In his 2017 Arts and Sciences Convocation remarks, Dean David Powers identified how we live the social justice part of our mission and identity today as a priority for the College, as well as Seattle University. He said, “I believe that now is a time to stand more firmly within our mission rather than shy away from it in the face of cultural and political headwinds.”
He continued, “Racism, religious discrimination, sexism, heterosexism and income disparity, these intersectional issues are at the heart of social injustice today. Addressing these issues is central to our mission, and I think we need to avoid the current cultural trap of seeing these issues, and particularly racism only as ‘out there’ and not as ‘in here’.”
As a College, we will be exploring matters of social justice, inclusion, and intersectionality together. This page will be a place where we can share resources and events with one another and highlight some of the ongoing work that faculty and staff have been doing in our College. Everyone is encouraged to submit links to articles and other information and events, both on and off campus, that can help us all learn more.
This is a space for sharing events that provide additional educational opportunities, both on campus and in the community. All regular on campus events posted on the master calendar will be automatically included. If you would like to submit additional events, send the following to Karen Bystrom.
Links to the events sponsored by the Office of Diversity & Inclusion and The MOSAIC Center are provided as additional content on this page.
The Dean and Leadership Committee on Intersectionality and Justice (LCIJ) invite members of the College of Arts and Science community to save the date for the next meeting of the Inclusive Conversations Series. During this meeting we will introduce the text and how it can be utilized to make conversations within our college more inclusive. These strategies are particularly salient and necessary given the current conflicts in our community, country, and the world.
This year we will focus on the text that is the namesake for our series. If you would like to get a head start, check out this year’s text and resource videos:
Watch for additional details and registration.
Led and organized by the Leadership Committee on Intersectionality and Justice, the Inclusive Conversations Series for the 2022-23 Academic Year focused on bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom.
Dean's Liaisons
This section is available to share resources and information that will help us all further our work regarding social justice, inclusion and intersectionality. Please send proposed content to Dr. Sonora Jha and Karen Bystrom.
A&S LCIJ Founding Guidelines April 2017, download the Founding Principles and Guidelines of the Arts & Sciences Leadership Committee on Intersectionality and Justice
A group of 55 SU faculty and staff participated in this event, co-sponsored by the Center for Jesuit Education and the Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion. They shared a robust and productive discussion, which centered around the article and presentation given by Bryan Massingale, Professor at Fordham, who invites us to see the very heart of Jesuit Education as the work of changing consciousness about racial injustice. The article can be found in the print edition of “Conversations in Jesuit Higher Education” magazine.
Bryan Massingale presented his talk at the Commitment to Justice Conference held at Seattle University in August 2017. The other conference keynote addresses from Eboo Patel, Founder of the Interfaith Youth Corps, and Simone Campbell, of NETWORK are also available online.
Researchers say that discrimination at colleges and universities may have negative impacts on black students’ mental health. Read the article.
