Amherst’s Black Alumni Weekend kicks off March 24 with a series of activities aimed at showcasing the intellectual life of the College. Nearly 100 are expected to return to Amherst for the four-day celebration to participate in various workshops and discussions, tour campus, network with classmates and current students, and sit in on classes, among other things.
Major highlights of the weekend include presentations on faculty-student research, as well as a talk by NAACP President and Amherst parent Cornell Brooks.
For visitors staying beyond the weekend, former MSNBC commentator Melissa Harris-Perry will be speaking on Monday, March 27.
Black Alumni Weekend
Faculty-Student Research Spotlight
Friday March 24 • 2:30 Cole Assembly Room, Converse Hall
Presentations will include:
-
Allen Hart ’82, James E. Ostendarp Professor of Psychology and newly appointed Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Officer, presenting with Brian Royes ’17 on Black identity consciousness and its impacts on stereotype threat effects.
- Seanna McCall ’17, whose thesis analyzes aural and visual content, critiques, awards and recognition, as well as distribution data of R&B vocalist Jazmine Sullivan's most recent work, Reality Show (2015) in order to understand the way in which her changing embodiment and her identity as a plus-sized black woman in a predominately black space impacts not only her performance, but the ways in which audiences respond to her as an artist.
- JoDeanne Francis ’17, whose research examines Feminism and Protestantism, often discussed as irreconcilable polar opposites, and how the beginning framework of feminist theology and its subsequent critique, womanist theology, demonstrate the potential for their reconciliation.
Cornell William Brooks
Friday, March 24 • 8 p.m. Johnson Chapel
See the full weekend schedule
Of Further Interest
Melissa Harris-Perry
“Race, Gender and the Politics of Knowledge from Campus to Community to Congress”
Monday, March 27 • 8 p.m. Johnson Chapel
[See further details]