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Kenyon Farrow, former executive director of Queers for Economic Justice, will deliver the Coming Out Month keynote address titled “Is Gay the New Black?” on Tuesday, Oct. 18, at 4 p.m., in the Red Pit, Kirner-Johnson Building. The event is free and open to the public.

Race can come into play at any moment, as Dr. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva was reminded during his stint at Weight Watchers. A formula that determined he should lose 50 pounds, dropping his weight to 185 pounds, shocked him. At a height over six feet, with a fair amount of muscle, how could that amount of loss be necessary? “The scale made an assessment about my ideal weight based on presumably universal data,” Bonilla-Silva noted, but the data is not really universal—it is white.

Diversity in the United States Armed Forces has always been a contentious issue; debates about the inclusion of women and ethnic minorities have been raging since the Revolutionary War. Two officers in the U.S. Military, Col. Maritza Ryan of the U.S. Army and Col. James Durant of the U.S. Air Force, participated in a panel discussion on Sept. 26 in the Days-Massolo Center, discussing the evolution of diversity in the history of the military.

U.S. Army Col. Maritza Ryan and U.S. Air Force Col. James M. Durant III will be members of a panel discussing “The Evolution of Diversity: Race and Gender in the U.S. Military” on Monday, Sept. 26, at 4 p.m. in the Days-Massolo Center. They will be joined by Maynard-Knox Professor of Government Frank Anechiarico ’71 and Professor of Mathematics Debra Boutin. Sponsored by the Chief Diversity Officer and the Office of the President, the event is free and open to the public.

“'Islamophobia'” is an irrational fear and hostility toward Islam and Muslims,” explained James “Yusuf” Yee, once a U.S. Army Muslim Chaplain at Guantanamo Bay Prison, who spoke at Hamilton on Sept. 20.  And, it is rampant in the U.S.

After an extensive national search, Amit Taneja was appointed director of the Days-Massolo Center this summer. Taneja comes from Syracuse University where he was special assistant to the senior vice provost for equity and inclusion and former associate director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) Resource Center. The Days-Massolo Center is hosting open houses on Tuesday, Aug. 30, for students and Thursday, Sept. 1, for faculty and staff, both at 4 p.m.

As a child, Spike Lee admits he “wasn’t even aware people made films.” He recalled spending entire Saturdays at the Leto Theatre in Brooklyn, N.Y., while he was growing up, but said he wasn’t thinking about a career in filmmaking until the beginning of his junior year in college. “Film discovered me,” as Lee described it.

Hispanic linguist Juan R. Valdez '93 will present a lecture on Thursday, April 7 at 4:10 p.m. at the Days-Massolo Center. The lecture, titled “Feeling Spanish: The Linguistic Self-Image of Dominicans,” is free and open to the public.

The Days -Massolo Center was formally dedicated on Friday, April 1, during Volunteer Weekend. It is named for Hamilton trustees Drew S. Days III ’63 and Arthur J. Massolo ’64 and is aimed at promoting diversity awareness on campus.  Massolo and his wife Karen unveiled the center’s plaque and Days offered remarks via video.

The Days-Massolo Center hosted a discussion titled “American Muslims and the Crisis of Islam” with Yale American studies and religious studies professor Zareena Grewal on March 3.   As a historical anthropologist Grewal focuses her research on Islam in the U.S.