exhibits, discussion groups, community programs, and small performances. I look forward to seeing you at “Walker 10,” an inspiring and engaging place to be!

The LuminaryThe Office of Diversity and Inclusion Newsletter of Emerson College

September 2013

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion has “moved on up” to the tenth floor of the Walker Building. While our relocation from the State Transportation Building addresses our growing needs for office space, most importantly, it brings the Office of Diversity and Inclusion from the periphery of the campus into the center of the community and intellectual life at Emerson. This move is not only an indication of the institution’s responsiveness to practical needs, but also a sign of the College’s increasing attention and commitment to matters related to diversity and inclusion. In addition, this move has created the opportunity to develop an intentional administrative community of practice. The activities on the tenth floor of the Walker Building will focus on issues related to diversity, community action, and global engagement. With several office moves, the tenth floor of the Walker Building is now home to the Office of Government and Community Relations, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, the Elma Lewis Center for Civic Engagement, Learning, and Research, the Office of Service Learning and

Community Action, the Office of International Student Affairs, and the Office of International Study and External Programs. This co-location effort has been established as a model for collaboration at the highest level across departments. It will also serve to increase engagement and interaction around common interests and work, and create a space in which faculty, staff, and students can explore the intersection of diversity and civic mindedness in local and global contexts. Much like an interdisciplinary academic center, the tenth floor of Walker will inspire innovation, program partnerships between departments and with the campus community, and offer opportunities for the thoughtful examination of the ways in which issues of equity, human rights, and social justice underpin our collective work. The partially renovated space provides a natural light-filled program space with flexible seating as well as a conference room, and a collaboration zone where student employees can work across departments. We look forward to hosting art

Moving On Up

Photo by Jeff Mehling

- Sylvia C. SpearsOffice of Diversity & Inclusion

a note from Dr. Sylvia SpearsVice President of Diversity & Inclusion

2 diversity_inclusion@emerson.edu Sept 2013

Kelly Bates, Esq., the founding executive director of the Elma Lewis Center for Civic Engagement, Learning, and Research, is a new face at Emerson this fall, but her background suggests she’ll be a natural fit. “In my early life, I trained to be an actress and a singer before [becoming] interested in pursuing a career in broadcast journalism,” Bates said in an interview with The Luminary. “I’ve also spent a lot of time in the last five years doing a lot of political commentary in radio and TV. I wanted to find a way to bring together my passion for arts and communications with my passion for social justice and for advocacy.” Cultivating a culture of civic engagement in a vibrant arts community like Emerson’s should prove to be just what the doctor ordered for Bates, who was appointed over the summer. The purpose of the Elma Lewis Center, as outlined by President Lee Pelton, is to provide “the strategic guidance, intellectual compass, and financial resources needed to support the civic engagement

Civic Engagement

Staff Feature: Kelly Bates & Suzanne Hinton

Photo by Frank Monkiewicz

Photo courtesy of Sylvia Spears

For Suzanne Hinton, Director of the Office of Service Learning and Community Action (SLCA), the inauguration of the Elma Lewis Center for Civic Engagement, Learning, and Research is a wish fulfilled. “Everyone who has worked in the Office

activities of Emerson’s students, faculty, and staff.” Bates brings a wealth of civic-minded leadership experience to the position, including work as a diversity and inclusion consultant, trainer and legal expert for universities, government agencies, and corporations. The State University of New York and Boston University Law School graduate has also served as a legislative advocate for the Massachusetts Law Reform, lobbying at the state level for health care and human services. But the talents and interests of the student body here at Emerson make the potential for positive social action unique, Bates points out. “There is such a need for communication and using arts for social change. I knew there was a need from the broader social justice

community for the expertise that Emerson students can offer,” Bates said.

By G’Ra AsimOffice of Diversity & Inclusion staff

of Service Learning and Community action from associate directors to program coordinators to students—we’ve always wished that Emerson would have some kind of center for civic engagement,” Hinton said in an interview with The Luminary. Prior to the founding of the Elma Lewis Center, Hinton helped to shape Emerson’s existing civic imprint by overseeing programs designed to foster respect for human diversity and encourage critical and creative enterprise around social issues. “For me, civic engagement means when a person goes beyond being just aware of certain issues, problems, and concerns about a specific community,” Hinton said. “That person is acting to engage and develop a certain consciousness about the issue, which means understanding various people’s power and privilege.” Kelly Bates, founding executive director of the Elma Lewis Center, identifies the fruits of Hinton’s earlier labors as strengths to build upon. “The fact that there are so many

community projects ongoing where our students are making an impact in the city of Boston, whether it’s for children, the homeless or the LGBTQ community, means that thousands of people have already been impacted by Emerson’s thumbprint,” Bates said in an interview. Now that the SLCA operates as a component of the Elma Lewis Center, Hinton envisions an even brighter future for Emerson’s outreach efforts. “I would like to see the face of Emerson changing,” Hinton said. “I’d like to see people from various walks of life coming into Emerson, whether they are students or people who are accessing all of our resources. I’d like to see our students going out into other communities, beyond our two-block radius, so to speak. And I’d like to see the walls of Emerson, in theory, be torn down—so that there’s less of a conception of an ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of Emerson.”

By G’Ra AsimOffice of Diversity & Inclusion staff

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Civic Engagement

Charles Beard Arts & Communication Exploration Program2013 Summary

This year’s Charles Beard Arts & Communication Exploration summer program was a great success! In partnership with the YMCA Achievers, the Office of Diversity & Inclusion and the Elma Lewis Center for Civic Engagement, Learning, and Research brought 19 middle- and high-school students to Emerson from the Boston area, including Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, and Hyde Park.

Our goals for this year’s program were to:• Encourage self-discovery and exploration of new areas of learning;• Empower young students to become active global citizens;• Expose students to a college environment while utilizing Emerson’s resources to provide a hands-on learning experience; and• Showcase possible careers in communication and the arts.

For the two-week intensive program, we developed a curriculum that incorporated a variety of the majors and disciplines offered at Emerson. This year, courses included: character writing, radio, theater and improvisation, poetry, and journalism. In each class, participants worked on individual and group projects, and engaged in thought-provoking discussions about current events in the media. During each course, participants had hands-on experience with Emerson’s classroom and lab facilities. At the end of the two weeks, participants had the opportunity to share pieces of their work with their peers and family members at our annual Showcase. Several faculty and staff members also joined us for the Showcase celebration. Participants shared original works of poetry, excerpts of prose and fiction, original theater scenes, and audio recordings of Public Service Announcements that each was able to track in Emerson’s WERS facilities. Participants also engaged in discussions about their prospective futures, what it means to build a career, the importance of attending college, and discovering what you love to do. Looking to the future, we hope to keep expanding the Charles Beard Arts & Communication Exploration program to bring more of Boston’s youth to Emerson both during summer and the academic year.

By Jeeyoon KimOffice of Diversity & Inclusion staff

Photos courtesy of Lesley Silvia

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Feature Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines “luminary” as “a person of prominence or brilliant achievement” or “a body that gives light.” We named The Luminary with the hope that the publication could fulfill both definitions of the word. Through this monthly student-run newsletter, we seek to showcase examples of diversity within the Emerson College community and beyond so that we may lead by example and, through the power of the written word, promote inclusive excellence at Emerson. The Luminary seeks to illuminate all of the facets of human identity, including race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, and nationality; and to encourage members of our community to engage critically with diversity. Archives of The Luminary can be found online through the Diversity & Inclusion website. Monthly editions of The Luminary are distributed electronically to all students, faculty, and staff, and we seek to showcase the voices of our readers as well. If you have an article, interview, opinion editorial, or any other piece of writing that would help to further Emerson’s Inclusive Excellence initiative, send us an e-mail at diversity_inclusion@emerson.edu. We are always looking for new contributors!

Want to be a Luminary?

As a graduate and former instructor at Emerson, Robert Amelio brings a uniquely informed perspective to his new post as Director of Diversity Education and Human Relations. “When I was here as a graduate student and teaching here obviously, no one really talked about the term diversity—not just here, but anywhere,” Amelio reflected in an interview with The Luminary. “And what I’m aware of now, first of all, is there is attention being paid to inclusion and diversity.” Raised in a Roman-Catholic family that strongly encouraged his inclination toward issues of social justice, Amelio earned a masters degree in social work at Emerson before becoming Director of Diversity at Harvard Medical School in the 1990s. Amelio is encouraged by Emerson’s progress with inclusion in his absence. “What I see happening with it is that it’s more than just about race, which is one

Staff Feature: Robert Amelio

important piece of diversity and inclusion, but only one piece of it. [The office] is focused on lots of elements of diversity, which I think makes it easier for people to understand, to buy in to, to want to promote,” he said. “When I was here at Emerson years ago, very little was said about LGBTQ issues. And now, it’s right on the forefront. Emerson is the number one gay-friendly school according to [the] Princeton Review,” says Amelio, who married his partner of 24 years in 2004 when Massachusetts first legally authorized it. “I was really impressed with what one of the fraternities did about a year or so ago when they helped raise money for an individual’s gender change operation. And those kinds of things weren’t talked about, seen, or done very much when I was here before.” Amelio invites students to contact him at the Office of Diversity and Inclusion directly via phone or email to help him keep a finger on the pulse of student life and events. “I see myself as working as a partner to the Student Affairs office,” says Amelio. “I hope students will feel very comfortable coming to this office, talking with us and introducing themselves.”

By G’Ra AsimOffice of Diversity & Inclusion staff

Introducing the

Office of Diversity and Inclusion Library The Office of Diversity and Inclusion Library contains an eclectic catalog of both fiction and non-fiction titles covering a range of works related to diversity and inclusion. The library was created with the goal of providing the Emerson community with these titles, including some written by faculty. You may be looking for texts to add to your courses or readings for discussion groups. No matter where you are on your personal or professional journey into the exploration of inclusion, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion Library has something for you. To loan a book from the Diversity and Inclusion Library stop by our office in the Walker Building, 120 Boylston Street, on the 10th floor. Reservations can be made by phone to (617) 824-8528 or by email to diversity_inclusion@emerson.edu. Reservations will be held for 24-hours before they are released. See the Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s page at emerson.edu for a complete catalog of available titles. Suggestions for additional texts are welcome. Please email diversity_inclusion@emerson.edu if you have a book you would like to recommend for our library.

Events

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Bilingualism in AmericaLecture/Discussion with Emerson Professors: Tamera Marko, Cindy Rodriguez, Flora Gonzalez, Christina MarinMonday, September 16, 6:00 p.m.Multipurpose Room, located in Piano Row The Different Flavors of Latin AmericaLive Latin Band Night with Cuban/Mexican/Venezuelan Food!Thursday, September 19, 7:00 p.m.Cabaret, located in Little Building Latinos Shaping AmericaTheater PerformanceMonday, September 23, 7:00 p.m.Cabaret, located in Little Building Spoken Word Artist Carlos GómezPerformanceThursday, September 26, 7:00 p.m.Multipurpose Room, located in Piano Row Poet Mayda Del VallePerformanceMonday, September 30, 7:00 p.m.Multipurpose Room, located in Piano Row

Come Salsa, Merengue, Bachata with Us!Dance ClassWednesday, October 2, 7:00 p.m.Cabaret, located in Little Building

For more information, please contact the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs & GLBTQ Resources at 617-824-8637.

Other Campus Events

Book Celebration for Wendy WaltersThursday, September 19, 5:30-7:00 p.m.Iwasaki Library, Walker BuildingWriting, Literature, & Publishing Associate Professor Wendy Walters specializes in African American literature. Her latest book, Archives of the Black Atlantic: Reading Between Literature and History was published this year by Routledge and examines archival references in black historical literature, taking a new, interdisciplinary approach to the texts. Members of the Emerson community as well as the general public are invited to celebrate Dr. Walters’s new book with refreshments at the Iwasaki library. For more information, please contact Ashley_Alexander@emerson.edu.

Bright Lights: Ameer Got His GunThursday, September 19, 7:00-9:00 p.m.Bright Family Screening Room, Paramount CenterDirected by Naomi Levari, this documentary tells the strory of Ameer Abu Ria, an 18-year-old Muslim Arab boy living in Israel. Although exempt from the country’s mandatory military service because of his background, Ameer volunteers for the Israeli armed forces in an effort to pave the way for equality. The director will hold a question-and-answer session with the audience over Skype. For more information about this event, please contact Anna_Feder@emerson.edu.

A Global Party hosted by IGSOSaturday, September 21, 5:00 p.m.Bill Bordy Theater, 216 Tremont St.The International Graduate Student Organization (IGSO) is hosting a global party to celebrate the cultural diversity within the graduate programs at Emerson. There will be multicultural food and fun cultural events at the party, and all graduate students are welcome to attend. For more information, please e-mail igso.emerson@gmail.com.

columbinusPresented by the United States Theatre ProjectSeptember 17-29; multiple showsJackie Liebergott Black Box Theatre, Paramount CenterIn 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, two seniors at a suburban Colorado high school, murdered 12 students and one teacher before

Emerson Events for Latin American Heritage Month Sponsored by Amigos, Emerson Mane Events, and Emerson Poetry Project

Photo from Multicultural Center

Photo from film’s Facebook page

Events

6 diversity_inclusion@emerson.edu Sept 2013

Executive EditorsSylvia SpearsAlayne FioreRobert Amelio

EditorBlake Campbell

DesignJudy Jun

Copy EditorBlake Campbell

Advisory GroupG’Ra AsimJeeyoon KimAndrea GordilloJudy Jun

Published monthly by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion

diversity_inclusion@emerson.edu

Send news suggestions and tips to diversity_inclusion@emerson.

shooting themselves, sending ripples of horror and grief across the nation. This poignant production incorporates survivor testimony and interviews with teenagers across the country, examining the dark side of American adolescence. For tickets and more information, visit artsemerson.org.

The Violence Divide: Race and Class Disparities in the Media’s Response to Gun ViolenceThursday, September 19, 7:00 p.m.Jackie Liebergott Black Box Theatre, Paramount CenterArtsEmerson and the Elma Lewis Center for Civic Engagement, Learning, and Research will hold this panel discussion in conjunction with columbinus. Moderated by Kelly Bates, executive director of the Elma Lewis Center, the discussion will focus on the influence of race and class disparities in societal and media responses to urban versus suburban acts of violence. The panelists include Betty Shoels, the aunt of the only African American student killed at Columbine, and Phillip Martin, a reporter for WGBH radio. For more information, visit artsemerson.org.

Big WordsSaturday, September 28, 7:30 p.m.Sunday, September 29, 1:30 p.m.Bright Family Screening Room, Paramount CenterNeil Drumming’s new drama explores the tense relations between three former members of a promising hip-hop group on the night of President Obama’s 2008 election. A meditation on regret and disappointment that examines issues of race, sexual orientation, politics, and class, Big Words has received critical acclaim in the New York Times and accolades at several film festivals. For tickets and more information, visit artsemerson.org.

Boston Area Events

Loïs Mailou JonesNow to October 14, 2013Bernard and Barbara Stern Shapiro Gallery (Gallery 231)Museum of Fine Arts, Boston465 Huntington AvenueBoston, MA 02115Loïs Mailou Jones (1905-1998) was a native Bostonian, African American artist, and influential painter of the Harlem Renaissance. This exhibition spans the length of her career, from early designs from her days as a student

at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts to the stunning internationally influenced paintings of her later years. Don’t miss your chance to see this remarkable celebration of a truly multicultural artist.

She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab WorldNow to January 12, 2014Henry and Lois Foster Gallery (Gallery 158)Museum of Fine Arts, Boston465 Huntington AvenueBoston, MA 02115This exhibition showcases the work of 12 pioneering female photographers from the Arab world. Spanning a wide range of subjects and styles, their work engages with Middle Eastern cultures, identity, and sociopolitical issues with sophistication and originality.

Sacred Pages: Conversations about the Qur’anNow to February 23, 2014E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation Gallery (Gallery 178)Museum of Fine Arts, Boston465 Huntington AvenueBoston, MA 02115This exhibition showcases 25 examples of pages from the Qur’an, from medieval times to today. It engages with modern notions of Islam and Islamic art, with labels written by 24 Boston-area Muslims from all walks of life.

Jhumpa Lahiri in Conversation with William CorbettMonday, October 7, 5:30 p.m.Coolidge Corner Theatre290 Harvard St.Brookline, MA 02446Hosted by the Brookline Booksmith, Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiri will be appearing in conversation with renowned poet William Corbett. Tickets for the event are $27.95 plus tax and include one copy of The Lowland, Lahiri’s new novel for which she was recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. For more information, visit brooklinebooksmith.com/tickets or call 617-566-6660.

Photo from mediabistro.com