Grace Pusey ’15 leads a tour for Bryn Mawr alumnae (October 2015). Photograph by Monica Mercado.

by Monica Mercado

This weekend, the Black at Bryn Mawr Fall Workshop will explore the role that race plays in students’ own and others’ identities on campus. With summer research funding from the Provost’s Office, workshop leader Grace Pusey ’15 has organized an intensive two-day reading, writing, and discussion-based workshop for current undergrads, supported by Bryn Mawr’s Pensby Center and The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women’s Education.

When Grace proposed the workshop to us, she outlined a number of objectives that might use the Black at Bryn Mawr project as a point of departure, including:

• learning to recognize how racial power dynamics impact themselves and others on campus;
• exploring concepts of power, privilege, and oppression related to race;
• strengthening competencies in reading, writing, and discussing critical theory; and,
• deepening students’ understanding of how history can be used as a tool for social justice on campus and beyond.

These goals will be accomplished through a blend of experiential and text-based learning activities. Unable to participate? We’ll be using this space to reflect on the workshop in the weeks ahead, but check out the syllabus, after the jump, and read along with us. Continue reading →

by Monica Mercado

Good question!

I’ve been invited by the Bryn Mawr College Pensby Center to kick off this year’s Diversity Conversations programming with a look at the past, present, and future of the Black at Bryn Mawr project. During 2015-2016, I will continue to manage the project, providing new research and integrating it with my teaching and the work of the Greenfield Digital Center. I feel the loss of the project’s creators, Emma Kioko ’15 and Grace Pusey ’15 greatly — their energy and expertise made Emma’s idea for a Black history walking tour real, and far more successful than we ever could have imagined at this time last year. Our students graduate, and move on in their research and careers; talk of sustainability for campus history projects in the small liberal arts college environment must reflect this.

For those who can not attend the conversation, I am making my slides available via Slideshare (click here) and welcome comments and further questions below. Today’s presentation also dovetails with the work I am just beginning as a co-organizer of the 2016 NCPH Working Group “Campus History as Public History,” which is taking applications through October 15, 2015. Can we create best practices for these kinds of projects?

As always, the conversation also continues on Twitter: #BlackatBrynMawr and #campushistories.

from the Pensby Center:

Perry House at Bryn Mawr College.

The Perry House Committee invites the Bryn Mawr College community to A Tribute to Perry House on Saturday, May 2 at 2:00 PM. We will gather on the grounds of the original Perry House (rain site: Ely Room, Wyndham Alumnae House). President Kim Cassidy, former Associate Chief Information Officer and Equal Opportunity Officer Florence Goff, Nia Turner ’05 and current students Khadijah Seay and Danielle Cadet will offer remarks and reflections. Attendees will be encouraged to mingle and share memories at a reception immediately following. If you plan to attend and have not yet RSVPd, please fill out this brief form so that we know how many people to expect.

Attendees are also invited to participate in “Black at Bryn Mawr,” a 60-minute walking tour created by Emma Kioko ’15 and Grace Pusey ’15. The tour, which will leave Thomas Hall at 4PM, offers a new history of the experiences of Black students, faculty, and staff at the College since its founding. (We suggest practical shoes–approximately 10 minutes of the tour takes place on a wooded trail.) Let us know your intention to participate in “Black at Bryn Mawr” on the registration form.