The Quaker Institute for the Future’s 2025 Summer Research Seminar (SRS) will take place online (by Zoom) from August 11-15. The theme for this year’s SRS is Seeking Truth in Turbulent Times. QIF Summer Research Seminars create a venue for Spirit-led research using Quaker methods of discernment and reflection. The SRS is an opportunity to bring new ideas, projects, and research for collaborative discernment conducted as a Meeting for Worship. As individuals share their projects in a Quaker process of collective inquiry and discernment, they often find clarity and new insights that might not have occurred through other means.
More information about summer research seminars is available here.
The Quaker legacy in the colonization of the indigenous population of North America (Turtle Island) was a central theme of the 2023 Friends Association for Higher Education annual conference at Haverford College. Hence, FAHE is happy to share this opportunity to learn more about and participate in the Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools Research Network.
A Call for Researchers on the Quaker Indian Boarding Schools
Quaker Superintendent Asa C. Tuttle, Quaker teachers, and Native studentsat Ottowa Modoc School in Indian Territory, 1877.
Courtesy of Haverford College’s Quaker Collections.
During the 19th century, almost all Christian denominations collaborated with the U.S. government’s policy of forced assimilation by operating “Indian boarding schools.” Now the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) and the U.S. Department of the Interior are calling on churches to provide information about their participation in this program of cultural genocide. How are Quakers responding to this call?
The Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools Research Network (QIBS) is a group of volunteer researchers who are gathering information about Quaker-operated and Quaker-influenced boarding schools. Their research will be made available to Native American tribes and family members, DoI investigators, and the public. In this webinar, QIBS researchers will share some of their findings and discuss their research process. They will invite interested researchers to join them in this work of truth-telling, accountability, and collaboration.
Friends Association for Higher Education’s Quaker Leadings in Higher Education series presented:
Students Speak: The Spiritual and Moral Basis for Valiant Accountability on our Campuses
Tuesday, April 30, 2024 7:30-9 pm, eastern On Zoom
As we prepare for our annual FAHE gathering – Valiant for the Truth – June 3-6 at Malone University, this event gave us the chance to hear the voices of students from communities too rarely heard on our campuses.
Dove John facilitated a conversation among our student panel around these queries
What are the moral, spiritual supports for your witness?
To what extent have those supports come from your college?
In what ways do moral supports for truth telling need strengthening on our campuses?
Moderator Bio:
In 1983 Esther “Little Dove” John walked solo across the country to the United Nations for the cause of world peace, social justice and environmental protection. She started a peace academy, worked as a mental health counselor and started an organization that places musicians in hospitals to perform at bedside for patients. In 1987 she participated in the US-Soviet Peace Walk from Leningrad to Moscow with 200 Americans and 200 Soviet citizens. She worked in radio as a public affairs director, taught education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Antioch University Seattle and taught psychology at Seattle Central Community College. She was site manager of Northwest Indian College at Muckleshoot and now is writing the memoirs of her 1983 peace walk.
How can we support one another (how can FAHE support you?) in overcoming the barriers in our wider higher education community to speaking the truth and holding ourselves and our institutions accountable for legacies of complicity in colonization and identity discrimination? What lessons can we draw from a history in which sincerely felt discernment proved false or was silenced by power or convenience?
Presenters:
Trayce N. Peterson
MA student/instructor Human Rights Practice University of Arizona
tom kunesh
Tennessee Ancient Sites Conservancy University of Minnesota Starr King School for the Ministry
Donn Weinholtz
Prof. Emeritus Educational Leadership University of Hartford
Moderator:
Stephen Potthoff
Professor of Religion, Philosophy, and Peace Studies Wilmington College
The BlackQuaker Project brings exciting news of two unique, online events we will be offering during this 2024 Black History Month.
Monday, 5 February – “Truth and Justice: The BlackQuaker Project Challenges Quakerism in the 21st Century,” a Pendle Hill First-Monday Lecture
7:30 PM – 9:00 PM EST (Zoom Webinar)
Join us for a radical Pendle Hill presentation in which special guest Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge joins Dr. Harold D. Weaver Jr. and the BlackQuaker Project team. Together they will present a new model for healing historical injustice with Retrospective Justice and showcase how our ministry, along with other Friends of Color around the world, are challenging Quakerism in the 21st century with new insights and new narratives. Register here to attend.
Saturday, 24 February – “The Bayard Rustin Legacy Forum”
1:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST (Zoom Webinar)
The BlackQuaker Project and Swarthmore College’s Department of Peace and Conflict Studies present “The Bayard Rustin Legacy Forum,” a virtual symposium sponsored by the American American Friends Service Committee, hosted by Dr. Harold D. Weaver Jr., and moderated by Palestinian-American Quaker scholar-activist Dr. Sa’ed Atshan. They will be joined by Haverford College Africana and Religious Studies scholar, Dr. terrence wiley, and Friends Council on National Legislation administrator, Lauren Brownlee, for a series of presentations on the remarkable legacy of Friend Rustin, followed by an audience Q & A. Our distinguished panel will engage with the 2023 biopic Rustin, which we recommend viewing prior to this one-time event. Register here to attend.
Friends Association for Higher Education’s Quaker Leadings in Higher Education series presents:
Cultivating Skillful Hope: Buddhist and Quaker practices that support transformation and liberation
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023 7:30-9 pm, eastern On Zoom
Daily we are asked to move in the direction of bravery, to stretch in the direction of goodness, kindness, forgiveness, patience, and vulnerability. Yet life’s tender fragility, fear, and anxiety, and our own practiced self-sabotage can derail us from growing and thriving, leaving us fractured and afraid.
In this virtual event, we explore the wisdom of Buddhist mindfulness practices and Quaker faith and practice that support individual and collection transformation and liberation. Centering practices to promote self-discovery, delight, spiritual discernment, compassionate inquiry, and renewal, you’ll leave the session with practices to support you in courageous and compassionate action to live with greater clarity and purpose.
Presenter: Valerie Brown Author, Facilitator, Coach Founder and Chief Mindfulness Officer Lead Smart Coaching, LLC
Moderator: David R. Ross Research Professor Department of Economics Bryn Mawr College
Deconstructing the Master’s Tools: Taking apart the colonial-settler quaker Master’s House
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Audre Lorde’s 1979 response to white women academics, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”, resonates deeply in the field of colonial-settlerism of Turtle Island. Lorde was explicit about the use of racism, misogyny & heterosexism to build the ivory tower, but how were these tools used to indoctrinate and assimilate the indigenous population of Turtle Island on the USA Reservation Agency?
Presenter: tom kunesh Standing Rock lakota oyate desendant Tennessee Ancient Sites Conservancy BA, MA, MDiv. University of Minnesota Starr King School for the Ministry
Moderator: Trayce N. Peterson MA student/instructor Human Rights Practice University of Arizona
Bio: tom was a russian & farsi linguist in the US navy, & has degrees in spanish, religious studies, & atheism & liberation theology, from the University of Minnesota & Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley. tom’s mom is enrolled Standing Rock lakota & had 13 kids. He attends sweats & Nashville Friends Meeting. He currently works with Tennessee Ancient Sites Conservancy.
Friends Association for Higher Education’s Quaker Leadings in Higher Education series presented:
Listening into Relationship: Practices that Connect in the Secular Classroom (Rescheduled from January)
In this workshop, the facilitator models how to use contemplative listening practices that help educators bring alive course content and help students get to know themselves and their peers.
Friends Association for Higher Education’s Quaker Leadings in Higher Education series presented:
Service-Learning Programs and Opportunities for Ethical Engagement
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Practices to advance community-campus engagement that support more just, inclusive, sustainable communities and positive partnerships across disciplines and geographies.
Made possible by the members of FAHE. Your voluntary contribution in support of FAHE and this lecture series is greatly appreciated.
The American Friends Service Committee & The BlackQuaker Project Present
THE 2023 BLACK QUAKER LIVES MATTER FILM FESTIVAL & FORUM
Celebrating the 125th Birthday of Paul Robeson!
Paul Robeson: Tribute To An Artist (1978) & The Proud Valley (1940)
Saturday, 8 April, 1:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time over Zoom
The 2023 Black Quaker Lives Matter Film Festival & Forum will soon conclude with a finale dedicated to the renaissance man: scholar and star athlete; screen, stage, and recording star; linguist and orator, Paul Robeson (1898-1976). Join us one final time on Saturday, 8 April, at 1:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time for not one–but two–screenings in honor of the beleaguered leader’s 125th birthday. We will first screen the 1978 Academy Award winning short documentary, Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist, narrated by film star Sidney Poitier. Following this 30-minute program, we will screen the 1940 UK feature, The Proud Valley, the film of which Robeson is the proudest of having made. Afterwards, Dr. Harold D. Weaver will facilitate a post-screening discussion with two of the world’s leading experts on Robeson: University of Houston Professor Dr. Gerald Horne, author of the 2016 biography, Paul Robeson: The Artist As Revolutionary, and Yale University Professor Dr. Charles Musser, author of numerous publications on Robeson in cinema. All three scholars will participate in an audience Q & A following their discussion. On this occasion of his 125th birthday, we continue our commitment in 2023–after more than 50 years–to return Mr. Robeson to his rightful place in history.
Register here for our final Saturday, 8 April, screening and forum which will begin precisely at 1:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time over Zoom webinar. You will receive a confirmation email upon registration and a Zoom invitation 24 hours in advance of the event Programming begins precisely at 1:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time. Attendees will receive a confirmation email upon registration and a link to join our webinar 24 hours in advance of the event. We invite registrants to join our webinar at 12:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time for a prologue of songs by revolutionary artist himself, Paul Robeson. Please write to us at theblackquakerproject@gmail.com with your comments and questions.
Friends Association for Higher Education 
