Author Samantha Little is a member of the UO acrobatics & tumbling team. "Ducks Beyond Athletics" is a series of feature stories about UO student-athletes and their interests outside of sports.The Oregon softball team returns to action this weekend at Oregon State, refreshed by a week off for final exams and the start of spring break, but still energized by a series win over UCLA whose ramifications on the Pac-12 standings figure to echo all season.The Ducks (25-4) clinched the rubber match of the UCLA series with a walk-off home run by. That gave her six home runs on the season, two fewer than team leaderand one less than senior transferFourth on the team with three home runs entering the Civil War series, which begins Thursday in Corvallis at 4 p.m., are senior third basemanand outfielder. The outlier in the group of Oregon's leading power hitters is Burks — while the other four have amassed their home run totals in 75 at-bats each or more, Burks has three homers in just eight at-bats, and has also scored eight runs and driven in 11.Just as Burks has taken full advantage of her plate appearances so far this spring, so too is she looking to take full advantage of her time at the University of Oregon, and her opportunity to influence campus and student life. As an active representative of the "BEOREGON" campaign and the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, Burks works tirelessly to create a culture of diversity and inclusion on the Oregon campus and in her community."My purpose here is to try to create change and make equality more possible," Burks said. "If I can touch one person or make them think differently than before, that's positive towards equality and change, then I did my job."In January of last year, Burks and two UO football players, Sean Killpatrick and Juwaan Williams, attended the Black Student-Athlete Summit in Austin, Texas, where they discussed the importance of athlete activism. They, along with 200 other student-athletes across the nation, examined the impacts of activism and how current athletes, like Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James, strategically use their platforms to make their voices heard on issues that are often overlooked.While at the summit, they also broke into small groups in which they were able to have difficult conversations about what it's like being a black athlete at primarily white universities. Burks said her breakout group exchanged numbers and created a group chat called "Chocolate for Change," in which they still converse and send good luck messages to each other before big games, even a year later.The summit ignited Burks' interest in diversity and inclusion, and gave her a new perspective on life. It was a turning point in her life, after which she decided to shift her study from business to ethnic studies.Burks brought her newly acquired knowledge from the summit to the University of Oregon campus, where she and other SAAC representatives worked together to implement an athlete activism event at the Jaqua academic center. "We wanted to get people thinking on a different level than they might not have known before," Burks said, "and to understand other people's point of view."The activism event was held over the winter, and featured guest speakers along with a panel discussion including UO student-athletes and administrators. There, student-athletes, coaches, and various staff in the athletic department were able to come together to learn about the history, the code of conduct, the freedom of speech, and the identity factor surrounding athlete activism.For her future, Burks ponders the idea of starting a non-profit aimed to benefit efforts towards diversity and inclusion, whether it's in the sports or business world. Burks believes that by embracing different races and sexualities, it will create a better, more inclusive space for everyone.