#SalonsatStowe: Meet the featured guests!

This Thursday, the Stowe Center will present "Unlearning Unconscious Bias," a Salon at Stowe program on the ways in which unconscious bias, often called implicit bias, impacts interpersonal interactions, thoughts, and public policies. Specific attention will be paid to the implications of implicit bias on the criminal justice system. Leading the program will be Deborah Ullman (facilitator), Maureen Price-Boreland, and Andrew Clark. Learn more about the featured guests below!

Deborah Ullman
Chief Executive Officer, YWCA, Facilitator

Deborah Ullman is the Chief Executive Officer of YWCA Hartford Region, a position she has held since 2005. Her commitment to the association’s mission is evident by her leadership, her vision and her continued dedication to quality childcare, supportive housing, financial empowerment and her sound financial stewardship of the organization. Through Deb’s unwavering commitment to every woman, she has brought renewed energy to the mission.

Deb, a life-long resident of Hartford, had a long and varied career in senior management in the insurance and financial services industry, including more than 20 years at Aetna. She sat on numerous insurance and securities industry committees and holds several financial services designations. Deb is a graduate of Lafayette College and lives in West Hartford with her husband, son and a golden retriever. In her spare time, Deb is a fiber artist including knitting and weaving. She serves on the Board of Trustees of the YWCA Retirement Fund, and as Vice President of the Board of Directors of Connecticut Association of Nonprofits. She was also appointed to serve on Council on Developmental Services for the State of CT Department of Developmental Services.

Maureen Price-Boreland 

Executive Director, Community Partners in Action

Maureen Price-Boreland is the Executive Director of Community Partners in Action and is a twenty nine year criminal justice professional who holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Connecticut School Of Law.

Ms. Price-Boreland believes that it is critical that we invest in resources and opportunities for those people involved in the criminal justice system as a means of making our community safer. It is short sighted to not offer better planning for the incarcerated population as 96% of them will return to communities eventually. To that end, Ms. Price-Boreland has worked with many partners at the legislative, municipal, community agencies and grassroots level to advocate for improved and more intelligent services for the criminal justice population.

Ms. Price-Boreland serves as an adjunct Professor at Central Connecticut State University teaching criminal procedure and diversity in criminal justice. She currently serves in the CT Sentencing Commission and the Governor’s Non-Profit Cabinet. She also serves as a Board Member on the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Association of Non-Profits.

Andrew Clark

Director of Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy (IMRP) at Central Connecticut State University

As Director of IMRP, Andrew Clark works to facilitate efficient and effective solutions to critical issues facing Connecticut policymakers. The IMRP brings together a dedicated team of CCSU faculty, staff, and students with state and national experts to provide immediate and long-range policy solutions.

Mr. Clark is currently head of the IMRP project team administering competitive grants that aim to provide positive interventions for children of incarcerated parents. In addition, Mr. Clark is Acting Executive Director of the recently established Connecticut Sentencing Commission which seeks to review current and proposed legislation affecting sentencing policies and practices in Connecticut to promote affective, balanced and responsible criminal sentencing. He is also project director for a grant from the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration that is being utilized to implement the state' s Alvin W. Penn Racial Profiling law.

Prior to coming to CCSU in 2005, Mr. Clark served as clerk of the Connecticut General Assembly's Appropriations Committee and aide to House Chair William Dyson for 5 years, where he assisted in the development and passage of significant criminal justice system reform legislation. He also served as clerk of the Transportation Committee for one year, and deputy clerk of the Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee for one session.


Will you be attending the Salon? What do you plan to ask? Let us know below!

#CivilWar150 and the Continued Fight for Equity

April 9th, 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of the end of the U.S. Civil War. On this day in 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Lt. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Georgia thereby ending major fighting and issuing the start of the post-war reconstruction process.

And though the Civil War ended on that day, the issues, that prompted and prolonged the war-slavery, conceptions of equality and democracy, and race relations, perhaps did not. David W. Blight of The Atlantic explores this topic in the recently released article "The Civil War Isn't Over." 

Blight writes:

Much has changed in the fifty years since the crises of 1963—in law, in schooling, in scholarship, in race relations. But whatever the engines of history actually are, what seems apparent is that the legacies of the American Civil War have tended to subside and reemerge in a never-ending succession of revolutions and counter-revolutions.

He continues, highlighting the ebbs and flows of history and divisions that continue in contemporary politics. 

American society seems to surge forward one moment, and then in the next sink back into polarization over race and ethnicity, over the advent of the nation’s first black president, over the rights of immigrants, over religious tolerance and birthright citizenship, over reproductive freedom, over the use of basic science to understand climate change, over the extent and protection of voting rights, over civil rights based on sexual preference, and over endless and incompatible claims of “liberty” about the possession and use of firearms, taxation, environmental protection, or the right to health insurance...In short, despite enormous changes of heart, head and law, Americans still struggle every day to discern and enact that society of equality that the Civil War at least made imaginable.

What do you think of Blight's piece? Is the Civil War ongoing? How do we enact the "society of equality" that the end of the Civil War suggested? Harriet Beecher Stowe helped galvanize the abolitionist movement with Uncle Tom's Cabin and as a result President Lincoln dubbed her "the little woman who started the Great War." What do you think Stowe's conceptions of the "Great War" were? What would she think today, 150 years after the war?  

If you are interested in more Civil War discussion, check out this podcast with Dr. Jelani Cobb and scholar Eric Foner on The Legacy of Reconstruction. On April 30th, the Stowe Center will present Writing about Race with Dr. Jelani Cobb from 5:00 to 7:00 pm.      

#CTPlacesMatter: Rally at the State Capitol

Today, advocates and supporters of Connecticut cultural and historic institutions gathered at the State Capitol to rally in support of critical funding for the humanities.  

 

Connecticut's proposed state budget eliminates long-time state funding for many cultural and historic institutions, including Stowe Center education programming. Stowe Center Executive Director Katherine Kane spoke at the rally about the importance of heritage organizations as economic and quality-of-life drivers for cities and states.

Why are museums and cultural organizations important to you? What do they provide in terms of education, economic, and cultural opportunities? What role do they play in the quality and vitality of our state? Let you representatives know you care about saving critical funding by contacting them via email or phone. Let your voice be heard!