Marlboro College presents panel discussion on racial bias

MARLBORO — Marlboro College is pleased to welcome the local community to a panel discussion Feb. 28 on racial bias through historic, institutionalized, and lived perspectives.

This event, titled “What is 'Woke,' and are you it?,” is hosted by the Marlboro College Alumni Speaker Series and Living in Color, with support from Diversity and Inclusion Task Force and Events and Lectures Committee.

It will take place at 3:30 p.m., in the Snyder Center for the Visual Arts, Magnet Classroom, and is free and open to the public.

Three eminent scholars will explore ways to continue our journey into discussing and understanding racial bias, drawing from their unique perspectives and experiences, and will respond to questions. Participants include Jenna Chandler-Ward '92, Shanta Lee Gander, and Julie Pham.

Jenna Chandler-Ward is co-founder of Teaching While White, an organization that promotes investigating whiteness in the classroom and making both teachers and students more racially literate.

She is also a founder and co-director of the Multicultural Teaching Institute, which produces workshops and a conference for educators on issues of equity and inclusion. Learn more at teachingwhilewhite.org/team.

Shanta Lee Gander is a multidisciplinary artist - a photographer, poet, investigative journalist, and arts advocate - as well as a business consultant.

She is an editor for Mount Island, a literary magazine focused on rural LGBTQ and POC voices, and co-author of Ghosts of Cuba: An Interracial Couple's Exploration of Cuba in the Age of Trump, to be published later this year by Green Writer's Press. She is currently completing an MFA in creative nonfiction and poetry at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Learn more at www.shantaleegander.com.

Julie Pham, is vice president of community engagement at Washington Technology Industry Association. She is also a contributor to Forbes magazine, focusing on stories about businesses owned by people of color, and founder of Sea Beez, a capacity-building program for Seattle's ethnic media.

She is recipient of the German Marshall Memorial Fellowship and other fellowships, and earned her Ph.D. in history at Cambridge University as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Learn more at southseattleemerald.com/2020/02/02/opinion-want-to-practice-awakening-in-a-woke-unwoke-world.

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