Collaborate To Create Change: Towards Racial and Socioeconomic Equity in our Scholarship, Research & Teaching
Friday, September 23rd, 2022
7:30 a.m. – 6 p.m. ET
The Dee Kelly Lounge
Jack Morton Auditorium
Faculty Conference Center
The Jacob Burns Moot Court Room
The George Washington University invites you to join us for our first racial and socioeconomic equity research showcase. GW’s Equity Institute Initiative (EII) is a university-wide collaboration to create an institute dedicated to community-engaged research on the worldwide program of racial and ethnic inequality.
Keynote Speakers
Dr. Bonnie Gordon is an Associate Professor in the University of Virginia McIntire Department of Music. She is a music historian who works across disciplines and creative practices. She is fascinated by the idea of sound as fundamental to the ways we move through the world and deeply committed to the idea that learning about sound is not for musicians only. primary research interests center on the experiences of sound in Early Modern music making and the affective potential of the human voice.
Professor Gordon is a founding faculty director of the newly launched University of Virginia Equity Center; she founded the Arts Mentors a program designed to increase access to the arts in Charlottesville; and is a collaborating faculty member of The Sound Justice Lab, a group of artists and academics who use audio-visual media and storytelling to explore what justice means to ordinary people and everyday life.
Professor Gordon’s research centers on sound and gender in the early Modern world. Her first book, Monteverdi’s Unruly Women (Cambridge University Press, 2004) frames the composer’s madrigals and music dramas written between 1600 and 1640 as windows into contemporary notions of sound, body, voice, and sense. She has explored similar issues in a variety of contexts, including articles about contemporary singer-songwriters Kate Bush and Tori Amos and an interdisciplinary and cross cultural volume of essays co-edited with Martha Freldman about courtesans entitled The Courtesans Arts, (Oxford University Press, 2006). Dr. Gordon is the recipient of two grants from the Folger Shakespeare Library, a dissertation grant from the American Association of University Women, a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Brandeis University, a Bunting Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. She has also been the Robert Lehman Visiting Professor at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. In addition to her scholarly work, she has published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Slate and the Cville Weekly. She plays jazz, rock, and classical viola.
One of the nation’s most prominent scholars, Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr. is an author, political commentator, public intellectual and passionate educator who examines the complex dynamics of the American experience. His writings, including Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul, In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America, and his most recent, the New York Times bestseller, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own, takes a wide look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy. In his writing and speaking, Glaude is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting history and bringing our nation’s complexities, vulnerabilities and hope into full view. Hope that is, in one of his favorite quotes from W.E.B. Du Bois, “not hopeless, but a bit unhopeful.”
Glaude is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton. He is also on the Morehouse College Board of Trustees. He frequently appears in the media, as a columnist for TIME Magazine and as an MSNBC contributor on programs like Morning Joe and Deadline Whitehouse with Nicolle Wallace. He regularly appears on Meet the Press on Sundays. Glaude also hosts Princeton’s AAS podcast, a conversation around the field of African American Studies and the Black experience in the 21st century.
A highly accomplished and respected scholar of religion, Glaude is a former president of the American Academy of Religion. His books on religion and philosophy include An Uncommon Faith: A Pragmatic Approach to the Study of African American Religion, African American Religion: A Very Short Introduction, and Exodus! Religion, Race and Nation in Early 19th Century Black America, which was awarded the Modern Language Association’s William Sanders Scarborough Book Prize.
Some like to describe Glaude as the quintessential Morehouse man, having left his home in Moss Point, Mississippi at age 16 to begin studies at the HBCU and alma mater of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He holds a master’s degree in African American Studies from Temple University and a Ph.D. in Religion from Princeton University.
Glaude is known both for his inspiring oratory and ability to convene conversations that engage fellow citizens from all backgrounds — from young activists to corporate audiences looking for a fresh perspective on DEI. In 2011, he delivered Harvard’s DuBois lectures. His 2015 commencement remarks at Colgate University titled, “Turning Our Backs,” was recognized by the New York Times as one of the best commencement speeches of the year.
Combining a scholar’s knowledge of history, a political commentator’s take on the latest events, and an activist’s passion for social justice, Glaude challenges all of us to examine our collective American conscience, “not to posit the greatness of America, but to establish the ground upon which to imagine the country anew.”
Kristen Clarke is the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice. In this role, she leads the Justice Department’s broad federal civil rights enforcement efforts and works to uphold the civil and constitutional rights of all who live in America. Assistant Attorney General Clarke is a lifelong civil rights lawyer who has spent her entire career in public service.
Assistant Attorney General Clarke began her career as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division through the Department of Justice’s Honors Program. In 2006, she joined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where she helped lead the organization’s work in the areas of voting rights and election law across the country. Ms. Clarke worked on cases defending the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act, presented oral argument to the DC District Court in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, and has provided testimony on federal and state voting rights legislation. In 2011, she was named the head of the Civil Rights Bureau for the New York State Attorney General’s Office, where she led broad civil rights enforcement actions. Under her leadership, the Bureau secured landmark agreements with banks to address unlawful redlining, employers to address barriers to reentry for people with criminal backgrounds, police departments on reforms to policies and practices, major retailers on racial profiling of consumers, landlords on discriminatory housing policies, school districts concerning issues relating to the school-to-prison pipeline and more. In 2015, Ms. Clarke was named the president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, one of the nation’s leading civil rights organizations founded at the request of John F. Kennedy. There, she led the organization’s legal work in courts across the country addressing some of the nation’s most complex racial justice and civil rights challenges.
Assistant Attorney General Clarke was born in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating from Choate Rosemary Hall, she received her AB from Harvard University and her JD from Columbia Law School.
Caroline Laguerre-Brown serves as the Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement. Caroline directs GW’s efforts to advance diversity and inclusion throughout the university and oversees the Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service, the Office of Disability Support Services, the Multicultural Student Services Center and the Title IX Office.
Prior to joining the George Washington University in August 2016, Caroline previously served as the Vice Provost and Chief Diversity Officer at Johns Hopkins University where she developed their first university-wide sexual harassment prevention training initiative, spearheaded unconscious bias training for faculty search committees, launched a Race in America speaker series and co-developed a comprehensive faculty diversity initiative. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, she held positions as labor and employment defense counsel for the New York City Transit Authority and as assistant director of the Equal Employment Opportunity Office for the Fire Department of New York. She also served as staff counsel to the Equal Employment Advisory Council in Washington, DC.
Caroline is a graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton and the University of Virginia School of Law.
Featured Speakers
President Mark S. Wrighton, PhD, was elected President of the George Washington University January 1, 2022. For almost 24 years (July 1995-May 2019), Wrighton served as the 14th Chancellor and chief executive officer of Washington University in St. Louis. In the years following his appointment, Washington University made significant progress in student quality, campus improvements, resource development, curriculum, and international reputation.
Dr. Aristide J. Collins Jr. is Vice President, Chief of Staff, and Secretary of the University, at the George Washington University. His expertise includes executive leadership in university governance, institutional advancement, facilitating and managing the implementation of Board of Trustees, presidential and university-wide initiatives to advance organizational priorities. He has also served as Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations, providing strategic oversight and leadership during the public phase of the University’s $1 billion “Making History” campaign, recorded as the largest fundraising year in its history.
Christopher A. Bracey (Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs) is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of U.S. race relations, individual rights, and criminal procedure. Professor Bracey teaches and researches in the areas of the legal history of U.S. race relations, constitutional law, criminal procedure, civil procedure, and civil rights. He was appointed to his role as Provost in June 2021.
Dayna Bowen Matthew, JD, PhD, is the Dean and Harold H. Greene Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School. A leader in public health and civil rights law who focuses on disparities in health, health care, and the social determinants of health, Dean Matthew joined GW Law in 2020. She is the author of the bestselling book Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care and the newly released Just Health: Treating Structural Racism to Heal America.
All attendees are welcome to attend the event in person. We require that guests follow the George Washington University Visitor guidelines.
