement. UNITAS builds mutual understanding throughout the University by collaborating with Villanovans who are experts in diversity, equity, inclusion, gender empowerment, multiculturalism, and mental health. The mission of UNITAS is that actions are greater than words and consists of the following guiding principles; listen and learn, pray, educate, invest, collaborate, diversify, and lead.

RISE helped Rosette grow too, "for me before this internship I was trying to find ways in other systems to discuss these topics, but RISE showed me you can attack it head on. This was huge for me; I learned how to facilitate discussions and have these difficult conversations while also being the one starting them."  Part of this came from the great mentors she had including the Senior Director of Curriculum, Dr. Colin Williams.  "I learned a ton from him," shared Rosette.  "Dr. Williams helped us learn how do you have these discussions and how do you push people to get further. It is easy to be on the surface when you are having discussions about race, but he really taught me how to go that extra step deeper and ask how does this apply to you personally."  

Rosette's internship ended, but RISE asked her to continuing working with them as an external contractor and help with the project she had worked on throughout the summer and try to support their mission as much as possible.

"They are an organization where I very much believe in their mission and I think they are doing really great work, I was very thankful to be a part of it," said Rosette. 
For more information on RISE, click here.