Plenary Sessions
“A Conversation on the Arts, Activism & Culture” with Julie Dash and Felix Justice. (video link)
A discussion on the importance of arts in education and an examination of the intersections of Art, Culture and Activism.
“Toward a Transformative Agenda around Race” with john powell, Susan Sturm, and Saskia Sassen. (video link)
How do public policies, institutions, and our collective actions interact to differentially distribute social opportunities by race and ethnicity?
“Talking about Race” with Drew Westen and Stephanie Fryberg. (video link)
How can we talk about race and ethnicity in ways that promote racial equity and justice, that unify, rather than divide us?
“The New American Story” with Senator Bill Bradley. (video link)
What changes need to be made in our parties, in our policies, and in citizen activism to ensure America's multicultural future lives up to the promise of the country's ideals?
Biographies of Plenary Speakers:
Bill Bradley is a three-time basketball All-American at Princeton, an Olympic gold medalist, a Rhodes Scholar and a professional player for ten years with the New York Knicks. Elected to the Senate from New Jersey in 1978, 1984 and 1990, he authored extensive legislation — including the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Disillusioned with Capitol Hill, Mr. Bradley retired from the Senate in 1996 to teach at Stanford, the University of Maryland and Notre Dame. In 2000, Bradley re-entered the political arena, losing to Al Gore in a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Since then, he has been active as a speaker, articulating his vision for the future of the United States. He is also a managing director for the investment firm Allen & Co., Inc. His major books include Life on the Run (1987), Time Present, Time Past: A Memoir (1997), Values of the Game (1998) and The Journey From Here (2000). His most recent book is The New American Story (2007). Here, Bradley argues that now, more than ever, we need to embrace an "ethic of connectedness," a combination of collective action and individual responsibility, to solve our nation’s most pressing problems, and he argues that the fate of all countries is bound together as never before. Writing today with the freedom of a private citizen, Bradley provides this transformative and eye-opening book about the danger and the promise of America’s choice at this crucial moment in the nation’s history.
Stephanie Fryberg is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Affiliate Faculty in American Indian Studies at University of Arizona. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on cultural and social psychology. Her research interests focus on how social representations of race, culture, and social class influence psychological well-being, physical health, and educational attainment. Recent publications include, On being American Indian: Current and possible selves (with H. R. Markus, in Journal of Self and Identity), Racial ethnic self-schemas (with D. Oyserman, M. Kemmelmeier, H. Brosh, and T. Hart-Johnson, in Social Psychology Quarterly), and The possible selves of diverse adolescents: Content and function across gender, race and national origin (with D. Oyserman, in Possible selves: Theory, research, and application). Manuscripts currently in press include Models of education in American Indian, Asian American, and European American contexts (with H. R. Markus), Honor or harm: The effects of American Indian mascots on American Indian selves (with H. R. Markus, D. Oyserman, and J. M. Stone), The psychology of engagement with Indigenous identities: A cultural perspective (with G. Adams, D. M. Garcia, and E. U. Delgado), and The Psychology of Invisibility (with S. Townsend).
Julie Dash became the first African American woman to have a full-length general theatrical release in the United States with her debut of "Daughters of the Dust" in January 1992. Ms. Dash recently directed a short film designed to screen for a very long time at The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center Museum in Ohio ("Brothers of the Borderland"). Ms. Dash also directed the NAACP Image Award winning CBS Network Television Movie, "The Rosa Parks Story" the winner of The Family Television Award, The New York Christopher Award, and Angela Bassett received an Emmy Nomination for her performance as "Rosa Parks." For the 55th Annual Directors Guild Awards, Julie Dash was nominated for her Outstanding Directorial Achievement on "The Rosa Parks Story," and she became the first African American woman nominated in the category of Primetime Movies Made for Television at The Directors Guild of America. Ms. Dash has a book published by The New Press, and a novel published by Dutton-Signett Books. She is currently working on a romantic trilogy for Dutton-Signett Books. She has directed Music Videos with musical artists including Raphael Saadiq with Tony, Toni, Tone; Keb 'Mo, Peabo Bryson, Adriana Evans, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Tracy Chapman's "Give Me One Reason," which was nominated for MTV's Best Female Vocalist, 1996. Her critically acclaimed short film "Illusions", a drama set in Hollywood 1942, won the 1989 Jury Prize for Best Film of the Decade, awarded by the Black Filmmakers Foundation. Ms. Dash earned her M.F.A. in Film & Television production at UCLA; received her B.A. in Film Production from CCNY, and she was also a Fellow at the American Film Institute's Center for Advanced Film Studies, the AFI conservatory at Greystone Mansion.
Andrew Grant-Thomas is Deputy Director of the Kirwan Institute, directing the Institute's internal operations and overseeing many of its programmatic initiatives. His substantive projects include work on the nature of structural racism; the potential for forging constructive alliances between immigrants and African Americans; and innovative responses to segregationist pressures in the context of schools and neighborhoods. He serves as Associate Editor of the Institute's journal, Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, and represents the Institute within OSU and before national and community groups. He came to Kirwan in February 2006 from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, where he directed the Color Lines Conference: Segregation and Integration in America's Present and Future, and managed a range of policy-oriented racial justice projects. He received his B.A. in Literature from Yale University, his M.A. in International Relations from the University of Chicago, and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago.
Felix Justice The father of four, Felix Justice grew up in Florence, South Carolina. Joining the Air Force after he graduated from high school, he spent four years as a cryptographer before turning to acting in 1960. It was a decision due in part to Dr. King himself; in 1960 Justice had the "visceral experience" of witnessing Dr. King speak at the Sports Arena in Los Angeles. For Justice it amounted to a "conversion" of sorts to the power of the spoken word. Basing his career in the San Francisco area, Justice's acting credits include Blues for Mr. Charlie, Henry V, High on Pilet's Bluff and The River Niger. As a director, he has also helmed celebrated productions of The Trials of Brother Gero, Companions of the Fire, Luv and The Blood Knot. In 1981, Justice premiered Prophecy In America at San Francisco's Lorraine Hansberry Theater to critical acclaim. It has since toured widely in the United States and in Africa. He and his wife Cynthia currently live in the San Francisco area, where he is at work on his latest play.
john a. powell, is an internationally recognized authority in the areas of civil rights, civil liberties, and issues relating to race, ethnicity, poverty and the law. He is the executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University. He also holds the Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties at the Moritz College of Law. He has written extensively on a number of issues including structural racism, racial justice and regionalism, concentrated poverty and urban sprawl, opportunity based housing, voting rights, affirmative action in the United States, South Africa and Brazil, racial and ethnic identity, spirituality and social justice, and the needs of citizens in a democratic society. He joined the faculty at The Ohio State University in 2002. Under his leadership, The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University has taken a national leadership role in developing, advocating for and researching an opportunity-based housing model. This model provides a critical and creative framework for thinking about affordable housing, racialized space, and how an individual's destiny is impacted by where they live. The central principle of this model is that residents of metropolitan regions are situated within a complex and interconnected web of opportunity structures that significantly shapes their quality of life. These opportunity structures include education, health care, employment, transportation, and civic engagement.
Saskia Sassen is currently a Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. Her research and writing focuses on globalization (including social, economic and political dimensions), immigration, global cities (including cities and terrorism), the new networked technologies, and changes within the liberal state that result from current transnational conditions. In her research she has focused on the unexpected and the counterintuitive as a way to cut through established “truths.” She has written five books, two edited volumes, and a plethora of articles. Her books are translated into sixteen languages. She serves on several editorial boards and is an advisor to several international bodies. She is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Cities. She has received a variety of awards and prizes, most recently, a Doctor honoris causa from Delft University (Netherlands), the first Distinguished Graduate School Alumnus Award of the University of Notre Dame, and was one of the four winners of the first University of Chicago Future Mentor Award covering all doctoral programs. She has written for The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde Diplomatique, the International Herald Tribune, Newsweek International,Vanguardia, Clarin, the Financial Times, among others. She is also a Centennial Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics.
Susan Sturm is the George M. Jaffin Professor of Law and Social Responsibility at Columbia Law School, where her principal areas of teaching and research include employment discrimination, workplace regulation, race and gender, public law remedies, and civil procedure. Her current work focuses on rethinking employment discrimination regulation, exploring the role of law and lawyers in addressing complex forms of bias, and examining sites for successful multiracial problem solving. Her recent publications include Whose Qualified? The Future of Affirmative Action (with Lani Guinier, Beacon Press, 2001); Equality and the Forms of Justice (2004); "Learning from Conflict: Reflections on Teaching About Race and Gender" (Journal of Legal Education 2003); "Lawyers and the Practice of Workplace Equity" (Wisconsin Law Review 2002); Second Generation Employment Discrimination: A Structural Approach (Columbia 2001); "Equality and Inequality" (International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, 2001); and Race, Gender and the Law in the Twenty-First Century Workplace (1998). She also has developed a website with Lani Guinier, on building multiracial learning communities.
Drew Westen currently is a professor of psychology at Emory University. He received his B.A. at Harvard University, an M.A. in Social and Political Thought at the University of Sussex (England), and his Ph.D. in clinical Psychology at the University of Michigan, where he subsequently taught for six years. For several years he was Chief Psychologist at Cambridge Hospital and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. His major areas of research are personality disorders, eating disorders, psychotherapy effectiveness, adolescent psychopathology, political psychology, and the interface of psychodynamics and neuroscience. He is an occasional commentator on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and his holiday song, "Oy, to be a Goy on Christmas," still airs on the radio in New York during the holiday season. His latest book “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation,” as The New York Times puts it “is enjoying a vogue. He takes an interesting dollop of neuroscience and uses it to coat the conventional clichés of the Why Democrats Lose genre.