The Department of Psychology recently established a new initiative called the Psychology of Anti-Racism Series, a talk series thatwill be held annually. The inaugural event for this series will take place on April 9, 2021, and will feature Jennifer Richeson, professor of psychology at Yale University,as the keynote speaker.
According to Sam Sommers, professor of psychology and department chair,the new initiative emerged from the work done by the Department of Psychology's Equity, Diversity and Inclusion committee.
Sommers expressed that the goal of the series is to provide a venue for well-regarded scientists to share their research on anti-racism with the community, and to allow students an opportunity to network with people in the field.
Chyei Vinluan, a graduate student involved in organizing the talk series, spoketo some of the driving questions for the development of the Psychology of Anti-Racism Series.
"What are the other sources that we want to give the community as well as the Greater Boston community?” Vinluan said. “What resources [can we] give them to help put in a more concerted effort into addressing racism and taking a more anti-racist stance?”
Vinluan, who is a Ph.D. candidate in psychology, expressed her goals for the talk series and said she hopes it can grow every year, beyond Tufts and to the Greater Boston area.
Sommers highly praised Richeson and said that she was a logical choice for the inauguration of the series.
“Dr. Richeson is just a very well-regarded prolific and important scholar in the field,” Sommers said. “Her work is heavily cited and very well respected, and she has honors — too many to name off the top of my head.”
University President Anthony Monaco will provide introductory remarks for the inaugural talk, Sommers said.
According to Jessica Remedios, associate professor of psychology, the talk series will serve to highlight important work and research in the field of anti-racism in psychology, and can provide the community with useful, practical findings.
“Psychology can help us understand … at the individual level the origins of prejudice and the ways in which people engage and motivate motivated reasoning, and how that affects how we treat people,” Remedios said.
Remedios further explainedhow she hopes people will come away from the talk series with ways to understand how individuals engage with and treat others, and discuss how the research could be used to make an impact.
“Once we kind of commit to learning about that, and earnestly try to educate ourselves on that, then we have a responsibility to do something about it … to push for change, to increase equity,” Remedios said.
Vinluan spoketo the possibility of expanding these ideas to the community and shared her goals for the initiative.
"I think in order to address [these vital inequalities, we] need to first be informed of what's going on, and I think that having this anti-racism program is a good start in that direction, but obviously, it's just a start,” Vinluan said. “And there's a lot of other steps needed to make this ideal world become a reality."
Remedios echoed these sentiments and said that she sees the series as a way to spark conversations about these ideas. She noted she would like the annual talks to become a staple for the department.
Sommers agreed, and spoke to the scientific, empirical nature of the research psychologists can provide on questions of anti-racism.
“What we are hoping that [what] this series does is [contribute] to the intellectual dialogue about these issues on our campus and elsewhere, by providing some scientific data on questions that are directly relevant to these pursuits of creating an anti-racist university,” Sommers said.
While the details of the inaugural Psychology of Anti-Racism talk have not been finalized, Sommers said in a Nov. 17 email to psychology students that more information will be available in the future, and that the talk on April 9 will be accessible via Zoom to all who are interested.
