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MARCH 1, 2001--Peggy McIntosh, a nationally known proponent of gender-fair and multicultural curricula, will join Oberlin College faculty and staff members for a panel discussion, "A Panel of Oberlin Scholars and Peggy McIntosh Discuss White Privilege as an Impediment to Education." The free public event will take place Monday, March 12, at 8:00 P.M. in Wilder Main.
McIntosh is associate director of the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women and founder of the National S.E.E.D. Project on Inclusive Curriculum (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity).
"One factor seems clear to me about all forms of oppression," says McIntosh. "Oppression can take active forms, which we can see, and embedded forms, which as members of the dominant group in society one is taught not to see. I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group from birth."
A prolific author and speaker, McIntosh consults with educational faculty around the world who are working to create gender-fair and multicultural curricula. As associate director of the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, McIntosh provides presentations and workshops for educational institutions, corporations, and diverse organizations on topics including gender-fair and multicultural curricula, diversifying teaching methods, privilege systems, feeling like a fraud, and diversifying organizational thinking.
Joining McIntosh during the panel discussion will be
- Adrian Bautista, interim director of the Bonner Scholars Program at Oberlin College. Designed to provide students with access to education and an opportunity to serve the community, the Bonner Scholars Program has grown to become one of the largest privately-funded scholarship programs in the country, integrating service with the fundmental principles of student learning and development. Bautista also has served as a community coordinator in the College's Multicultural Resource Center, implementing programs designed to increase cultural awareness as well as support student groups traditionally under-represented in higher education. He currently is a member of the Lorain County Department of Human Services Planning Committee, as well as the Lorain City Coalition for Hispanic/Latino Issues and Progress.
- Pamela Brooks, assistant professor of African American Studies at Oberlin College, specializes in the history of resistance among Black women in the U.S. and South Africa. During her graduate studies, Brooks began to document the struggles of Black women within the Civil Rights movement. By expanding the scope of her research to include working-class women's resistance in South Africa and other parts of the African Diaspora, Brooks was able to complete her Ph.D. dissertation, "Boycotts, Buses, and Passes: Black Women's Resistance in Montgomery, Alabama, and Johannesburg, South Africa from Colonization to 1960." Brooks continues research in preparation for a book on this same topic.
- Adrienne Lash Jones, emeritus associate professor and former chair of the Department of African-American Studies at Oberlin College. Jones, an active scholar in the fields of women's and African-American history, has made major contributions to The Encyclopedia of Cleveland's History, Black Women in America: An Encyclopedia of Black Women's History, and Epic Lives: One Hundred Black Women Who Made a Difference. Currently, Jones is editing a volume on philanthroupy in the African-American experience and is writing a history of African-American women's involvement in the Young Women's Christian Association of the United States, 1860-1980. Jones is an active participant in civic, social, and cultural affairs, and is currently serving on the Board of Trustees of the Western Reserve Historical Society and as the Vice President of the Board of Trustees of the National YWCA.
The panel discussion, sponsored by the Hewlett Committee, is made possible through a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation that is allowing Oberlin College to undertake a multi-year initiative to nurture the sense of campus community and improve dialogue about multicultural issues.
The initiative, now in its third year, is designed to teach and reinforce cooperation and communication skills through integrated curricular and co-curricular activities, including community service projects, new approaches to pedagogy, presentations, courses, and faculty and staff diversity workshops.
Media Contact: Sue Kropp
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