Calvin Symposium Spotlights Race

February 28, 2008 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Summary: Calvin College will host a two-day symposium on race March 5-6 featuring talks on model minorities, mixed-racial identities and more.

Full story, plus JPG, see http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2007-08/fen-symposium-on-race.html

Two speakers will address some provocative themes at Calvin College during the annual FEN Symposium on Race.

The symposium, which is free and open to the public, is an effort of Calvin's office of multicultural affairs and takes its name from From Every Nation (FEN), the college's multicultural statement of mission. The broad themes of FEN, as it is familiarly called, also supply the themes of each year's symposium.

"This year, we are really addressing the theme of multicultural citizenship," said Michelle Loyd-Paige, Calvin's dean of multicultural affairs. "It's about how we think about who we are, how we engage with others and how we get beyond the stereotypes."

John Palmer, an assistant professor of educational studies at Colgate University, will speak on "Challenging the Myth of the Model Minority" at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 5 in the Commons Lecture Hall. Palmer, a Korean American, will tackle the popularly held perception of Asians as uniformly industrious, well-educated and indifferent to issues of racism.

That evening, Palmer will continue to challenge misperceptions of Asian-Americans in his lecture "Karate Chops, Geishas, Nerds and the Asian Invasion: Reflections of a Corean-Adopted American" at 7 p.m. in the Meeter Center Lecture Hall.

The next day, Thursday, March 6, Kristal Zook, an author, journalist and professor of journalism at Hofstra University, will tackle the theme "Black Enough?" at 3:30 p.m. in the Commons Lecture Hall. At 7 p.m. that evening in the same location, Zook, who is of both African- and Anglo-American background, will speak on "Sunflower Kids: Multiracial Identities and the Coming Age of the Non-White Majority."

Loyd-Paige believes that Zook and Palmer will appeal to many in the Calvin community, but particularly to the student body.

"Many of our students either find themselves in similar situations or have friends or family members who are in similar situations," she said.

And she is excited about the nuances both speakers will bring to the conversation on diversity and racism.

"We intentionally try to diversify the speakers who come in appeal to a wide audience," she said. "We want to keep the issues of FEN in front of people. We don't just want FEN to be a document that we refer to."

Contact Loyd-Paige at 616-526-6239

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Received on Thu Feb 28 13:59:34 2008