The Chancellor’s Call to Action to Address Racism & Social Injustice Research Symposium
October 6–7, 2022
The Chancellor’s Call to Action to Address Racism & Social Injustice Research Program is a commitment by our university to put the need to address systemic racism and generationally embedded racial disparity into concrete action. This inaugural research symposium will showcase our university-wide efforts to find new solutions, including the 22 projects funded during the first year of the program.
Please complete both registration forms to attend the entire symposium.
Please register by October 3, 2022. Submit a question to be considered for Q&A with Dr. Kendi by September 27, 2022.
To request disability-related accommodations for this event, please email diversity@illinois.edu. Early requests are strongly encouraged to allow sufficient time to meet your access needs.
Keynote Conversation with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
October 6 at 5:30 p.m.
Spurlock Museum of World Cultures
600 S. Gregory Street, Urbana
Moderated by Vice Chancellor Sean C. Garrick
Registration is now closed.
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the founding director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News racial justice contributor.
Dr. Kendi is the author of many highly acclaimed books including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, making him the youngest ever winner of that award. He had also produced five straight #1 New York Times bestsellers, including How to Be an Antiracist, Antiracist Baby, and Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored by Jason Reynolds. In 2020, Time magazine named Dr. Kendi one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the Genius Grant. His next two books, coming out in June, are How to Raise an Antiracist and the picture book, Goodnight Racism.
Symposium Presentations and Poster Session
October 7 at 8:30 a.m.
Opening remarks begin at 9 a.m.
Levis Faculty Center
919 W. Illinois Street, Urbana
Registration is now closed.
The recipients of the 2021–2022 Call to Action grants will present their research at the symposium in presentations and a poster session.
About the Research Program
The Chancellor’s Call to Action to Address Racism & Social Injustice Research Symposium is part of a larger commitment by our university to find new solutions to address systemic racism and generationally embedded racial disparity. This symposium will feature the work of the projects funded during the first year of the program.
Announced by Chancellor Robert J. Jones in July 2020, the Call to Action includes a $2 million annual commitment designed to quickly and permanently transform the way our own university supports, prioritizes and recognizes the research of scholars working on issues of systemic racism in the United States. Chancellor Jones has also charged a steering committee and four working groups to identify the work that we must commit to now in order to create a campus that is free of structural and systemic racism and bias.
Twenty-two projects were funded the first year. Principal Investigators leading the funded proposals represent eight colleges and two administrative units across 17 departments, from disciplines spanning the life sciences and social sciences to public engagement resources.
The Chancellor’s Call to Action to Address Racism & Social Injustice Research Program is administratively supported by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, the Chancellor, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, or The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.