Our celebration will take place this Friday, June 18th from 9am-12pm in observation of the Juneteenth Holiday over the weekend. Please see the information below about the lineup of workshops and Zoom registration links. These workshops will occur either during Breakout Session #1 from 10:00 – 11:00 AM EDT or Breakout Session #2 from 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT.
Keynote Address, 9:00 – 10:00 AM EDT
Speaker: Dr. David Harris, Managing Director at Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, Harvard Law School
David Harris has just retired as the managing director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, a position he held since 2006. Under his leadership, the Houston Institute has created a national platform with its Houston/Marshall Plan for Community Justice, an initiative that seeks to change the way public policy is conceived and implemented. The project is designed to amplify the voices, knowledge and expertise of people living in communities devastated by decades of underdevelopment wrought by the war on crime and war on drugs. The Institute’s work is based on developing partnerships with others, emphasizing the directly affected and those working with them.
Breakout Session #1, 10:00 – 11:00 AM EDT
Bringing the Narratives of BIPOC Scientists to Life: Lessons We Can Learn from the Play "Young Nerds of Color,” Tufts University School of Dental Medicine & Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute
This discussion will be led by Debra Wise, the director of the play and co-moderated by Jonathan Garlick, the director of the Civic Science Initiative at Tufts University. Panelists will include Melinda Lopez (playwright), Des Bennet (Dramatrug) and a BIPOC scientist whose story was told in the play. The powerful framing of the narratives will be shared by this team who created the play to tell the stories of scientists who have stepped into the power of their identities throughout their career. The first part will include an overview of why and how they created "Young Nerds of Color." It will also include reading parts of the script as a prompt for discussion. The remainder of the time can be an open conversation through discussion of prompting questions raised in these narratives and what we can learn from them.
Uplifting Black Voices in the Veterinary Profession, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University
This workshop will provide information on the historical inequities experienced by Black people in the veterinary profession, present the results of our anti-racism survey, and allow the experiences of Black members of our community to be heard. The breakout sessions will give participants a chance to discuss questions that are raised during the workshop, centering on actions needed to amplify Black voices on our campus.
Immigrants and Immigration: New Books from A&S Faculty, Tufts University - School of Arts and Sciences
This session will provide an opportunity to learn of new and important scholarship from A&S Faculty. Anthropologist Sarah Luna will discuss her new book, Love in the Drug War, and UEP Professor Julian Agyeman will discuss his new edited volume, The Immigrant/Food Nexus, in an engaging and open conversation.
Recognizing and Working with Resistance, Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching
As we engage in individual and departmental efforts to add inclusive and anti-racist approaches to our curricula and pedagogy, resistance to this work may surface. Faculty may express concerns about time, resources, an unwillingness to sacrifice course content, or personal worries that may look like resistance during meetings or conversations. In this workshop, we will identify the myriad forms in which resistance may be manifesting in your departmental DEIJ conversations and efforts. Once identified, we will share an approach to responding to these challenging moments and offer a framework for responding derived from Motivational Interviewing.
The Office of Sustainability's Plan to Address Equity and Justice, Tufts University – Office of Sustainability
As a sustainability office at an institution of higher education, we recognize the vital importance of social and racial justice in achieving our vision of a sustainable world and the important role we play in repairing, reconciling, and decolonizing relationships with our community and environment along the way. We have drafted a document for action items and ideas for our office to work on equity and justice moving forward and would like to share it with the Tufts community and solicit feedback.
Breakout Session #2, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT
"Long Time Coming" A Conversation with Dr. Michael Eric Dyson on Racial Reckoning in America, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine & Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University
This conversation will take a provocative dive into Dr. Dyson’s new book, Long Time Coming and examine his views on the racial reckoning in America over the past year. As we walk through Dr. Dyson’s letters to Emmett Till, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, and others, we hope to educate, inspire, and uplift our audience through a thought-provoking, moderated conversation. We welcome questions from our audience, which will be fielded through the chat.
Oppression Then & Oppression Now – The Impact of Racism on Research, Public Health and Medical Practice, Tufts University School of Medicine
The goal of this session is to acknowledge the history and impact of racism as a form of oppression on research, public health, and clinical medicine and how the TUSM community can be active anti-racist change agents.
Anti-Racism and Reaching New Student Populations, University College
In this interactive session, we explore how the University College’s non-degree programs may have the potential to expand access to populations that are often under-represented at Tufts. We will provide a short introduction to a few sample programs that have demonstrated an anti-racist approach to their program design, including curriculum choices, marketing, and funding.
Building a Non-Hierarchical and Inclusive DEIJ Coalition, School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University
This workshop will outline the ways in which the Anti-Racist/Anti-Bias Coalition at SMFA has used an activist model to create an inclusive environment for DEIJ work. The goal is to engage and activate as many community members as possible and to create a decentralized and non-hierarchical structure that supports students, staff, faculty, and administration in DEIJ work.
Deepening and Expanding Perspectives on Centering Students’ Voices in Educational Spaces, Department of Education Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice Committee
Our workshop will hold space for dialogue focused on deepening and expanding perspectives on centering students' voices in the different educational spaces at Tufts. We take the stance that listening to students’ voices in all places – teaching, community-building, administration – is essential to sustaining a just, equitable, and humanizing environment at Tufts. We invite students to join us in expanding on why we center students’ voices to make progress on different forms of how we do this work, and toward what ends. The discussion will feature students and their voices, and will be organized around themes of learning, belonging, and power/positionality/authority in different spaces of the University.
Injustice in the Land – A Panel Discussion with BIPOC Farmers on Farming and Land Ownership in Massachusetts, The Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
Land ownership is at the foundation of the food system. Racist policies and practices in the United States have worked to decrease BIPOC land ownership over time: BIPOC farmers owned 16 million acres of farmland in the 1920s and currently own only two million acres, about 1% of U.S. farmland. Land ownership is critical for shifting power, food sovereignty, and enabling BIPOC farmers to build wealth. In this panel discussion, BIPOC farmers will describe their experiences with farming and working toward land ownership in Massachusetts.
If you have not already, please register for the event at this form. For more details on Juneteenth 2021, please visit our website, as we will continue to update information there. We are very much looking forward to this event and hope you will join us!