[Entm-researchstaff] Fwd: CNAS/Black Study Initiative Roundtable

[Quinn McFrederick]

Dear Entomology colleagues,
Please see the invitation below to attend a round table discussion of
interaction and collaboration with the proposed Department of Black
Studies.

Best Wishes,
Quinn S. McFrederick
McFrederick Lab <http://melittology.ucr.edu/>

Associate Professor
University of California, Riverside
Department of Entomology

Shipping address:
Quinn McFrederick
UC Riverside Entomology
Entomology 162
3401 Watkins Dr.
Riverside, CA
92521
USA


Dear Colleagues,

Please join us for a moderated round table discussion and Q&A to explore
interactions,synergies, and collaboration between researchers, educators,
and students across the Black Study Initiative (and proposed Department of
Black Study) andthe College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. The UCR
community and many funding agencies are demanding greater attention to
diversity and inclusion, not only in the demographics of people across all
constituencies on campus, but also in our approaches to academic inquiry
and the systems we study. This roundtable is an opportunity for scientists
to discuss where we see gaps in scientific inquiry and how we might address
these through collaborations with scholars and students in a Department of
Black Study at UCR. In particular, we are hoping the CNAS community will
ask themselves how they might envision a partnership with Black Study
conducive to rigorous and insightful research and education that is
attendant to and is in pursuit of an enhanced understanding of the natural,
physical, and social world we inhabit. More information about the Proposed
Department of Black Study is appended below.

THIS ROUNDTABLE IS OPEN TO ANYONE ACROSS THE UCR COMMUNITY WHO IS
INTERESTED.

*We would appreciate it if you would disseminate this invitation widely to
your networks at UCR.  *

When: Friday May 13th, 3PM – 4PM
Where: Zoom (link provided when you RSVP)
RSVP here: https://bit.ly/3scHt7p
(Please note that if you do not see a Zoom link when you register, you will
receive one separately before the event.)

Moderators:
Janet Franklin, Distinguished Professor, Dept of Botany and Plant Sciences
Kim Yi Dionne, Associate Professor, Dept of Political Sciences

Panelists:
Alejandro Cortez, Academic Coordinator, Dynamic Genome Program
Claudinéia Costa, Postdoctoral Researcher, Dept of Entomology
Aral Greene, Graduate Student, Dept of Environmental Sciences
Flip Tanedo, Assistant Professor, Dept of Physics and Astronomy
Hollis Woodard, Assistant Professor, Dept of Entomology

Support:
Marilyn Grell-Brisk, PhD, Research Associate, Institute for Research on
World Systems, UCR
Helen Regan, Professor, Dept of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology

We hope to see you on Friday!

Regards,
Helen Regan
Marilyn Grell-Brisk

[image: CNAS BSI Flyer with QR code for registration-1.jpg]

A brief background to the Black Study Initiative and the creation of a
Department of Black Study:

The latest demand for a Department of Black Study at UCRoriginates in the
2020 mass transnational mobilization for Black Lives. It dates back to
1968, when the UCR Black Student Union pleaded the case for a Black Studies
department. The institutional absence of such a department has contributed
to repeated waves of Black faculty departures for other universities, the
alienation of Black students and staff from UCR, and a generalized climate
of anti-blackness.

Drawing from Black transformative, queer, trans, and feminist
epistemologies, the department will house and nurture rigorous research,
pedagogies, curriculum, and artistic practices that are
historically-grounded, dialogically engaged in local and global
communities, abolitionist, and future oriented. Black Study encompasses the
social complexities, interconnections, and discontinuities that mark the
African continent and its diasporas in varied times and spaces. Bringing
together an adverse group of dynamic scholars and practitioners of Black
Study already at UCR, its self-governing structure will emphasize the
participation of students, faculty, staff, and Black progressive community
members in decision making regarding all department matters, including
admissions, hiring, promotion, tenure, and programming.

The UCR difference, signaled by our title Black Study, emphasizes the verb
“study” and stresses the engaged and embodied practice of this
ever-morphing transformative project. The project name invokes Black
Studies, UCR’s short-lived department, but is a departure from it as the
singular, Black Study, signifies profound ideological shifts. Black Study
is the insurgent practice (that is inevitably a theory) of curriculum,
teaching, and research that is simultaneously local, communal, planetary,
historical, contemporary, and futurity oriented, straddling various
disciplines in the Social Sciences, Humanities, STEM, and the Arts.

Black Study is a transdisciplinary body of knowledge emerging from
historical and contemporary African, African American, and diasporic Black
experiences. It encompasses but significantly exceeds conventional
curricular frameworks of Black Studies, African American Studies, Africana
Studies, as well as traditional disciplines in the Social and Behavioral
Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts. Black Study emphasizes insurgent
African and Black diasporic queer, trans, and feminist transdisciplinary
approaches to a global framing of Black experiences.

To succeed, the initiative to create a Department of Black Study will need
strong support from a broad coalition of people, communities, and
organizations that intersect with but extend beyond the university. The
Dept of Black Study proposal can be found here:
https://ucr-senate-public.s3.amazonaws.com/issues/updated-deptblackstudy-full-617b1809c18d7-.pdf
Dr Helen Regan
Professor
Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology Department
University of California
Riverside, CA 92521
USA
email: helen.regan at ucr.edu
<https://post.ucr.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=xIn4H8m_QrfXvaCKJvfhKfAepNF5_m_lQzLbY2jR2JEQ_GZU0uDTCA..&URL=mailto%3ahelen.regan%40ucr.edu>
email for phone #
Web: https://helenmregan.wordpress.com
<https://helenmregan.wordpress.com/about/>
she/her/hers
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