MOMENTUM Speakers Series

Momentum descriptionThe Momentum series serves as an ongoing dialogue platform and the dean's vehicle for fostering deep mindfulness and productive conversations.

Its primary aim is to close the equity gap, champion inclusivity, advance social justice reform, and deliberately confront structural racism within our educational institutions, both in the classroom and throughout the broader community. Its overarching goal is to bolster optimism, emotional regulation, empathy, diverse perspectives, pro-social objectives, and mindful awareness among all participants.

This space is dedicated to discussing and mobilizing strategies to more effectively support our college’s efforts in achieving equitable policing and eradicating racism definitively

Upcoming Events 

Real Talk About Veterans: Misconceptions, Misperceptions and the Truth

Lessie BranchGuest Speaker: Lessie Branch, Author and U.S. Navy Veteran

Lessie Branch is a United States Navy veteran, an award-winning author and public and urban policy scholar with a focus on racial socioeconomic and political disparities. She uses her skills, knowledge, and abilities to raise visibility of human rights challenges and her public policy training to mitigate the disparities and create policy solutions to close these gaps.

As an equity advocate, Branch works to make the invisible visible through exposing and reframing harmful speech and language in social policy and other narratives. She does this by helping people to think critically about how language assigns and transfers blame for inequity to those at the margins of society. Branch promotes social justice-minded education and restorative social policies that advocate targeted economic, political, and social rights and opportunities and cultivates strategies for individual and collective action to achieve socioeconomic and political gains.

Branch earned her Ph.D., and M. Phil. in Public and Urban Policy as well as an M.A. in Political Science from The New School and her B.A. in Political Science from Fordham University. She is the author of "Optimism at All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama's America."

Previous Events in the Series

  • FALL 2024

  • SPRING 2024

  • WINTER 2024

  • FALL 2023

  • SPRING 2023

  • WINTER 2023

  • FALL 2022

  • WINTER 2022

  • FALL 2021

  • SUMMER 2021

  • SPRING 2021

  • WINTER 2021

  • FALL 2020

  • SUMMER 2020

  • SPRING 2020

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