Are the racist ideas of today the same as the racist ideas of the past? - Tuesday, February 2 at 1:00 PM

This program encourages contemplation about issues of racial justice with an interdisciplinary perspective and to produce a more antiracist culture within the Fairfield community through the pursuit of knowledge regarding issues of racial justice. The two-part event features two panels of three professors from different academic disciplines. These panelists will first individually discuss the evolution of racist ideas within their respective fields of study, and then the moderator will foster an interdisciplinary discussion between the panelists. The event will conclude with an Audience-Panelist Question and Answer session.

The event will be moderated by Sophomore Honors student Pete Baron, the founder of the Honors Social Justice Book Club and an Executive Member of the Honors Student Leadership Board.

Panelists: Dr. Rachelle J. Brunn-Bevel, Dr. Jennifer Adair, Dr. Scott Lacy

Dr. Rachelle J. Brunn-Bevel

Dr. Rachelle J. Brunn-Bevel is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Fairfield University. She is Faculty Chair for Inclusive Excellence and a member of the advisory committees for the Black Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies programs. Her research examines how students’ race, ethnicity, class, gender, and immigrant status intersect to influence their educational experiences and outcomes. She has published her scholarship in several academic journals including the Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, Humanity & Society, and Race and Social Problems. In 2019, W. Carson Byrd, Brunn-Bevel, and Sarah Ovink co-edited a volume titled, Intersectionality and Higher Education: Identity and Inequality on College Campuses (Rutgers University Press). Brunn-Bevel is also the co-editor (with Dannielle Joy Davis and James L. Olive) of Intersectionality in Educational Research (Stylus, 2015). She previously served as co-chair of Fairfield University’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Planning Committee (2016-2019) and is currently a member of the core project leadership team for “Civic Education Through the Promise of Democracy” funded by the Davis Educational Foundation (2019-2021).

Dr. Jennifer Adair

Dr. Jennifer Adair is a historian of Latin America, specializing in 20th century Argentina. Her first book, "In Search of the Lost Decade: Everyday Rights in Post-Dictatorship Argentina" (University of California Press, 2020), reconsiders Argentina’s transition to democracy by examining the lived experience of the democratic return, far beyond the ballot box and corridors of power. She has published scholarly articles about human rights, popular politics, and the history of letter writing in contemporary Latin America. Professor Adair teaches courses on colonial and modern Latin America, human rights, food studies, US-Latin American relations, environmental history, and race and immigration.

Dr. Scott Lacy

Dr. Scott Lacy is Associate Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, Anthropology Professor, and the Faculty Chair of Community-Based Research Initiatives at Fairfield University in Connecticut. Prof. Lacy is also the founder and Executive Director of African Sky, Inc., a non-profit organization that collaborates with hard-working farm families in rural Mali, West Africa. His research interests include cross-cultural knowledge production, food systems, and intellectual property rights associated with seed, and more recently, the anthropology of happiness. He earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology at UC Santa Barbara where he started his teaching career in the Department of Black Studies as the University of California President's Faculty Fellow. Prior to arriving at his current post at Fairfield University, Lacy taught in the Department of Anthropology at Emory University during his tenure as Marjorie Shostak Endowed Lecturer. Since his first years as a teacher, Professor Lacy has received numerous teaching awards and grants from the University of California, and Emory and Fairfield Universities. His unique teaching style is featured in a DVD/streaming course produced by The Great Courses.

Professor Lacy has worked in Mali since 1994 when he first served in the Peace Corps. Since then, he has partnered with family farmers, teachers, community leaders, plant scientists, engineers, and a host of other knowledge specialists in Mali and throughout the world. A two-time Fulbright Scholar (Mali 2001-2002 & Cameroon 2016-2017), Lacy has presented his work as a consultant and/or keynote speaker for Engineers Without Borders, The Peace Corps, The Material Research Society, ICRISAT Mali, the Institute d’Economie Rural (Bamako, Mali), the Guangxi Maize Research Institute (Nanning, China), the D80 Conference, MIT and, Columbia. Currently, Lacy is working on a book manuscript that chronicles over two decades of friendship and collaboration in southern Mali. His non-profit and academic work has been featured in two major documentaries: Sustaining Life by Sprint Features (nominated for a 2009 academy award), and Nyogonfe: Together (scheduled to be released in 2020).

Lacy is co-editor and author of two popular textbooks, Applying Anthropology, and Applying Cultural Anthropology, both published by McGraw-Hill. He has published a number of book chapters and articles that document cross cultural knowledge production in agriculture, community development, engineering, and even nanotechnology. He was awarded a Certificate of Congressional Recognition and Achievement from the US House of Representatives in 2011, the same year he was the inaugural awardee for Otterbein University’s Global Intercultural Achievement Award. In addition to his work as an anthropologist, Lacy is also known for his batik artwork, including one piece that toured the country from 2006-2009 as part of a traveling Smithsonian Folklife Festival exhibit celebrating the US National Parks Service.