Annual Forum on the State of Diversity

The forum features a race morphing machine, faculty/student dance contest and more

WHAT: 2008 Annual Forum on the State of Diversity at Emerson College

WHEN: Friday, April 11, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

WHERE: Various locations on campus, including the Max Mutchnick Campus Center, Walker and Tufte Buildings.

Members of the Emerson College community can find out what they would look like if they were a different race, work with one another to build villages from scratch, talk back at a poetry slam and judge how well some of their professors and fellow students can dance at the 2008 Annual Forum on the State of Diversity, to be held Friday.

With cultural diversity no longer a prospect but a fact of today’s world and the Emerson campus, the theme of this year’s forum is:

Show your support for diversity and make a difference by wearing a button and attending events.

Schedule of Events

Title: "Teaching and Talking About Privilege"
Description: Speaker Tracy Wood Robinson leads this workshop which focuses on privilege: its meaning, its connection to discourse, and its existence across ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality. Strategies for teaching and talking about privilege to people with privileged and marginalized identities will be discussed.
Time: 10:00a.m. – 11:30a.m.
Location: Max Center, Room L151

Title: “Race, Religion, and Obama’s Pastor”
Description: A native of Brooklyn, the Reverend Irene Monroe is a graduate of Wellesley College and the Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African American church before coming to Harvard Divinity School for her doctorate. Monroe writes "The Religion Thang," for In Newsweekly, the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender newspaper in New England, "Faith Matters" for the Advocate Magazine, and "Queer Take," for The Witness, a progressive Episcopalian journal. Monroe is a  nationally renown African American lesbian activist, scholar, and public theologian. Her writings have appeared in the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Bay State Banner, Cambridge Chronicle and Metro News. Her award-winning essay, "Louis Farrakhan's Ministry of Misogyny and Homophobia," was greeted with critical acclaim. Reverend Monroe has also been profiled in O, Oprah Magazine, and recently "CNN Headline News" and CNN's Paula Zahn Now. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Time: 11:00a.m. -12:30p.m.
Room: Max Center, Room 118

Title: Perspectives on Global Diversity
Description: Emerson students from around the world provide their experiences with and perspectives on diversity at the college. Panel members include Maryam Bisharat, Zaina Halabi, Salman Al-Jalahma, Steven Hejazi, Mohammad Al Rashed and May Calamawy
Time: 1:00p.m. -2:30p.m.
Location: Tufte P914

Title: Opportunity Walk
Description: In this activity, participants form a line while a facilitator calls out a number of statements to the group. When they have experienced one of the positive statements — for example, having both parents graduate from college — they take a step forward. When a negative statement — such as having experienced poverty — applies to them, they take a step back.
Time: 2:00p.m. -3:00p.m.
Location: Max Center, Room L151

Title: "Who Am I?"
Description: The CCOR Faculty Advisor and some CCOR Co-Facilitators will engage audience members in an interactive exercise exploring how social constructs of race and ethnicity among other identifiers have become determinants of our place in society. Learn how these social constructs identify us and affect our views.
Time: 2:30p.m. - 3:30p.m.
Location: Walker Building, Room 1020

Title: Poetry and Cultural Identity
Description: Four accomplished poets read their work, which touches on cultural identity including race, gender, socioeconomic class, and sexuality. Panelists will include Susan Eisenberg, Richard Juang, Letta Neely and Sam Cornish.
Time: 3:00p.m. - 4:30p.m.
Location: Walker Building, Room 202

Title: Are You Willing to Dance for Diversity?
Description: Loosely modeled on the popular television show “Dancing With The Stars,” this event will feature faculty members and students learning five types of dance from around the world and then dancing for the audience and a panel of judges. The judges include Dean Ronald Ludman, Associate Vice President Gwendolyn Bates, Prof. Kathleen Donohue, and Prof. Michael Brown.
Time: 5:30p.m. - 7:00p.m.
Location: Piano Row Gym

Title: Rant!
Description: This comedic play explores issues of identity, racial discrimination, prejudice and alienation. We follow moments in the lives of several characters throughout Boston as they are pushed to their breaking point, and all they have left to do is raise their voices and Rant! This play attempts to begin the conversation about how much  we know about each other how we can take the time and learn about each other. "Rant!" is written and directed by Paloma Valenzuela, a Junior Screenwriting major.
Time: 8:00p.m. - 9:00p.m.
Location: Cabaret, 80 Boylston Street

Title: Human Race Machine
Description: The Human Race Machine gives viewers the opportunity to envision themselves as a different race. The machine is an entirely unique diversity experience.
Time: 9:00a.m. - 5:00p.m April 4th – April 11th
Location: West 3, 80 Boylston Street (next to the Beard Room)

Title: Answer the Arbor for Diversity
Description: In this activity members of the Emerson community are asked to draw on their own diverse experiences to answer a diversity-related question and then decorate a leaf with the answer ans post it on one of the two trees stationed on campus.
Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm
Location: Max Center Lobby and Outside the Dining Hall

Title: Broadcast of "Anne & Emmett"
Description: The Boston Premiere Theatrical Reading of Anne& Emmett takes place on April 10. For those who cannot attend, the broadcast of the reading will play at certain times on the Emerson Channel.
Air Times: 9:00a.m. -10:00a.m., 12:00p.m. -1:00p.m., 3:00p.m. - 4:00p.m.
Location: Televisions in the Dining Hall and Max Center Lobby