Martin Luther King Jr. Study Day
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. visited Goshen College on March 10, 1960. At the time, King was leading the struggle for racial equality throughout the South. Read the complete story >>
Each year Goshen College honors the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. by holding an all-school Study Day, emphasizing the values and ideals that characterized King’s work.
2013 MLK Jr. Study Day – “Shalom: That we may be whole”
Dr. Wilbert Smith, featured presenter
Dana Johnson, featured author
FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Tuesday, Jan. 15
7 p.m. – Full-length screening of the documentary: “A Hole in the Head: A Life Revealed,” Administration Building, Room 28
Saturday, Jan. 19
7 p.m. – Fiction Reading by Dana Johnson, Newcomer Center, Room 19
Sunday, Jan. 20
4 p.m. – Full-length screening of the documentary: “A Hole in the Head: A Life Revealed,” Newcomer Center, Room 17
7 p.m. – Community Conversation with Dr. Wilbert Smith, Umble Center
Monday, Jan. 21
9-9:50 a.m. – Spoken Word Coffeehouse, College Mennonite Church Fellowship Hall
10-11:15 a.m. – Convocation, College Mennonite Church-Chapel
11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. – Community Luncheon (advance tickets required), College Mennonite Church Fellowship Hall
The luncheon is open to the campus and the wider community. Before December 21st cost is: $18 per ticket or $144 per eight-person table. After December 21st cost is: $22 per ticket or $176 per eight-person table. Please make reservations via the Welcome Center by calling 574.535.7566 (please leave a message if there is no answer).
2-2:50 p.m. – MLK and Environmental Justice, Newcomer Center, Room 17
BIOS
Dr. Wilbert Smith, featured speaker and author of “Hole in the Head: A Life Revealed”
Wilbert Smith Ph.D. is an author and award-winning filmmaker who strives to capture the essence and power of the human spirit. His 2012 film, Hole in the Head: A Life Revealed, chronicles the life of Vertus Hardiman, an Indiana native subjected as a child to radiation experiments that left him with severe physical deformities. The film raises hard-hitting questions about health care, race relations and forgiveness.
Smith, who also holds a Master of Arts Degree in Special Education and a Ph.D. in Business Management, is particularly dedicated to improving the lives of young people. He has served on his local school board, and was appointed Director of Child Development Programs by the governor of California.
On the college level, Smith has also worked as a member of California’s Community Colleges Board of Governors, contributing to the establishment of policy and procedure for the state’s more than one hundred community colleges, and taught in the School of Business at Pasadena Community College.
Dana Johnson, featured writer
Dana Johnson is the author of Elsewhere, California and Break Any Woman Down, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her work has appeared in the literary journals Slake, Callaloo, and The Iowa Review, among others, and anthologized in Shaking the Tree: A Collection of New Fiction and Memoir by Black Women, The Dictionary of Failed Relationships, and California Uncovered: Stories for the 21st Century. Born and raised in and around Los Angeles, California, she is an associate professor of English at the University of Southern California where she teaches literature and creative writing. She lives in downtown Los Angeles.
For more information about the study day, e-mail mao@goshen.edu.
Past MLK Jr. Study Days
MLK Jr. Study Day 2012 - Vincent Harding
MLK Jr. Study Day 2011 – Guests: African-American religious historian Dr. Quinton Dixie and Latino fiction writer Manuel Luis Martinez:
MLK Jr. Study Day 2010 – Guests: baritone Anthony Brown, Latina poet Brenda Cárdenas and the Indianapolis youth-led group Latino Youth Collective:
MLK Jr. Study Day 2009 – Guests: director of the Indiana University-South Bend Heritage Center Monica Tetzlaff and Triple G Mime Group:
MLK Jr. Study Day 2008 – AfriCaribe and African-American theologian Dwight N. Hopkins:
Related commentaries by President Jim Brenneman:
Community should honor the vision and ideals of Martin Luther King Jr. (The Goshen News, Jan. 14, 2007)
King visit historic moment for Goshen College (The Elkhart Truth, Jan. 14, 2007)
King’s dream remains alive for this son of the South (The South Bend Tribune, Jan. 15, 2007)
