DEI Symposia

Guest Advisor: Samantha Garrick - Buckley Alum

 

Everyone should have the opportunity to sit with a friend at lunch, utilize their skills, earn their own income, and feel confident to speak up for themselves and what they believe in. Join Best Buddies for an inspirational and informative presentation and discussion on the benefits of including people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) on campus, in the community and in the workplace. Learn how Best Buddies has forged the way in engaging people with IDD from elementary school to long-term employment, and how you can join the movement today. Walk away with key ideas on how to create and foster a more inclusive world, not only at school, but in life, and eventually the workplace.

Student Presenters: Aidan H., Liza T., Samantha M., Jackson R., Jonah N. 

Faculty Advisor: Olivier Dalle

 

Building from the conversations held in Buckley’s Philosophy & Ethics course, this session will explore how we can talk to one another from both ends of the ideological spectrum, across races and identities, beyond the divisiveness in our current social and political climate. 

Student Presenters: Madelyn K., Vivian C., Nicole N. 

Faculty Advisor: Shiye Yang

 

With the recent COVID-19 pandemic, statistics have shown that physical and verbal attacks towards Chinese and other East Asians have increased significantly. While the majority of these attacks and instances of discrimination have mainly been target towards East Asians, the purpose of this symposium is to address how the recent pandemic has changed the lives of all Asian communities. Racism towards all Asians as well as misinformation about Asian communities have often been overlooked and normalized even long before the pandemic, so we wanted to take this opportunity to address these issues that have long been ignored and have evidently become even more prevalent today.

Student Presenters: Sophia N., Sophia J. 

Faculty Advisor(s): George Russo, Mara Tapia

 

This symposium will look at the causes of decline for students in social and emotional health as a result of moving to remote learning. We will examine” Zoom fatigue,” social unrest, and the lack of social interaction that has led to a decrease in motivation and personal connection. We will share activities that students participate in and offer coping skills can they incorporate into their daily lives.

Student Presenters: FITE Club - Carys L., Yasmine P., Ellie A., and Isabelle G.

Faculty Advisor: Mitch Kohn

Session Description: The FITE Against Bias 

In this symposium, the F.I.T.E Club executive board aims to address the unconscious bias against women found both inside and outside of the classroom from all genders. We plan to discuss the ways in which teachers often possess this unintentional bias towards female students. As we discuss this bias, we would like to focus on how it affects women with various identifiers as well. Additionally, we want to discuss the concepts of internalized misogyny and “mansplaining.” Although these unconscious biases continue, our conversation will extend to working towards removing these biases as much as possible and the ways in which change can prevail. 

Student Presenters: Vivian J., Maxim S.

Faculty Advisor: Laura Bamford, Lolli Lucas, Brittany Daniels 

 

In this symposium, we will explore how Black artists, specifically musicians and dancers, have expressed their emotion and identity during times of injustice. Using art produced during events from the Civil Rights movements through this past summer’s Black Lives Matter Movement, we will look at how outlets have been used by Black people as coping mechanisms to deal with oppression in America. Our artistic analysis will highlight not only the pain expressed in these forms of art, but also the sense of empowerment and community that art provides the broader community.

Student Presenters: Kasey A., Eli M., Ben N., Sophia N., Ryan Y. 

Faculty Advisor: Michael Jaffe

 

In Part II of this series, panelists will discuss with the Buckley community the role of historical trauma and communal/ancestral memory in Jewish memory. Among other topics, we will discuss the role and importance of remembering the approximately 6 million European Jews murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices in the Shoah (Holocaust), amid the traumatic experience of mass murder, pogroms, and antisemitism of Ashkenazi Jewry. Approximately two-thirds of European Jews, about the same number of Jews living in the United States today, were murdered between 1939 and 1945, extinguishing much of a more than centuries-old Jewish life in Europe. 

We will also discuss the perhaps lesser-known, but no-less significant, history and impact of the massacres, discrimination, and antisemitism experienced by the Sephardic/Mizrahi Jewish communities of Spain, the Middle East, and North Africa, including the forced expulsion and emigration of approximately between 850,000-1,000,000 Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews from predominantly Arab Muslim countries, from Morocco to Iran, mainly between 1948 and 1980. These Jews left behind an estimated combined wealth, according to one estimate, as high as $300 Billion in today's dollars. 

Student Presenters: Rachel B., Mahari B., Sophia J.

Faculty Advisor: Michael Jaffe 

 

What is the so-called American Dream? This symposium will take an in-depth look at the concept of the American Dream and its relationship to BIPOC communities. An inspection of both vintage and modern-day depictions of the Dream in media depict a growing critique towards the ultra-idealism and ignorance embedded within. News headlines and studies reveal what the concept of the Dream does not: a person’s race, ethnicity, immigration status, and family dynamic all inherently affect their socioeconomic status. The American Dream speaks to important concepts fundamentally ingrained into a history of American racism and reveals who controls the focus of national consciousness.