{"id":22426,"date":"2025-08-20T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T16:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/?p=22426"},"modified":"2025-08-20T14:20:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T18:20:24","slug":"african-american-studies-program-reception-lecture-set-for-oct-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/2025\/08\/20\/african-american-studies-program-reception-lecture-set-for-oct-8\/","title":{"rendered":"African American Studies Program reception &amp; lecture set for Oct. 8"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-22427\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2025\/08\/Distinguished-alumni.jpg?resize=195%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"An image of two individuals holding award plaques.\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2025\/08\/Distinguished-alumni.jpg?resize=195%2C300&amp;ssl=1 195w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2025\/08\/Distinguished-alumni.jpg?resize=358%2C550&amp;ssl=1 358w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2025\/08\/Distinguished-alumni.jpg?w=526&amp;ssl=1 526w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 195px) 100vw, 195px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>Detroit Mercy&#8217;s <span data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\"><a href=\"https:\/\/chass.udmercy.edu\/academics\/aas\/\">African American Studies Program<\/a> will<\/span> honor alumni, share important news about the future and enjoy a keynote lecture over food and refreshments on <strong>Wednesday, Oct. 8<\/strong><strong>.<\/strong> The reception will begin at <strong>6 p.m.<\/strong> in the Exhibition Space in the Warren Loranger Architecture Building on the McNichols Campus.<\/p>\n<p>Amy Brandt \u201901 is this year\u2019s distinguished alumna honoree. Brandt works with teams of staff members across the Midwest within the Campus Ministry of Cru, focusing on cross-cultural growth, as they strive to share the gospel with students from diverse cultural backgrounds.<\/p>\n<p>The Karen and Thomas Waters Keynote Lecture, entitled <em>Memory as Freedom Practice: The Work of Arturo Schomburg<\/em>,\u00a0will be delivered by Vanessa K. Vald\u00e9s.<\/p>\n<p>Vald\u00e9s is an independent scholar whose work focuses on literature, visual arts, performances and histories of Black peoples throughout the western hemisphere. An engaging speaker, she served as a professor at the City University of New York for 17 years. The author and editor of seven books, Vald\u00e9s has written on literature by Black women in the United States, Cuba and Brazil as well as the field-defining biography of Arturo Schomburg, namesake of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City. She is the editor of the Afro-Latinx Futures series at the State University of New York Press and is the co-editor of the Global Black Writers in Translation series at Vanderbilt University Press.<\/p>\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eventbrite.com\/e\/african-american-studies-program-annual-reception-lecture-tickets-1099418834329?msockid=0185cb8d39ec6d7816cbdd8a38686c88\">Get tickets here.<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Detroit Mercy&#8217;s African American Studies Program will honor Amy Brandt \u201901, this year\u2019s distinguished alumna, at a reception and Karen and Thomas Waters Keynote Lecture on Oct. 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":677,"featured_media":22427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6],"tags":[3824,59,7039,6164,6165,7037,7038],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2025\/08\/Distinguished-alumni.jpg?fit=526%2C808&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbwnTV-5PI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22426"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22444,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22426\/revisions\/22444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}