The Samuel D. Proctor Institute for Leadership, Equity, and Justice | GSE | Rutgers

The Samuel DeWitt Proctor Distinguished Lecture Series

The Samuel DeWitt Proctor Distinguished Lecture Series includes lectures from prominent leaders in higher education. 


FALL 2023


Black Colleges and the Future of American Democracy: Two Legacies and an Imperative

October 11, 2023 at 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM ET

with John Silvanus Wilson, Jr. Executive Director, Millennium Leadership, Visiting Lecturer at Morgan State University.

Drawing from his new book, Hope and Healing: Black Colleges and the Future of American Democracy, John Silvanus Wilson will explore three topics: the HBCU Endowment Legacy, the HBCU Democracy Legacy, and the HBCU Encore Imperative. He will highlight past HBCU fundraising mastery and the shoulders upon which HBCU leaders should consciously stand when engaging today’s philanthropic landscape. He will also discuss the current mandate facing higher education worldwide –  that is, to shape a new kind of college graduate using an approach that is thematically consistent with the very best of HBCU traditions.

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FALL 2022


Young, Gifted, & Diverse: Origins of the New Black Elite

November 3, 2022 at 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM ET

with Camille Z. Charles, Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences in the Departments of Sociology and Africana Studies, and the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Rutgers Hillel, Cole Tribute Hall, 70 College Ave, New Brunswick, NJ 08901


Despite their diversity, Black Americans have long been studied as a uniformly disadvantaged group. In this talk, Camille Charles highlighted diversity among the new educated Black elite—those graduating from America’s selective colleges and universities in the early 21st century. Members of the new Black elite come from myriad backgrounds and have varied views on American racism, but as they progress through college and toward the Black professional class they develop a shared worldview and group consciousness. They graduate with optimism about their own futures, but remain guarded about racial inequality more broadly. This internal diversity alongside political consensus complicates assumptions about both a monolithic Black experience and the future of Black political solidarity.

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 SPRING 2022


From Moments to Movements to Revolutionary Thinking and Action: Our Long Struggle to Dismantle Racism in Society and Life

February 24, 2022– 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM ET

with Christopher M. Span, Chief of Staff and Associate Chancellor for Administration and PreK-12 Initiatives, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

 

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FALL 2021


The Forgotten Migration: The Black Struggle for Graduate Education in the Age of Jim Crow

Thursday, October 28, 2021 – 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM ET

with Crystal Sanders, Professor, Pennsylvania State University 

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