Annual Race and Education Lecture Series

Mission

By bringing the campus community together to critically discuss the issues of race and racism and the impact these issues have upon the educational system and broader society, the lecture series seeks to foster cross-racial interaction, acceptance, and understanding throughout the community. The series engages and assists the Colgate community in understanding the importance of racial and ethnic diversity in educational curriculum, pedagogy, programs, and policies.

Image of Persson Hall on the Colgate campus

Spring 2024

Hanif Abdurraqib
Poet, essayist, and winner of a MacArthur “genius” grant, Mr. Abdurraqib is the author of five previous books, including They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us and A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and which won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Abdurraqib was a featured author in 2024's Living Writer's series.

Spring 2021

Dr. Savannah Shange from UC Santa Cruz

In the midst of school closures in Black and Latinx neighborhoods and the aggressive rise of standardized tests as a coercive tool, San Francisco's progressive Robeson Justice Academy seems like an aberration in the state education system. However, anti-Black logics and practices are still entrenched in the school's everyday operations. Drawing from ethnographic data, this talk will focus on the ways in which sincerely anti-racist curricular content is challenged by Black students who critique the scope of its impact, revealing the antagonism between anti-racism and abolition.

Spring 2020

Dr. Arshad I. Ali from George Washington University

Dr. Ali drew upon a decade of research with Muslim communities in the US and Europe to explore how historic constructions of Muslim identities continue to be relevant in contemporary US. He discussed a history of racial otherness in the Americas through Spanish colonialism. Dr. Ali examines the intersections of anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, and Muslim otherness in the Western world and the US. Exploring the intersections of racial construction, settler colonialism, and epistemic violence, he discussed how anti-Muslim racism has been deployed in an increasingly carceral US. Dr. Ali will examine current effects of police surveillance, political violence, and cultural targeting on the lives of young Muslims in the US. Is full citizenship possible for US Muslim communities?

Co-Sponsors: Core 152, Core C&I, History, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Office of the Chaplains, Office of Equity & Diversity, Peace and Conflict Studies, Religion, Sio Chair, and Sociology and Anthropology.

Previous Lecturers

Dr. Jarvis Givens, Harvard University
This talk analyzed the relationship between Dr. Woodson and African American teachers, revealing how these educators modeled what it means to be within, yet against, an oppressive school structure. The story reminds us that there were secret things teachers did, beyond the watchful eye of Jim Crow school authorities.

Julio Salgado
Salgado is a queer visual artist of color whose work explores themes of immigration and queerness. As an undocumented and queer artist living in times of crisis, he uses his art to deal with anti-immigrant narratives.

Dr. Kevin Kumashiro
Dean, School of Education, University of San Francisco, "Bad Teacher! How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture," 2013.

Dr. Richard Atleo/Umeek
Hereditary Chief of the Nuu-chah-nulth, British Columbia, "An Indigenous Perspective on Race and Education," 2011.

Dr. Patricia A. Graham
Charles Warren Professor of the History of American Education, Emerita, Harvard Graduate School of Education, "Grasping the Past to Inform the Present," 2010.

Dr. Celia Oyler
Associate Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University, "Special Education and White Supremacy: Unraveling the Know of Segregation," 2009.

Vijay Prashad
Director of International Studies, Trinity College, “The Opening of the American Mind,” Spring 2008.

Sonia Nieto
Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, “Preparing Teachers for the Public Good: Democracy, Education and Diversity,” Spring 2006.

Lisa Delpit
Executive Director Center for Urban Education and Innovation, Florida International University, “Bridge Building 101” Fall 2006.

Geneva Gay
Professor, University of Washington, Seattle, “Culturally Responsive Pedagogy,” Spring 2005.

Eddie Moore, Jr.
Director of Diversity, Bush School, Seattle, “21st Century America: Are We ready for Conversations about White Privilege?” Spring 2004.

Ronald Takaki
Professor, University of California, Berkeley, “Why Multiculturalism Matters in America,” Spring 2003.

Janie Victoria Ward
Associate Professor, Simmons College, “The Skin We’re In: Talking about Race with African American Adolescents in the Post-Civil Rights Era,” Fall 2001.

Race and Education Lecture Series

Mission

Spring 2024

Spring 2023

Spring 2022

Spring 2021

Spring 2020