The Article below was published in Vol. 136, Issue 6 of the Lake Forest College Stentor on March 12, 2021.
Emma Overton ’21
Editor-in-Chief and News Editor
A #1 New York Times best-selling author, the youngest-ever winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and Director and Founder of the Center for Anti-Racism Research at Boston University, and author of How To Be An Antiracist, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi was recently announced as a speaker at the Inaugural Event of the upcoming Lake Forest College Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Summit. At the virtual event, scheduled for Wednesday, March 31 at 4:30 p.m., Kendi will be in conversation with Dr. RL Watson, Lake Forest College Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies. Kendi’s visit complements the ongoing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives at the College, including the “Choose Anti-racism” video series, a “digital library of short educational videos…that reflects on each of the chapters from Dr. Ibram Kendi’s work,” according to the College’s website. Summit Co-Chairs, Associate Dean of Faculty, Director of the Office of Faculty Development, and Professor of History Anna Jones and Director of the Intercultural Relations Office, Claudia Ramirez Islas, explain that Kendi’s upcoming visit “is a wonderful culmination of all the work of this year,” noting that Kendi’s book “has been the guiding text for much of our programming.”
Explaining the new format of this year’s Summit, Jones and Ramirez Islas noted that “instead of one long day of programming, we are having several shorter events over a two-week stretch from March 31 to April 14. Furthermore, this year we are sorting people into small-group cohorts based on their particular interests within the broader topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the College.” Jones and Ramirez Islas further stated that they “hope that the small-group cohort model will allow participants to meet some new people at the College, to dig into subjects that they care about together, and to emerge with concrete commitments to how they will change their behavior as they work at or attend the College.”
Editor’s Note: The full schedule of events and the link to register can be found in Jones’s email to the campus community. Participants are asked to register for the Summit by Monday, March 15 at noon.
Encouraging students to attend the event with Dr. Kendi and participate in the other Summit programming, Jones and Ramirez Islas stated, “A lot of what happens at the College that determines whether the student experience is inclusive and equitable happens out of the sight of faculty and staff—in the dorms, in social settings, in student groups. We hope that students want to work with their peers to make those spaces welcoming to all. Furthermore, faculty and staff need to hear student feedback about what we can do to make classrooms and other parts of campus more inclusive. Having student voices in the conversations at the Summit is essential, therefore—both so that students can listen to their peers, and so that faculty and staff can hear student views.”
