Academic Symposium Day I - We Center Blackness: Howard, Diversity, and Diaspora (Diaspora 1)

In celebration of the inauguration of President Ben Vinson III, the Office of the Provost presents a four-part faculty forum series on the topics of diaspora and diversity. Faculty from the full range of academic disciplines will share perspectives on the ways the University historically and contemporarily practices and embodies diversity and diaspora. Each day, there will be one panel on diaspora studies and one panel on diversity as concept. The diaspora studies panels will examine past and current initiatives at Howard that engage Africa and her diaspora and will propose forward-looking frameworks that leverage our unparalleled expertise in the field. The diversity panels seek to illustrate Howard’s diversity—of thought, of race and ethnicity and nationality, of class and social positioning, for instance—to reveal how conversations that center Blackness foster equity and liberation beyond racial categories.

Faculty Panelists Include:

• Carol Boyce Davies, Ph.D. (College of Art and Sciences)
• Gay Byron, Ph.D. (School of Divinity)
• Celia Maxwell, M.D. (College of Medicine)
• Dhalia Ndoum, (College of Engineering and Architecture)
• Ben Talton, Ph.D. (Director, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center)

Moderator: Dean Dana Williams, Graduate School