Academic Year 2025-2026
Annual Report
Presented by:
Dr. Stanley Thangaraj, the James E. Hayden Chair for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Social Justice
During the 2025-2026 Academic Year, the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Social Justice at Stonehill (CRES) welcomed a wide swath of scholars discussing a range of topics ranging from sports in college to US military settler colonialism to Latinx communities and whiteness. CRES played a vital role in various sorts of programming beyond the three lectures that took place on campus. We also set up programming for a college-wide discussion on political violence. The programs and departments in English, Political Science, and Ethnic Studies offered their disciplinary understandings of political violence. As of Spring 2026, the new major and minor in Ethnic Studies now has over twenty majors and minors.
Presented in an in-person format, the programming of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Social Justice was designed to complement the College’s academic curriculum and foster student and faculty engagement in interdisciplinary studies of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality studies, class, and social justice.
Over the course of the year, nearly 1,000 people attended CRES programs, including the Center’s inaugural donor, Elizabeth Hayden. The mix of events ranged from public-facing and student-facing to specific events structured to support faculty scholarly production. The major lectures were open to the public. As a result, in addition to the Stonehill College community, we had residents of Brockton, Sharon, and Easton attend our events.
CRES also fostered student-faculty collaboration and student creative accomplishments, selecting the Hayden Family SURE Scholars for the Summers of 2025 and 2026, as well as the John C. Bailey '75 & Elizabeth A. Hohl '75 SURE Scholar for the Summer of 2026.
Dr. Stanley Thangaraj, James E. Hayden Chair for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Social Justice, along with the three faculty fellows (Drs. Ashvin Kini, Sameera Akella, and Guillermo Caballero) and the Center’s steering committee planned all the major lectures, workshops, and student-facing events on campus.
Under Dr. Thangaraj’s continued leadership and guidance, CRES goals for the upcoming year are to: host four lectures, including the fifth Hayden Lecture, assemble the fifth annual national conference, sustain and enhance our connections with Brockton, continue with writing circles and brown bag sessions for junior faculty, increase enrollment in the new major and minor, support the three new faculty of color who were part of the cluster hire as well as other new faculty of color, organize an external advisory committee, and continue to create interdisciplinary spaces to engage with race, ethnicity, and social justice.
Steering Committee
The Center’s 2025-2026 Academic Year also took shape with the leadership of the steering committee of the Center. In addition to Stan Thangaraj, the members of the steering committee included faculty from across the College:
Administrative Assistant
Administrative Assistant to the Dean of the Thomas and Donna May School of Arts & Sciences Erin Dzierzak has been the permanent administrative assistant to CRES efforts since the Summer of 2023. Ms. Dzierzak is a critical administrative resource in supporting the logistical needs of the Center as programs and speaking engagements continue to be central to CRES offerings.
The Center sponsored three public lectures in the 2025-2026 Academic Year, planned and organized by Dr. Thangaraj with the support of Administrative Assistant to the Dean of the May School of Arts & Sciences Erin Dzierzak, Center Fellows, and Stonehill students. The distinguished scholars and writers who visited campus represented a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences, humanities, sciences, and arts. The events were well attended by students, faculty, and staff, and residents of neighboring towns. In addition, CRES organized programs, discussions and writing circles throughout the year.
Administrative Assistant
Administrative Assistant to the Dean of the Thomas and Donna May School of Arts & Sciences Erin Dzierzak has been the permanent administrative assistant to CRES efforts since the Summer of 2023. Ms. Dzierzak is a critical administrative resource in supporting the logistical needs of the Center as programs and speaking engagements continue to be central to CRES offerings.
Alma Mwangi '28 was selected by Dr. Thangaraj as the Hayden Family SURE Scholar for the summer of 2026. She conducted research with Dr. Sameera Akella, Assistant Professor of Sociology on a project entitled: “Healing Across Spectrums: How Colorism, Blackness, and Femmeness Influence Care and Well-Being of Black Women.”
Their research paper aims to understand how colorism impacts the health and well-being of Black women. Looking at health disparities through colorism, they provide an important intervention into understanding how access and resources for health are unevenly distributed. By engaging with the scholarship on race, gender, sexuality, and health disparities, they assembled the narratives of dark-skinned Black women on social media sites to understand their experiences of marginalization in the field of health. Alma and Prof. Akella plan to present this topic at a conference and submit it for publication with an academic journal.
Morgan Peterson '28 was selected by Dr. Thangaraj as the John C. Bailey '75 & Elizabeth A. Hohl '75 SURE Scholar for the summer of 2026. She conducted research with Professor Sam Goree, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, on a project titled “Explainable Hate Speech Detection for the Web.”
Hate speech detection systems automatically determine whether text contains hate speech, they are deployed on social media today to assist with content moderation. However, evaluating which of many hate speech detection systems works the best can lead to difficult political and legal issues requiring human audits. Morgan collected information about existing commercial hate speech detection systems and helped prototype a tool to assist with audits of these systems. This tool will create visual explanations of the calculations behind these models’ decisions and allow us to collect qualitative evaluation data to supplement existing performance benchmarks.
Thank you for making a gift in support of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Social Justice.
The Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Social Justice launched in fall 2021 as a new home for innovative and interdisciplinary teaching, research, and public dialogue at Stonehill College.
