These monthly dinners give faculty of color a chance to connect with colleagues from across campus. These are informal gatherings, but each one will have a theme that aims to get at some of the issues that affect us on and off campus. For each dinner, a few colleagues will offer some reflections to lead us in discussion.
Dinners and Themes
Winter Blues: Enduring and Embracing Amherst Winters
Wednesday, January 22nd, 5pm-7pm
Campus Center, Amherst Room
Lean In or Hang Out?: When and How to Take on Leadership
Wednesday, February, 26th, 5pm-7pm
Campus Center, Amherst Room
RSVP to Attend
March Madness: Balancing our Obligations
Tuesday, March 24th, 5pm-7pm
Campus Center, Amherst Room
RSVP to Attend
Preparing for the Summer: The Challenge of Unstructured Time
Tuesday April 28th, 5pm-7pm
Campus Center, Amherst Room
RSVP to Attend
Five College Consortium Faculty of Color Reception
New Date TBA
UMass Fine Arts Center
Additional Events
Keynote Address and Reception by Professor Lewis Gordon, "Re-imagining Liberations"
April 14th, 5:00pm in the Old Chapel
RSVP to Attend
We will cap off this series of community dinner with a keynote address by Lewis Gordon, Professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies at the University of Connecticut (bio here).
Talk description: Among the avowed goals of diversity is the liberation of society from the throes of exclusion and their concomitant dynamics of degradation and dehumanization. This talk will ask us to add to such a goal the task of re-imagining liberations from narrow liberal paradigms of colorblindness, assimilation, and sameness through a critique of moralism, how we talk about privilege, and the complexity of existential political commitment. Imagination in this context will be explored allegorically through musical demonstration and a radical rethinking of democratic participation.
Additional Ongoing Initiatives
Third Spaces Writing Collaboratives
These writing collaboratives are supportive, participant-driven spaces where faculty can gather and interact as they pursue their writing goals.
- Feb 7, 9:00am-12:00pm, Campus Center 804-8 | Register
- Feb 14, 9:00am-12:00pm, Campus Center 804-8 | Register
- Feb 21, 9:00am-12:00pm, Campus Center 804-8 | Register
- Feb 28, 9:00am-12:00pm, Campus Center 804-8 | Register
- March 6, 9:00am-12:00pm, Campus Center 904-8 | Register
- March 13, 9:00am-12:00pm, Campus Center 904-8 | Register
- March 27, 9:00am-12:00pm, Campus Center 804-8 | Register
- April 3, 9:00am-12:00pm, Campus Center 805-9 | Register
- April 10, 9:00am-12:00pm, Campus Center 804-8 | Register
- April 17, 9:00am-12:00pm, location TBD | Register
The Blacklist: Women Faculty of Color Group (in partnership with ADVANCE)
This group brings together self-identified women faculty of color in order to facilitate mentoring networks, community building and enhance the capacity of women faculty of color as talented leaders on the UMass Amherst campus and in their fields. It also fosters a social and scholarly community for processing and addressing the unique situation of women faculty of color in higher education. Through monthly lunch meetings, social gatherings, and retreats, the Blacklist creates a space for mutual mentoring and support for women faculty of color, and aims to generate discussions of how to achieve balance and quality of life given the desire for advancement and the need for connection.
This ADVANCE funded initiative is led by Mari Castañeda, Miliann Kang, Benita Barnes, and Nef Walker. Please contact Mari Castañeda (mari@comm.umass.edu) to learn more about the initiative.
Trauma and the Scholar
This informal discussion group will focus on the challenges of teaching and researching the colonial and imperial past and how it affects scholars’ mental and physical well-being. The group will meet once a month to share experiences and stories of teaching/ researching related topics at UMass and how to cultivate self-care. Please contact diversity@umass.edu for more information.
