Please join the DEI Division Office and Staff Council as we read the new postmodern thriller The Trees, by Percival Everett.

Publisher’s Description:

“Percival Everett’s The Trees is a page-turner that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till.... In this bold, provocative book, Everett takes direct aim at racism and police violence, and does so in a fast-paced style that ensures the reader can’t look away. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance from an author with his finger on America’s pulse.”

The Trees is the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winner for fiction. The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards recognize books that have made important contributions to our understanding of racism and our appreciation of the rich diversity of human cultures. Based in Cleveland, it is the only American book prize focusing on works that address racism and diversity.

The book club will meet at 12:00 noon in LC 206 (Zoom option also available) on the following 3 Tuesdays in June:

Please bring your lunch to enjoy while we discuss the book.

All participants who register by May 27 will receive their own copy of the book to keep. Contact Christine Horwath (chorwath@jcu.edu) with any questions.

The DEI Division Office, Writing Center and Writing Across Carroll program announce an exciting collaboration on a 2022 Faculty Summer Book Read. Our book selection is Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy by April Baker-Bell.

This book brings together theory, research, and practice to dismantle Anti-Black Linguistic Racism, the linguistic violence, persecution, dehumanization, and marginalization Black Language-speakers endure when using their language in schools and in everyday life. Baker-Bell introduces an alternative pedagogical approach, Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy, to pursue linguistic and racial justice.

The book club will meet on Zoom on six subsequent Wednesdays to discuss each chapter of the book in turn. The book club will focus on the faculty experience but is open to all interested faculty and staff.

Register at the link below by tomorrow, Friday, May 20, in order to receive your own copy of the book.

Please join us for an end-of-term breakfast and supportive group work session designed to help faculty begin the work of making their fall syllabi more inclusive.

Work together with your faculty colleagues in a supportive, collaborative setting to start building concrete diversity, equity, inclusion, access, and student support strategies into your Fall 2022 course syllabi. Come prepared with drafts of your syllabi and/or other course materials to work on. Resource materials (and plenty of coffee) will be provided. Support staff and faculty from the DEI Division, Writing Center, Grasselli Library, and other key units will be on hand to help offer feedback and ideas and answer questions.

Classroom instructors from all disciplines are encouraged to attend. Register below by May 23. Participants will receive 30 DEI Champions points for attending.

Please email diversity@jcu.edu with any questions.

Our DEI Champion Badges recognize our faculty and staff members for their participation in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts here at JCU (and beyond).

Over the course of this year, our DEI champions served as leaders across campus: teaching our colleagues and students; receiving extensive training to serve as Title IX officers; bringing a DEI lens to multiple committees, councils, and Employee Resource Groups; helping to support our successful search for our new Vice President for DEI.

They gave presentations on DEI topics both on and off campus, at conferences and trainings and events all over. They led book reads and reflection sessions. They attended lectures, webinars, panels, book groups, and more, all over the country and globe. Some are completing educational degree programs and certificates on topics of social justice, race, and education. Some bring a DEI lens to leadership in professional and academic associations.

Today we honored 45 JCU faculty and staff who received badges during the 2021-22 year, recognizing these and many other ways in which they furthered our university goals for diversity, equity and inclusion this year.

Opportunities to begin earning DEI Champions points for the 2022-23 academic year begin May 26! Watch your email for a registration link for the upcoming year coming soon.

The 2022 Commencement Exercises will be held this weekend on JCU's campus.

Marla E. Pérez-Davis, Ph.D., Director of NASA Glenn Research Center, will deliver the keynote address for the graduate students and Jackie Acho, Ph.D., President of the Acho Group and author of Currency of Empathy, will deliver the keynote address for the undergraduates.