February 12, 2009 at 7:30 PM at Bronfman Auditorium

John L. Jackson Jr. is an associate professor of communication and anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School. His books include Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness (2008), Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity (2005), and Harlemworld: Doing Race and Class in Contemporary Black America (2001). He will be speaking about racial politics, religion, and contemporary popular culture.

Free and open to the public! Sponsored by the Multicultural Center-Lecture Series, Africana Studies, the Oakley Center and Claiming Williams.

John L. Jackson Jr. Named to PIK Professorship at Penn
Chronicle of Higher Education essay
From the Annals of Anthroman

February 5, 2009 at 12:00 PM at Henze Lounge, Paresky Center

Hosts: Johannes Wilson ‘11, co-chair of the Queer Student Union, Justin Adkins, Queer Life Coordinator-MCC, Katie Kent, Associate Professor of English, and Brian Martin, Assistant Professor of French and Comparative Literature

This will be an opportunity for students, staff, and faculty to really engage with several aspects about queer life at Williams.

How do we feel gender/sexual norms operate here, and how have they affected us?

Are there any aspects of the college that have a negative impact on queer students, staff, and faculty?

What about those resources specifically designed for the queer community- the Queer Student Union, Dively Committee, Queer Life Coordinator, etc?

Why don’t some queer students take advantage of these resources?

What do we feel these resources have done for the queer community here, and how might they be improved?

This is not intended just as a time for us to really pinpoint the issues that concern us, but to make plans for further action. How can we make Williams a better community for queer students, whether or not they are out, and their allies alike?

February 5, 2009 at 12:00 PM at Williams College Museum of Art

Director Lisa Corrin leads a discussion about the landmark exhibition “Mining the Museum” in which artist Fred Wilson challenged notions of privilege in the museum context. We then invite you to go through the galleries in an activity where you “mine” the museum — casting a critical eye on issues of class, race, and gender and letting us know what you think.
(No background in art necessary.)

Hosts: Rachel Ko ’09, Katie White ’11 and Becky Eakins ’12

An ongoing archive of audio files that narrate experiences, events, memories at various locations around campus. Once at the site, click on the arrows to navigate the campus map and roll-over the map with your cursor to locate specific narratives. Please contact any of the hosts if you are interested in adding to this collection of personal claims about Williams.

Audio file stories recorded around campus

February 5, 2009 at 11:00 AM at Griffin Hall, Rm 3

Host: Laini Sporbert, Substance Abuse Counselor, Kate Merrigan (tentative) North Adams resident, Jim Kolesar, Assistant to the President for Public Affairs and Williamstown resident, Liz Shiner, Williamstown resident

A chance to learn what Williams looks like outside of the Purple Bubble. A panel of local residents, some connected and others not connected to Williams, will share their perspective of what Williams looks like from the outside.

February 5, 2009 at 8:45 to 9:45 PM at Location: Baxter Hall, Paresky Center

Hosts: Kim Dacres ‘08, Joyce Foster, Director of Academic Resources, Morgan Goodwin ‘08, Robyn Marasco, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Stéphane Robolin, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies, Vince Schleitwiler, Assistant Professor of English, Claire Schwartz ‘10, Shayla Williams ‘09, Alex Willingham, Professor of Political Science

February 5, 2009 at 11:00 AM at Weston Hall

Host: Office of Career Counselling, Ron Gallagher
Respect and Responsibility in the Workplace_A Diversified Career Resource Gallery and Panel

This program from the Office of Career Counseling will provide participants with a chance to listen to the work place experiences of four minority faculty/staff members at Williams; plus a visual overview of career information targeted for persons of color, GLBT individuals, and those with disabilities, as well as resources for feminists and persons from countries outside of the U.S.

The Williams OCC and its staff celebrate and support all Williams students and alumni. We provide resources and services to meet the career development and job search needs of Williams diverse student and alumni populations.

To take full advantage of our services please make an appointment to meet with Ron Gallagher, OCC Assistant Director and liaison to the Williams Multicultural Center. The following resources have been developed to enhance your internship and job search efforts.

* General Resources
* International Students
* Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Students and Alumni
* Students and Alumni with Disabilities
* Feminist Resources

Williams Office of Career Counseling

February 5, 2009 at 3:45 PM at Brooks-Rogers Auditorium

Steven Spencer is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Social Psychology Division at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He received his doctorate from the University of Michigan and has held faculty positions at the State University of New York at Buffalo and Hope College. He maintains an active research program that investigates self-image maintenance processes, motivated social perception, and stereotyping. He has served his discipline as an associate editor at the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and as a consulting editor at the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Self and Identity.

“I do research on motivation and the self, particularly on how these factors affect stereotyping and prejudice. In examining motivation and the self I have begun to examine how implicit processes that are outside of people’s awareness affect people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In examining stereotyping and prejudice I look at how threats to the self-concept can lead to stereotyping and prejudice, and how this stereotyping and prejudice affects subsequent feelings about the self. In the other research I also examine how being a member of a stereotyped group affects people’s self-concept and academic performance.”

Professor Fein introduces:

“Dr. Spencer worked with Claude Steele on the very first studies of stereotype threat in the mid-90s and has been working closely with Steele ever since. Together they designed the first attempt to apply some of the original ideas from the theory to a real-world university setting, at the University of Michigan, and he has been a part of or reviewed many other more recent applications and extensions of this work. He also is aware of the limitations of the theory and research, in a way that many others are not. Dr. Spencer knows the literature on this important, and somewhat controversial, phenomenon about as well as anyone in the world, and he will be more than happy to field questions or have discussions with anyone interested in talking with him after the talk.

“A Washington Post article published just a couple of days ago includes discussion of what I assume will be some of the work he’ll be presenting tomorrow – here’s the link to the article:”

Washington Post Article

February 5, 2009 at 5:00 PM at Greylock Classroom A

Host: Lili Rodriguez ‘01, Associate Director of Admissions/Director of Diversity Recruitment

February 5, 2009 at 7:00 PM at Adams Memorial Theater/’62CTD

Lenelle Moïse is an award-winning poet, playwright, screenwriter and performance artist. She creates intimate, fiery, politicized texts about the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality, culture and resistance. She regularly presents interactive performances and workshops that addresses Feminism, the Spoken Word Movement, LGBTQ issues, Activist Art, Hip-Hop Theatre Aesthetics and Haitian-American culture at colleges and conferences across the United States.

In July 2008, Women Center Stage at the Culture Project launched the off-Broadway production of Moïse’s EXPATRIATE. The New York Times calls the play “inspiring… invigorating…compelling,” anchored by “a searching, intelligent script.” She currently tours her acclaimed 90-minute solo show Womb-Words, Thirsting which fuses spoken word, storytelling and song for a high-energy event about growing up bi-cultural, immigrant and queer.

She has been a guest artist at Brown University, Carleton College, Colby College, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Evergreen State College, MIT, the Ohio State University, Skidmore, Wesleyan and Yale, among many others.

Moïse is a regular blogger for OurChart.com. Her writing is also featured in a number of anthologies, including: Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution and We Don’t Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists. She has been commissioned to write plays for the Drama Studio, the Kitchen Theatre Company and Serious Play Theatre Ensemble. At age 20, she co-wrote the screenplay Sexual Dependency with Bolivian feature-film director Rodrigo Bellot. Her debut spoken word CD, Madivinez, won the 2007 Patchwork Majority Radio Award for best solo album. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Claire Schwartz ‘10 introduces…

“This summer, I met a professor coffee in a bustling shop in New York City’s
West Village. On the way out, he swiped a pamphlet from a table and handed it to me. ‘I’ve heard good things about this play,’ he said casually. So, when a friend and I found ourselves outside of the noted theatre a couple of weeks, we wandered into ‘Expatriate’, Lenelle Moise’s two-woman show. By the next day, I was jamming in the subway to her spoken-word CD ‘Madivinez,’ feeling delightfully subversive crushed between business suits as Moise’s smooth voice sang, ‘A girl like a white light converted me faithful to the good church of queers…’”

“But Moise’s work is so much more than a good beat. From recounting a childhood fight to meditating on the aftermath of Hurricain Katrina, Moise refuses to dissociate her personal experience from the broadly political.”

“Nor will she break herself down in digestible chunks, and her work sits in the fraught and productive territory of the intersection of a number of categories of identity including race, class, gender, family history, and sexual orientation. Lenelle Moise presents her mission as ‘queering the divine, one word at a time.’ I love the idea of changing—through art—our paradigm.”

“Who/what do we exalt as our archetype, and how does proximity to that model dictate privilege?  What does Williams ‘look’ like? And how can we make it ‘look’ more like us—all of us?”

Lenelle Moïse’s website

The New York Times: Ah Paris, Beacon of Freedom, City of Jazz

Time Out New York: The word is out

The Williams Record: Controversial spoken word poetry engages

MySpace: Lenelle Moïse

YouTube: Meet Lenelle Moïse

February 5, 2009 at 2:15 PM at Baxter Hall, Paresky Center

Host: Story Time Leaders

Ever wonder what all those people you pass on your way to class are thinking? Ever want to tell them what’s on your mind? Storytime is hosting “Let Me Tell You A Really Fast Story,” which is your chance to put stories behind names and faces. Each participant will alternate listening and telling stories, for three minutes each, in a kind of platonic speed-dating. What you hear might surprise you!

February 5, 2009 at 1:00 PM at Paresky 114, Meeting Room

Kiana Green completed her B.A. in American Studies with a minor in Africana Studies at Williams College (2007). As an undergraduate, she was a recipient of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellowship (2005–2007). She worked on two projects as an undergraduate, “Redefining the Promised Land: The Politics of 20th Century Black American Poetics, Identity, and Language,” and “Black, Word!: An Exploration of Linguistic Hegemony in the United States.” While at Williams Ms. Green was active in QSU, BSU, Gospel Choir and the Jazz ensemble.

She spent one year in the English graduate program at USC before transferring over to American Studies and Ethnicity. Her research interests include, African American Women’s History, Literature and Film, Black Queer Studies, Theories of Power and Violence, Feminist Theory and Cultural Studies. She is currently working on a project examining Black gender transgressive women and violence. Dr. Robin D.G. Kelley and Dr. Jack Halberstam serve as her advisors.

On February 3rd in Goodrich Hall Ms. Green will host an open-mic at 9 PM.

USC College Department of American Studies and Ethnicity

A New Way of Life Reentry Project

Critical Resistance

February 5, 2009 at 2:15 PM at Paresky 114, Meeting Room

Hosts: Katarzyna Pieprzak, Assistant Professor of Francophone Literature, French Language, and Comparative Literature; Neil Roberts, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Faculty Affiliate in Political Science

February 5, 2009 from 5:00 to 7:30 PM at All Campus Dining Halls

Host: Lehman Council for Community Engagement

http://www.williams.edu/resources/commservice/

February 5, 2009 at 9:30 AM at Brooks-Rodgers Auditorium

Peter Roby was named Northeastern’s ninth Athletics Director on June 21, 2007. Roby, former head basketball coach at Harvard University, marketing vice president at Reebok, and since 2002, Director of Northeastern’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society, brings broad experience in unique perspective to his new position.

Roby oversees Northeastern’s 19-sport, Division I Athletics Department, which competes in the highly-competitive Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), Hockey East Association and Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC). In addition, Roby oversees Northeastern Campus Recreation, which offers over 40 club sports, intramural sports and physical education opportunities for Northeastern students.

Roby served as Associate Athletics Director for Student-Athlete Welfare during the 2005-06 season, in addition to his duties at the Center for the Study of Sport in Society. As head of the Center, Roby was a forceful national leader, championing the role sports can play in bringing about positive social change through research, education and advocacy. He has also been outspoken in decrying the use of performance-enhancing drugs, competitive pressures placed on children, permissive attitudes toward professional athletes and a number of other sports-related issues.

Roby has been referenced extensively in print, television and radio media all over the world and his opinion pieces have been published on the editorial pages of the Boston Globe, the Indianapolis Star, the Dallas Morning News and the Oregonian.

In October of 2007, Roby was named one of the 100 Most Influential Sports Educators in America by the Institute of International Sport. The criteria for selection was the effective use of sport as a means to educate.

Prior to assuming his post at Sport in Society, Roby was the vice president of U.S. Marketing at Reebok. During his tenure with Reebok he held two other positions, as the director of Key Account Marketing and the director of U.S. Sports Marketing. He was responsible for the development and execution of marketing plans in the United States. He also oversaw strategic planning, grass roots marketing, and sponsorships.

Leading up to his time at Reebok, Roby had fulfilling career as a college basketball coach. He served six seasons as head basketball coach for Harvard University and three years as Harvard’s assistant basketball coach. Before joining Harvard, Roby was the assistant coach at Stanford University, Dartmouth College and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Roby is a 1979 graduate of Dartmouth College where he was co-captain of the basketball team and earned a bachelor’s degree in Government. A native of New Britain, Conn., Roby lives with his wife, Sandra, and children, Kayla, Peter, and Jon Paul, in Newton, Mass.

February 5, 2009 at 11:00 AM at Brooks-Rogers Auditorium

Host: Donald Brooks, Assistant Professor of Physical Education, Assistant Football and Assistant Men’s Lacrosse

February 5, 2009 at 3:45 PM at Griffin Hall, Rm 3

Hosts: Thammika Prim Songkaeo ’11 and Williams International Relations Council (WIRC)

“Reflections: Making the Most of a Global Campus” addresses the rareness of discussions on international conflicts at Williams. Professors and students from India and Pakistan will share their sentiments on the India-Pakistan conflict and reveal how the obscurity of this issue here affects our ability to connect to one another. “How can we present these issues so that we become more informed about one another’s cultures?” is the question to which this event seeks the answer. Short presentation followed by a discussion. Audience participation highly encouraged. Presented by the Williams International Relations Council (WIRC, former MUN).

February 5, 2009 at 1:00 PM at Adams Memorial Theater/ ’62CTD

Peggy McIntosh, Ph.D., associate director of the Wellesley Centers for Women, is also the founder, and co-director with Emily Style and Brenda Flyswithhawks of the National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum (Seeking Educational Equity & Diversity). The SEED Project helps teachers create their own year-long, school-based seminars on making school climates, K–12 curricula, and teaching methods more gender fair and multi-culturally equitable.

Dr. McIntosh directs the Gender, Race, and Inclusive Education Project, which provides workshops on privilege systems, feelings of fraudulence, and diversifying workplaces, curricula, and teaching methods. Dr. McIntosh has taught English, American Studies, and Women’s Studies at the Brearley School, Harvard University, Trinity College (Washington, D.C.), Durham University (England), and Wellesley College.

She is co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Women’s Institute, and has been consulting editor to Sage: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women. In 1993–1994, she consulted with women on 22 Asian campuses on the development of Women’s Studies and programs to bring materials from Women’s Studies into the main curriculum. In addition to having two honorary degrees, she is a recipient of the Klingenstein Award for Distinguished Educational Leadership from Columbia Teachers College.

Wellesley Centers for Women

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Peggy McIntosh on White Privilege

White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies

Addicted to Race

KBOO FM: Peggy McIntosh hosted by Cecil Prescod and Celeste Carey

February 5, 2009 at 2:15 PM at TBA

Hosts: Sergio Marte ‘08, Admission Intern, Williams College Admissions Office, and

Joyce Foster, Director of Academic Resources

February 5, 2009 at 2:15 PM at Griffin Hall, Rm 3

Host: Bill Darrow, Chair of Religion and Lissack Professor for Social Responsibility and Personal Ethics, Laini Sporbert, Substance Abuse Educator/Counselor, Justin Adkins, Queer Life Coordinator (Multicultural Center),  Katie Kent,  Raffana Donelson and Ariel Kavoussi.

A panel discussion exploring the syndrome of feeling peripheral in an environment of “normal perfection.” Issues explored will include race, class and poverty, gender, ableism, sexual orientation, and campus hierarchies.

February 6, 2009–February 13, 2009 All Dining Halls, Staff + Faculty Coffee Areas

Recently I discovered that my family of origin owned slaves in 17th and 18th century Virginia. Because of the horror of that news, I’ve worked towards doing public art work about race, investigating whiteness in relation to non-whites. (Few white artists have dealt with their own whiteness in their work, and there are few models to wrestle with.) During months of reading, I took notes and posed questions to myself, eventually feeling that something could be done with the questions themselves. Invited to do a public art project for Claiming Williams, I took the questions and discussed them with faculty, staff and under-represented students at Williams. The aim was to discuss the relevancy and wording of them; some were eliminated entirely, many re-written, and new ones added. I pondered how to put these questions into the public arena, and, with my interviewees, finally decided to print pairs of questions on paper napkins used in all the dining halls.

These serious queries are made more mundane, ubiquitous, and less confrontational in this throw-away format than many other formats might suggest. Called “Face”, the project refers to wiping the face, talking face-to-face, saving face, etc. I wanted to target faculty and staff as well as students, so I figured putting napkins at each of the office coffee machine sites would reach most of them. Finally, in order to get thoughtful response to the questions, I requested a link on the Claiming Williams website where anyone could respond to the questions, although not anonymously. Students in particular felt that the project should happen after February 5, 2009, so that the familiarity with such questions by then would aid in the ability and desire to answer them.

Peggy Diggs’ Portfolio

Creative Capital: Peggy Diggs, Work Out

Chelsea Art Galleries

Wave Hill: Peggy Diggs, Reduce/Reuse/Reexamine

Community Arts Network: Living Like a Refugee: Peggy Diggs Takes a Design Problem to Prison

Philadelphia Inquirer: Informed designs for tight spots

Boston Globe: Her provocative instincts? Right on the money.

Studio 360

Public Interventions DVD

The Claiming Williams Steering Committee invites all Williams College students, staff, faculty, and alumni to participate in the creation of an audio file or digital video (30–90 second length) that examines the Claiming Williams 2008–09 theme, “Examining Privilege, Building Community.”

“The Claiming Williams Steering Committee is very interested in inviting Williams College staff, students, faculty and alumni to express in broadcast media their affections for and observations on our community, and its promise to be more inclusive,” said Ed Epping, professor of art and steering committee member. “We are excited about offering this opportunity as we believe this forum-radio and digital video-offers a potent platform for individuals and collaborative teams to give public voice to their aspirations of what they respect about Williams and what still needs improvement to become a stronger institution for all.”

Eligibility:
Entrants must be students, alumni, or employees of Williams College, 17 years or older. Parents collaborating with their children may submit entries under the name of the adult.

Prizes:
Grand Prize: $500
First Prize (audio): $250
First Prize (video): $250
People’s Choice Award: TBA

Deadline for submissions:
February 16, 2009 at 11:59PM EST

Online PSA Submission Form

Download PDF of rules, terms of agreement, and guidelines

Us+Them=You a public service announcement made by Juan Baena and Amanda Santiago for Claiming Williams

February 5, 2009 at 11:00 AM at Baxter Hall, Paresky Center

Host: Story Time Leaders

Ever wonder what all those people you pass on your way to class are thinking? Ever want to tell them what’s on your mind? Storytime is hosting “Let Me Tell You A Really Fast Story,” which is your chance to put stories behind names and faces. Each participant will alternate listening and telling stories, for three minutes each, in a kind of platonic speed-dating. What you hear might surprise you!

February 5, 2009 at 9:30 AM at Mainstage/ ’62CTD

Dorothy Allison grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, the first child of a fifteen-year-old unwed mother who worked as a waitress. Now living in Northern California with her partner Alix and her teenage son, Wolf Michael, she describes herself as a feminist, a working class story teller, a Southern expatriate, a sometime poet and a happily born-again Californian.

Awarded the 2007 Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction, Allison is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

The first member of her family to graduate from high school, Allison attended Florida Presbyterian college on a National Merit Scholarship and in 1979, studied anthropology at the New School for Social Research.

An award winning editor for Quest, Conditions, and Outlook—early feminist and Lesbian & Gay journals, Allison’s chapbook of poetry, The Women Who Hate Me, was published with Long Haul Press in 1983. Her short story collection, Trash (1988) was published by Firebrand Books. Trash won two Lambda Literary Awards and the American Library Association Prize for Lesbian and Gay Writing.

Allison says that the early Feminist movement changed her life. “It was like opening your eyes under water. It hurt, but suddenly everything that had been dark and mysterious became visible and open to change.” However, she admits, she would never have begun to publish her stories ” if she hadn’t gotten over her prejudices, and started talking to her mother and sisters again.”

Allison received mainstream recognition with her novel Bastard Out of Carolina, (1992) a finalist for the 1992 National Book Award. The novel won the Ferro Grumley prize, an ALA Award for Lesbian and Gay Writing, became a best seller, and an award-winning movie. It has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Cavedweller (1998) became a national bestseller, NY Times Notable book of the year, finalist for the Lillian Smith prize, and an ALA prize winner. Adapted for the stage by Kate Moira Ryan, the play was directed by Michael Greif, and featured music by Hedwig composer, Stephen Trask. In 2003, Lisa Cholendenko directed a movie version featuring Kyra Sedgwick.

The expanded edition of Trash (2002) included the prize winning short story, “Compassion” selected for both Best American Short Stories 2003 and Best New Stories from the South 2003.

A novel, She Who, is forthcoming.

Williams Connection by Jana Sawicki, Chair and Carl W. Vogt ‘58 Professor of Philosphy:

“We assign Dorothy Allison’s  prize-winning novel, Bastard Out of Carolina ,early in the semester because it so rich with insight about many of the issues we address throughout the semester:  dynamics of classism, sexism, and racism,  sexual violence, how sexuality and sexual identifications are formed, storytelling as a mode of survival, and so forth. In this fictional autobiography Allison represents her  family life as a young, Southern “white trash” girl with brutal honesty and compassion; she exhibits a  deep appreciation for what moves her characters; for example, she invites us to explore the reasons why  her impoverished mother is willing to stay with a man who sexually abuses her children, or or why some men resort to violence to assert their masculinity. Allison understands the unlikelihood of her own survival and the costs associated with her own assimilation into the middle class.”

Williams Connection by Katie Kent, Associate Professor of English and Chair of Women’s and Gender Studies:

“Dorothy Allison has written, “Fiction is the lie that gets us to the truth.” Her semi-autobiographical novel, Bastard Out of Carolina, represents so much for our students–for some it is the first time they have encountered any representation of the complexities of poverty, racism, love and desire and their connection to violence, despair and resistance.   For others it is the first time they see someone writing about a world they know well, a world the dominant culture in our country will not describe.  As Allison puts it, in relation to stereotypical narratives of the struggles of the white working and under class, “The reality of self-hatred and violence was either absent or caricatured…”  Writing against this tradition, Allison bravely puts her truth on display, and in so doing empowers our students to claim their own understandings of the world around them.”

Dorothy Allison’s website

February 5, 2009 at 11:00 AM at Center Stage/’62CTD

Host: Sara Dubow, Visiting Assistant Professor of History,  Katie Kent, Associate Professor of English, Tracey Vitchers ‘10

February 5, 2009 at 2:15 PM at Wege Auditorium

Host: Chip Lovett, Philip and Dorothy Schein Professor of Chemistry and Chair of Bioinformatics, Genomics, and Proteomics

Effective, inclusive mentoring combines high standards with assurance that students can achieve those standards. Everyday mentoring occurs daily in classrooms, hallways, libraries, office hours, laboratories, and electronic interfaces. Whenever students connect with faculty, staff, and teaching assistants, opportunities arise for tapping into the interactive forces between educational practices, educators’ mindsets, and student potential. This workshop offers strategies to achieve effective everyday mentoring that do not require much energy or time, but perhaps just a shift in thinking in order to invite all Williams students to engage with our fields. All interested students, faculty, and staff are welcome.

everyday-mentoring-claiming-williams-2009

February 5, 2009 at 2:15 PM at Mainstage/ ’62CTD

Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S., and has been called, “One of the most brilliant, articulate and courageous critics of white privilege in the nation,” by best-selling author and professor Michael Eric Dyson, of Georgetown University. Wise has spoken in 48 states, and on over 400 college campuses, including Harvard, Stanford, and the Law Schools at Yale and Columbia, and has spoken to community groups around the nation. Wise has provided anti-racism training to teachers nationwide, and has trained physicians and medical industry professionals on how to combat racial inequities in health care. He has also trained corporate, government, entertainment, military and law enforcement officials on methods for dismantling racism in their institutions, and has served as a consultant for plaintiff’s attorneys in federal discrimination cases in New York and Washington State.

Wise is the 2008 Oliver L. Brown Distinguished Visiting Scholar for Diversity Issues at Washburn University, in Topeka, Kansas: an honor named for the lead plaintiff in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. In 2005, Wise served as an adjunct faculty member at the Smith College School for Social Work, in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he co-taught a Master’s level class on Racism in the U.S. In 2001, Wise trained journalists to eliminate racial bias in reporting, as a visiting faculty-in-residence at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. In 2005 and 2006, Wise provided training on issues of racial privilege and institutional bias at the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI), at Patrick Air Force Base. From 1999-2003, Wise was an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute, in Nashville, and in the early ’90s was Associate Director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism: the largest of the many groups organized for the purpose of defeating neo-Nazi political candidate, David Duke.

Wise is the author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, and Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White. A collection of his essays, Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male, will be published in the Fall of 2008, and his fourth book, Between Barack and a Hard Place: Race and Whiteness in the Age of Obama, will be released in Spring, 2009. He has contributed chapters or essays to 20 books, and is one of several persons featured in White Men Challenging Racism: Thirty-Five Personal Stories, from Duke University Press. He received the 2001 British Diversity Award for best essay on race issues, and his writings have appeared in dozens of popular, professional and scholarly journals. Wise has been a guest on hundreds of radio and television programs, worldwide.

Wise has a B.A. in Political Science from Tulane University, where his anti-apartheid work received global attention and the thanks of Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He received training in methods for dismantling racism from the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, in New Orleans. He and his wife Kristy are the proud parents of two daughters.

OpEdNews: “This is Your Nation on White Privilege”

Counterpunch: “What Kind of Card is Race?”

good reads: books by Tim Wise

YouTube: “Tim Wise: On White Privilege”

Google video: Tim Wise – Racism, White Denial & the Cost of Inequality”

February 5, 2009 at 3:30 PM at Mainstage/’62CTD

Hosts: Leslie Brown, Assistant Professor of History, Mérida Rua, Assistant Professor of Latina/o Studies and American Studies

February 5, 2009 at 1 PM at Goodrich Hall

Hosts: Rick Spalding, Chaplin to the College and Coordinator of Community Services, Laini Sporbert, Substance Abuse Educator/Counselor, students and staff

Alcohol has been involved in many of the bias incidents and nearly all of the assaults on campus. Discussion will include the following questions: Is alcohol a fact of life in a community like ours? How has alcohol impaired the ability of some people to fully claim Williams?

February 5, 2009 at 3:45 PM at Goodrich Hall

In the age of empty words—where millions log in to comment on videos of iguanas skateboarding, where entire television series’ are based on who can blurt out the most grotesque diss on someone’s mother, where there exists such a thing as cell phones for babies, it seems everyone has something to say.  But who’s really listening?

Enter iLL-Literacy—a collective of poets, emcees, and all-around fresh individuals—with a mission that seems simple enough: to have something to say, and for people not only listen, but want to listen.

Call it spoken word, call it hip-hop theater, but never call it typical, the crew consists of Adriel Luis, Dahlak Brathwaite, Nico Cary and Ruby Veridiano-Ching—four artists who  harbor impressive accolades in their own rights.  Since the four officially debuted their tour as a collective at the American University of Paris in 2005, iLL-Literacy has swept the corners of the globe with a delicious blend of lyrical verse, innovative theatrics, and an addictive approach to audience interaction that has kept the crew traveling nonstop.

iLL-Literacy has covered much ground in a short time, rocking stages from off-Broadway New York to London’s Picadilly, to its home base in the California Bay Area.  News of the amazing talent has drawn attention from HBO’s Def Poetry and MTV, as well as crowds who have witnessed the collective share the stage with the likes of Common, Mos Def, KRS-One, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

iLL-Literacy’s website

Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival: “10 Questions with iLL-Literacy”

YouTube: iLL-Literacy Promo Video

February 5, 2009 at 11:00 AM at Goodrich Hall

Hosts: Karen Swann, Professor of English, Natalie Friedman ‘10

What do we bring with us when we meet in the classroom? How do our differences affect class dynamics? What happens when issues come up in class that make us aware of these differences-maybe even in uncomfortable, potentially explosive ways? This workshop is an opportunity for students and faculty to have a frank discussion of these issues; the aim is to brainstorm about strategies that can work to produce a more inclusive, comfortable (or productively uncomfortable) classroom culture at Williams. Open to students and faculty.

Drop in, but if you express interest in advance to kswann@Williams.edu she will send you a copy of a 1995 CDC report on “the culture of the Williams classroom,” including interviews from students of that time-an interesting read!

The Claiming Williams steering committee invites you to be a part of this ongoing dialogue. If you would like to post an event, share an article, start a discussion, or otherwise participate in the process of claiming Williams, please write to us. We look forward to spreading the word.

Email us: claimingwilliams@gmail.com

Sincerely,
The Claiming Williams Steering Committee

Bill Darrow, Ed Epping, Natalie Friedman, Ruth Harrison, Narae Park, Wendy Raymond, Claire Schwartz, Dae Selcer, Harry Sheehy, Stefanie Solum, Rick Spalding, Martha Tetrault, and Shayla Williams

Claiming Williams Day is intended as both a collective exploration of the various forms of privilege that inform experience at the College, and an opportunity to reflect on the responsibilities each of us has within—and to—our community. The project is heir to the remarkable energy released last Spring in response to practices that disallow many who live, work, and learn at this place to claim it as their own on equal terms. The goal is to engage the campus in an ongoing dialogue about mindsets, habits, choices, and actions that can create or disrupt community.

Each of us—staff, students, and faculty alike—should be readily able to “Claim Williams.” February 5, 2009 will be dedicated to building community across differences, across misunderstanding, and in unexplored territory. During this day, speakers, performers, and facilitators from many fields (literature, athletics, theater, art, politics, and more) will appeal to our wide range of interests. Individuals from both within and outside the Williams community will help us engage with the issue of privilege and explore the ways in which it manifests itself, often imperceptibly, along the lines of categories of identity such as class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, race, religion, and disability. Differences among us will never constitute the base of our community’s strength so long as they produce the kinds of inequities that have had real, and damaging, consequences on this campus. The events of Claiming Williams Day will serve as an initial step toward rendering these inequities visible and building a college community to which all members have equal claim.

Claiming Williams Steering Committee

Justin Adkins
Juan Baena
Leslie Brown
Maria Cruz
Bill Darrow
Danielle Diuguid ‘11
Ed Epping, co-coordinator
Natalie Friedman ‘10
Ruth Harrison, co-coordinator
Paula Machado
Narae Park ‘10
Wendy Raymond
Amanda Santiago
Claire Schwartz ‘10, co-coordinator
Dae Selcer ‘10
Harry Sheehy
Stefanie Solum
Rick Spalding
Laini Sporbert
Martha Tetrault
Shayla Williams ‘09, co-coordinator

After many years of the College working to become a community in which all members can thrive, it remains the case that there’s more to be done.

Becoming a truly inclusive community is the vital work of all who care about Williams, and an essential part of that process is understanding better the often subtle dynamics that impede progress.

Claiming Williams is our collective effort to do that.

This effort grew out of the Stand With Us Movement, in which students, faculty, and staff organized to give voice to their passion and strength to their efforts to respond to an incident last spring that was intended to erode community.

One fruit of that movement was the faculty decision to devote a day to campus-wide engagement with these issues.  Claiming Williams is sponsoring events through much of the academic year but has as its centerpiece the program on Feb. 5, 2009.

The discussions that day and in all Claiming Williams activities are designed to advance our community and to help all of us function more effectively on a campus and in a world that grows increasingly diverse.

The success of this effort depends on the involvement of us all.  Please use this site to help find the best ways for you to engage.

Regards,
Morty Schapiro
President

As the story goes, purple was adopted as Williams’ color after it was tentatively used in the 1865 championship baseball game against Harvard. (Harvard had made magenta its color, and Williams was want for a unifying hue.) Likely because of Williams’ victory, purple caught on, remaining the college’s official color. At the time, purple represented triumph over rival universities, inviting students to wear it mindful of this victory. Now, 144 years later, though still a source of pride, our purple has been inscribed with many new meanings, histories, and associations. The color conjures many different visions of the college, its many constituencies, and its many stories.

Wearing purple suggests not only staking a claim in Williams, but also acknowledging the many and disparate ways that others are staking their claims in Williams. Purple is no longer singular. When considering how others perceive the color, we can never be sure that it is rendered optically the same from one person to the next. So it is for Williams. That which bears the mark of purple, is being continuously expanded, reiterated, and redefined based on individual and collective experience. To claim Williams, to use purple, is thus to acknowledge the many interests, privileges, authorities, and memberships that define the relationships of Williams faculty, staff, students, and alums to each other and to the school.

Purple unites us, but also invites awareness of the differences of all the people that identify it and Williams as their own.

November 17, 2008 at 8 PM at Chapin Hall

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and 10 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) joined in a discussion of “Race and the New Congress” on Monday, Nov. 17, at 8 p.m. in Chapin Hall on the Williams College campus. The event, moderated by 60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl, was sponsored by The W. Ford Schumann ‘50 Program in Democratic Studies. the Office of the President, Africana Studies, the Multicultural Center, and the Claiming Williams initiative.

Williams College Press Release

Video recording of Congressional Black Caucus at Williams

November 9, 2008 at 7:30 PM at Baxter Hall, Paresky Center

Rick Spalding, Chaplain to the College (left) and Dorothy Wang, Assistant Professor of American Studies (right)

Claiming Williams Kicks Off, Williams Record, November 12, 2008
By Amy Nyugen

Drawing over 100 students, faculty and staff, Claiming Williams held its “launch event” on Sunday night in Baxter Hall. Organized by the Claiming Williams Steering Committee composed of faculty, staff and students, the event was intended to generate interest in Claiming Williams Day, to be held on Feb. 5. “The purpose of the launch, on the most basic level, was to get the … event on the communal radar – to get people thinking about it,” said Professor Stefanie Solum, a member of the Committee involved in planning the event. The event consisted of musical performances and a “Voices” style montage of monologues by members of the campus community, as well as speeches by Claiming Williams planners on the purpose of their work and the event…

September 22 and 23, 2008

Dr. Donna Lisker ‘88 is Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education at Duke University. Prior to that, she served as Director of the Duke University Women’s Center for 8 years.  She founded and co-directs the Baldwin Scholars, a four-year undergraduate women’s leadership program at Duke University (http://baldwinscholars.duke.edu).  A native of Philadelphia, Lisker received her B.A. from Williams College and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Before coming to Duke, she worked at Virginia Tech as Assistant Director of the Women’s Center.  She has published several articles on college and university women’s centers, and her recent research focuses on undergraduate social culture, and on gender and sports.  She is an avid masters rower (a sport she first learned at Williams as an undergraduate).

Martin Liccardo is the Assistant Coordinator for Sexual Assault Support Services at the Duke University Women’s Center. He received his B.S. degree in Women’s Studies from the University of Utah in 2002. After graduating Martin worked as a Hospital Response Team member and Community Educator for the Salt Lake Rape Recovery Center and a Program Coordinator for the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault.  Martin moved to the East Coast to coordinate the Men’s Anti-Violence Project at the University of Maryland before accepting a position at Duke University.

Sponsored by: Health Services, The Office of Strategic Planning and Institutional Diversity, Athletics, Women and Gender Studies and Claiming Williams.

donna-l-hooking-up-effortless-perfection-and-sexual-violence-understanding-college-social-culture

February 13, 2008 at 10:30 PM at Baxter Hall, Paresky Center

Students, faculty and staff listened to testimonials, singing, poetry reading, and speeches. The event was followed by a march from Sawyer, to the Frosh Quad, through President Schapiro’s lawn and ending in Schow atrium.

Pact Against Indifference and Hate