Past Events Archive
Year of Democracy Featured Events
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U-M Community
Political Speech and The Public Square
September 24, 2024 | 12pm-12:50 pm | The Diag
The University of Michigan is an institution with diverse communities, interests and opinions. This fall, the Faculty Senate Office, supported by Year of Democracy, Civic Empowerment, and Global Engagement, the Michigan in Washington (MIW) program, and the Ginsberg Center, is launching the series – Political Speech and the Public Square – to provide a forum for members of the U-M community to present informed, fact-based perspectives, and to listen to and learn from each other. In his essay, “Education as a Space to Change Your Mind,” philosopher Troy Jollimore reminds us of Socrates’ commitment to open-mindedness: “It requires that we work toward developing a sense of the world as a vast and complex place that we can, and ought to, continue to learn about for the rest of our lives.”
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Offered in this spirit of intellectual humility, to support the principles of academic freedom, and to develop a campus climate comfortable with hearing different well-informed points of view, even those counter to one’s own views, the lunchtime series will take place on the Diag on four biweekly Tuesdays in September and October leading up to the general election. Any student, staff, or faculty member of the University can sign up in advance to speak on the weekly topic for 2 minutes. Or you can simply come to listen and learn.
Considering the importance of the November elections, our focus for Fall 2024 will be “What’s at Stake for Me in the November Elections,” and each week will focus on a particular issue related to policy and the election. The first issue, on September 10, will be Climate Change Policy, an issue that many students consider vital to their decisions about which candidates to support. Topics for the other three dates will be generated by polling.
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U-M Community
Center for Emerging Democracies Roundtable: Democracy and the University
September 24, 2024 | 4:00 pm | Michigan League and Zoom
Universities are meant to be havens for the practice of democracy, laboratories for the study of democracy, and vanguards for the advancement of democracy. Recent controversial events on university campuses and disturbing wider trends toward democratic backsliding raise the question of how democracy and the university interact with unprecedented urgency. This roundtable gathers leaders from centers for the study of democracy around the nation to discuss how universities can best live up to their democratic commitments – locally, nationally, and globally.
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Public
Vivian R. Shaw Lecture featuring Melissa Harris-Perry
September 23, 2024 | 5:30 pm | Rackham Amphitheatre (4th floor)
The Department of Women’s & Gender Studies and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan proudly present Melissa Harris-Perry as the 2024 Vivian R. Shaw Lecturer.
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Professor Melissa Harris-Perry is the Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University. She is author of the award-winning Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought, and Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. Professor Harris-Perry is founder and president of the Anna Julia Cooper Center whose mission is to advance justice through intersectional scholarship and action.
Established in 1997, the Vivian R. Shaw Lecture is presented biennially by the Institute for Research on Women & Gender and the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan. Established in 1997 by Ellen Agress, this lecture addresses “real world issues” related to women and gender.
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Public
Mike Ford & Jason Carter to Speak: How DO we Run Fair, Safe Elections?
September 11, 2024 | 5:30pm | Joan and Sanford Weill Hall, Annenberg Auditorium (Room 1120)
Join the Ford Presidential Foundation and our partners, The Carter Center, More Perfect, and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at University of Michigan, as we examine the inner workings of the election process as well as expectations for staff conduct around elections. This series has been developed in partnership with Principles for Trusted Elections and More Perfect's Sustainable Democracy Goals.
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Co-chaired by Mike Ford (son of President Ford) and Jason Carter (grandson of President Carter), the Principles for Trusted Elections is an effort to bring awareness to the process insuring fair, safe, and secure elections. More Perfect's "Five Democracy Goals" were created to support key cornerstones of a sustainable and vigorous democracy.
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