43rd Annual Meeting of the Friends Association for Higher Education
Revised 2/2022: VIRTUAL CONFERENCE hosted by Earlham College and Earlham School of Religion
Conference Dates: June 14-15, 2022
New proposal submission deadline: March 31, 2022
Questions? Email fahequakerconference@gmail.com

Conference Theme: Quakers and Racial Justice

The Friends Association for Higher Education was conceived in 1979 by a group of educators seeking to bring together faculty, staff and administrators at historically Quaker colleges and universities, as well as Friends teaching at other institutions. Since its founding, FAHE has met annually at Friends institutions of higher education around the US and beyond, engaging educators and scholars in ongoing dialogue around Quaker concerns in higher education. From the very beginning, Friends have embraced a strong commitment to education, and Friends schools and colleges have attracted and welcomed both Quaker and non-Quaker educators alike who resonate with the historic Friends commitment to educating the whole person, guided by the Quaker testimonies of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and (especially in recent decades) sustainability.

On June 14-15, 2022, FAHE will hold its annual conference virtually via Zoom, hosted remotely by Earlham College and Earlham School of Religion. The FAHE Program Committee invites proposals from faculty, staff and administrators for presentations related to the conference theme of Quakers and Racial Justice, or other topics reflecting Quaker concerns in higher education.

As a tool for seeking truth as part of corporate discernment and decision-making, Quakers offer queries to provide focus, direction, and inspiration. Queries to consider in envisioning and crafting proposals include:

How have we, as educators, incorporated, or might incorporate, racial justice more fully into the curricula and co-curricular life of our schools?

What can Black Quakers tell us about exemplary models of ministry toward others?

What should be done to make Friends meetings, schools, and other institutions more racially inclusive?

What contributions might FAHE members and attenders have to make to discussions around the need for reparations for past racial injustices?

What lessons have you or f/Friends of your acquaintance learned, in attending Racial Justice Protests, from the Civil Rights movements of the mid-twentieth century to the Black Lives Matter protests following the unjust killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many, many others.

How have Quakers impacted racial justice efforts from the 17th century onwards?  
(Papers may address the lives of Black Quakers, or Black friends of Friends, such as William Boen, Benjamin Banneker, Sarah Mapps Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Howard Thurman, Jean Toomer, Mahala Ashley Dickerson, Bayard Rustin, Barrington Dunbar, or Black Friends still living such as Harold D. Weaver Jr., Vanessa Julye, Dwight Wilson, Niyonu Spann.)

How should we encourage Friends in Africa and address the effects of policies of empire and race on Friends in Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and other African countries?

What can we learn from the lives and witness of Quakers in any of these African countries?

How do Friends in Britain, other parts of Europe, the Middle East or Asia and the Pacific address (or how should they address) issues of racial justice?

Who were the Quaker slaveholders, enslavers? What can we learn from their lives?

Who were the people enslaved by Quakers? What can we learn from their lives?

What can we learn from White Quaker Anti-Slavery Activists, such as Benjamin Lay, John Woolman, Anthony Benezet, Warner Mifflin, Elizabeth Heyrick, Lucretia Mott? How did they model (or not) White Allyship?

What can we learn from the struggles to desegregate Quaker schools at all levels (colleges, secondary schools)?

What reflections do you have on the 1619 Project? On the current anti-racism movement?

How might we respond appropriately to the movements that abuse or use such terms as “Critical Race Theory”?

How have Quakers supported Voting Rights for all in the past? How might we do so in the present, and future?

What is your Quaker response to works of literature by Black authors and BIPOC authors, such as Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, or Colson Whitehead?

The FAHE Program Committee requests your submissions by March 31, 2022.  If you have any questions, please email the program committee at fahequakerconference@gmail.com