Each year Goshen College honors the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by holding an all-school study day, emphasizing the values and ideals that characterized King’s work.
2022 King Celebration: “Voices in the Movement”
2022 Keynote Speaker: Dr. Vilna Bashi Treitler, sociologist and visual artist from Northwestern University
Dates: January 16-17, 2022
About our keynote speaker: Dr. Vilna Bashi Treitler is the Osborn Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. She is a sociologist and visual artist. Her scholarship theorizes about international migration, race and ethnicity and the dynamics of hierarchical socioeconomic structures both domestically and internationally. She has published several articles and books, including The Ethnic Project: Transforming Racial Fictions into Ethnic Factions (Stanford, 2013), a comparative historical analysis of US ethnic groups’ racialization named to the Zora Canon, the top 100 books ever written by an African American woman. She is the 2020 recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award for scholarship in service to social justice. Bashi Treitler is currently at work on a memoir entitled Schooled, about her experiences with public school and higher education, and a related self-portrait series.
Schedule of Events
Students may receive up to 3 convocation credits for attending convo, arts competition & one breakout session
*Events will be livestreamed
Sunday, January 16
Sermon and Discussion
9:30 a.m. | College Mennonite Church
Dr. Vilna Bashi Treitler — “To Set at Liberty Those Who Are Oppressed”
Voices in the Movement Arts Competition*
7-9 p.m. | Livestream only
Monday, January 17
King Convocation*
10-11:30 a.m. | Church-Chapel
Keynote speaker: Dr. Vilna Bashi Treitler — “Domination and Oppression: Theories and Queries”
Breakout Sessions
Session A | 1-2:15 p.m.
- “Church in the Movement: The Role of the Church,” led by Lawrence Giden — Church-Chapel Koinonia Room
- “Music in the Movement: Then and Now,” led by Dr. H. Roz Woll — Church-Chapel Fellowship Hall
- MLK Intergroup Dialogue on Race, led by Courtney Ropp & Dr. LaKendra Hardware — Church-Chapel Room 108 (2.5 hours)
Session B | 2:30-3:45 p.m.
- “Resilience Strategies for the Long Haul,” led by Dr. Regina Shands Stoltzfus & Cathy Stoner — Church-Chapel Fellowship Hall
- “Anti-Violence in Action,” led by Kendall McGhee & Dr. Erika Buhring — Church-Chapel Koinonia Room
- MLK Intergroup Dialogue on Race continued — Church-Chapel Room 108
Closing Prayer Service
4 p.m. | Church-Chapel
Join us for a time of prayer and song as we close out King Celebration 2022 in a time of reflection and call to advocacy.
Read about when 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.
Past MLK Jr. Study Days
2021 – Speaker: President Rebecca Stoltzfus and “Senior Administrators Speak: Equity & Justice in Action at Goshen College”
2020 – Speaker: Regina Shands Stoltzfus
2019 – Guests: Tiana Clark and Dr. LaKendra Hardware
2018 – Guest: Leonard Dow
2017 – Guest: Sarah Thompson
2016 – Guests: Sofia Samatar and Drew Hart
2015 – Guests: Ewuare Osayande and Rev. Kanyere Eaton
2014 – Guests: Anthony Brown and Rebecca Kubacki
2013 – Guests: Dr. Wilbert Smith and Dana Johnson
2012 – Guest speaker: Vincent Harding
2011 – Guests: African-American religious historian Dr. Quinton Dixie and Latino fiction writer Manuel Luis Martinez
2010 – Guests: baritone Anthony Brown, Latina poet Brenda Cárdenas and the Indianapolis youth-led group Latino Youth Collective
2009 – Guests: director of the Indiana University-South Bend Heritage Center Monica Tetzlaff and Triple G Mime Group
2008 – AfriCaribe and African-American theologian Dwight N. Hopkins