Ijeoma Oluo’s new book Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America is now available. The book focuses on the consequences of white male supremacy over the last 150 years in American history. Ijeoma Oluo is the New York Times bestselling author of So You Want to Talk About Race? and the self-published The Badass Feminist Coloring Book.
Listen to Ijeoma Oluo discuss her new book with Traci Thomas, the host of The Stacks podcast here.
UMass IDGP and Biology Faculty are invited to participate in the final workshop in the faculty development anti-racism seminar series organized by Dr. Karine Fenelon this semester. Register for the event here.
Dec. 11 at 12 pm: Developing students’ sense of belonging across different cultural backgrounds
Dr. Marialuisa Di Stefano, Assistant Professor at UMass in the College of Education Department of Language, Literacy, & Culture. She was trained at the University of Messina and Washington State University. She obtained her PhD and performed her postdoctoral research training at Utah State University.
Dr. Di Stefano is a multilingual and multicultural educator, researcher, and advocate for historically marginalized groups in education. Her research interest lies in bridging perspectives between STEAM education, bilingual education, and transnational civic education, and how such intersections may lead to a more equitable education system. Dr. Di Stefano is the MABE (Multistate Association for Bilingual Education, Northeast), vice-president (2018-2020), and the AATI (American Association of Teachers of Italian) New England Co-Representative (2020-2022).
A conversation between historian Dr. Daina Ramey Berry (University of Texas as Austin) and communications scholar Dr. Ernest J. Wilson III (University of Southern California), hosted by The Conversation. America is in the midst of a racial reckoning. Old narratives are being reexamined and in many cases overturned. Increasing diversity in academe has helped shape new understandings of slavery and structural racism. What new truths are being discovered, which myths have exploded and where is the next generation of racial inquiry going?
Join this conversation on Tuesday, December 1 from 3:30 – 4:30 pm over Zoom by registering here.
Tuesday, December 1 @ 3 pm: An exploratory investigation of the experiences of Black immigrant women in undergraduate STEM.
Drs. Meseret Hailu and Brooke Coley will present their research on the politicized, racialized, and gendered dimensions of the presumably “objective” disciplines of STEM. Their work uses critical discourse analysis and case studies to better understand how Black immigrant women use their cultural epistemologies to attain undergraduate degrees in engineering. Their qualitative study included 40+ interviews with undergraduate engineering students at a large public university in the southwestern United States.
This seminar is part of SABER’s A call to action: Striving for racial justice in academic biology seminar series. Access the seminar at this Zoom link.
Maureen Perry-Jenkins and Linda Ziegenbein are hosting a January book club for faculty, staff, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers at UMass. The group is reading Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saina. The group will meet once a week between January 4 and 22.
Sign up to participate in the book club here.
Dr. Karine Fenelon will be discussing Racial and gender bias in the workplace on Nov. 20 at 12 pm.
UMass Biology and IDGP faculty can register to participate here.
Dr. Fenelon is an Assistant Professor at UMass in the College of Natural Sciences in the Biology Department. She did her training at McGill University and University of Sherbrooke. She obtained her PhD at University of Montreal and performed her postdoctoral research training at Columbia University. As a Neuroscientist, Dr. Fenelon’s research program focuses on better understanding the neural elements and circuits underlying sensory information filtering involved in pre-attentive processing. Her laboratory uses animal models to provide a better understanding of the physiological dysfunction in patients suffering from sensory information filtering and identify potential targets for therapeutic interventions. Through the Teaching for Inclusiveness, Diversity, & Equity training offered to faculty at UMass, Dr. Fenelon developed skills to enhance students’ learning and academic success across cultural, social and learning differences by adopting a strength-based, inclusive and equitable approach to teaching and learning grounded in the value of diversity. This, along with her personal experience, allowed her to acquire expertise and contribute to the dialogue about and practice for inclusiveness, diversity, and equity not only in the classroom but also in the workplace.
The Arkansas Peace & Justice Memorial Movement is organizing a screening of the film Ashes to Ashes. The film tells the story of Winfred Rembert, who survived an attempted lynching in 1967.
There are two opportunities to screen the film followed by discussion with:
Kwami Abdul-Bey, co-founder of the Arkansas Peace & Justice Memorial Movement
Karen Branan, reporter and author of The Family Tree: A Lynching in Georgia
Sheila Moss-Brown, granddaughter of Henry Peg Gilbert, who was lunched in 1947 in Georgia
Register for one of the following screenings here:
Friday, Nov. 13, 7 – 9 pm Eastern
Sunday, Nov. 15, 4 – 6 pm Eastern