CSU, Chico News

California State University, Chico’s Building Bridges program will feature a wide array of activities and events for spring 2001, from exhibits on the Nazi Olympics and African-American inventions to nationally known speakers Morris Dees and Angela Davis.

Building Bridges is a series of events designed to increase tolerance and respect on campus and within the Chico community. The program’s goal is to bring together CSU, Chico — as well as to reach out to other colleges and universities, K-12 schools, the interfaith community, government, and business and social leaders — to build bridges of support to reject intolerance, promote mutual respect and celebrate the area’s growing diversity.

The first spring event opens today Ð the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s NAZI OLYMPICS Berlin 1936 exhibition, installed in CSU, Chico’s Colusa Hall through March 29. CSU, Chico is the first college campus in the country to host the exhibition, which uses reproductions of many photographs and documents to describe the horrors of Nazi propaganda. Many area schoolchildren and other Northern California residents are expected to visit the exhibition.

The next events are two related conferences on the future direction of Chicano Studies in California Feb. 2-3. Scholars, students and citizens from throughout California will be at both events, held at various locations around campus. Friday’s conference is the seventh symposium of the “Desarrollo de Chicano Studies,” an ongoing effort to unite Chicano Studies faculty across the state. Saturday’s symposium is a regional meeting of the National Association for Chicano/a Studies. This is the first time that CSU, Chico has hosted a Chicano Studies conference.

Also next week, CSU, Chico will host the Black Inventors Museum touring exhibit Feb. 5-7 in the Residence Hall Recreation Center. The exhibit presents compelling stories of largely forgotten inventors of African heritage who have made worldwide scientific and industrial contributions.

On March 13, Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, will speak in Laxson Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Dees, acknowledged as the country’s leading civil rights attorney, gained fame for his role in successful lawsuits against hate groups, including a $12.5 million judgment against white supremacist Tom Metzger, which is documented in Dee’s book, “Hate on Trial.” Dees is also co- founder of the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Ala.

On April 20, longtime political activist and author Angela Davis will speak on campus. Her address, the location and time of which are to be announced, will concern the plight of women in prisons. Davis is the author of “The Prison Industrial Complex.” Other books by Davis include “Women, Race and Class,” and “Angela Davis: An Autobiography.” Davis’ visit will kick off a Women’s Studies Conference to be held on campus, sponsored by the Women’s Center.

Other campus Building Bridges events this spring include history lectures, the A.S.-sponsored International Festival, a CSU, Chico choir performance of “Songs of Children,” featuring poetry of children killed in the Holocaust, and several touring bands featuring music from around the world. Below is a list of activities currently planned:

NAZI OLYMPICS Berlin 1936 Exhibition Jan. 30-March 29, open daily, Colusa Hall
Chicano/a Studies Convention Feb. 2-3, throughout campus
Black Inventors Museum Feb. 5-7, open daily, Residence Hall Rec Center
Professor Stephen Lewis, Building Bridges History lecture series, 7 p.m., Rowland-Taylor Hall
Choreographer Donald Byrd/The Group (In a Different Light: Duke Ellington), Feb. 17, 7:30 Laxson
Russian chorus Chorovaya Academia, Feb. 22, 7:30 Laxson
Romanian folk band Taraf de Haidouks, March 9, 7:30 Laxson
Author Malidoma Som, March 12, PAC 144
Fred Persily, director, California Association of Human Relations Organizations; consultant, Calif. Attorney General’s Civil Rights Commission on Hate Crimes, March 15-16, place TBA
Brazilian guitarists Sergio & Odair Assad, April 3, 7:30 Laxson
“Band Around the World” concert, April 7, Harlen Adams 7:30
Professor Susan Green, Building Bridges History lecture series, April 19, 7 p.m. Rowland-Taylor
Author and activist Angela Davis, April 20, place and time TBA
“Songs of Children” choir concert, April 28, Harlen Adams, 7:30
International Festival, April 28, Kendall Lawn noon-10 p.m.
Czech pianist Martin Kasik, May 2, 7:30 Rowland-Taylor Recital Hall

Building Bridges grew out of a CSU, Chico group of faculty, staff and students that has been meeting since August 1999 to discuss increasing tolerance and decreasing violence on campus and in the community. The catalysts for the group were hate crimes affecting the community and alumni, followed by the CSU, Chico Academic Senate’s spring 1999 resolution supporting tolerance and respect, and campuswide meetings in spring 1999 on student safety and community health.

In February 2000, the tolerance group recommended that a series of events and programs for academic year 2000-2001 be united around the theme Building Bridges. President Esteban announced Building Bridges to students, faculty and staff in a memo Feb. 29. “These activities–events such as art exhibits, public forums, or addresses by guest speakers–are designed to stretch our sensibilities and create common ground between people so that we are better able to appreciate individual differences and confront acts of hate,” Esteban said.

The Building Bridges program officially began last August with an address by Glide Memorial Church Reverend Cecil Williams before a packed house in Harlen Adams Theatre. Williams is a well-known advocate for the homeless and disadvantaged.

For more information on Building Bridges, call (530) 898-4143.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2001 at 12:15 pm and is filed under 2001 Spring.