The Walter N. Ridley Distinguished Speaker Series
Walter Ridley was the first African American to graduate from the University of Virginia, with a doctorate in education from the School of Education and Human Development. This series has been created to honor his legacy at the University and his contributions to the field of education.
Based on the University of Virginia's decisions in response to the Novel Coronavirus, the 2020 Ridley Panel is currently suspended. For more information visit https://www.virginia.edu/coronavirus
SUSPENDED: The 2020 Walter N. Ridley Panel Discussion
The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students
featuring
Anthony A. Jack
Assistant Professor of Education, Harvard University
Tuesday, April 14th
10:30 a.m.
Alumni Hall
University of Virginia
What does it mean to be a poor student on a rich campus? This question is all the more important as colleges and universities continue to take affirmative steps to socioeconomically diversify their campuses. In this talk, Anthony Jack examines how class and culture shape how undergraduates navigate college by exploring the “experiential core of college life,” those too often overlooked moments between getting in and graduating. Here, he sheds new light on how inequality is reproduced by contrasting the experiences of the Privileged Poor—lower-income students who graduate from boarding, day, and preparatory high schools—and the Doubly Disadvantaged—lower-income undergraduates who graduate from public, typically distressed high schools. Drawing on interviews with 103 undergraduates and two years of observing everyday life at an elite university, Jack interrogates the social and personal costs of exclusion that have implications for undergraduates’ objective opportunities and their social well-being.
Anthony Abraham Jack (Ph.D., Harvard University) is a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and assistant professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He holds the Shutzer Assistant Professorship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
University of Virginia's First Black Graduate: Dr. Walter N. Ridley
Dr. Walter N. Ridley, a native Virginian and a respected, accomplished academic at one of Virginia's oldest public institutions of higher education (Virginia State College, Petersburg), was admitted to UVa three years before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision which ordered desegregation of public schools. He became the University's first black graduate in June 1953, and the nation's first African-American to receive a doctorate degree from a white southern university. Throughout his life, Dr. Ridley was committed to the education of black college students and making a positive impact on society.
Sponsors
The 2020 Walter N. Ridley Distinguished Speaker Series is presented by the School of Education and Human Development Diversity Action Council, the School of Education and Human Development EdCouncil, the School of Education and Human Development Office of the Dean, the UVA Office of the President, and the Ridley Scholarship Fund. It is co-sponsored by Youth-Nex, School of Engineering Office of Diversity, UVA Facilities Management, UVA School of Nursing, UVA Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, UVA VP and Chief Student Affairs Officer, Dathel and John Georges Student Center, and the UVA Office of the Dean of Students.
Past Lectures
-
Beverly D. Tatum
President Emerita of Spelman College
April, 2018 -
John B. Kelly, Jr.
United States Secretary of EducationNovember, 2016
-
'The Stubborn Roots of Educational Inequality: Race, Class, and Organizational Culture in U.S. Schools'
Prudence Carter
University of California, Berkeley -
'Culture in Disability in the Global Era: Interdisciplinary Notes for New Research Programs'
Alfredo Artiles
Arizona State University -
'Silent No More: Black Deaf People as an Unseen Culture & Linguistic Minority'
Joseph Hill
UNC Greensboro -
'Mindsets: Helping Students Fulfill Their Potential'
Carol S. Dweck
Stanford University -
'Ideas Have Consequences: The Educational Legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois'
Derrick Alridge
University of Virginia -
'A Broader & Bolder Approach to School Reform and Closing the Achievement Gap'
Pedro Noguera
New York University -
'Mind Bugs: The Ordinary Origins of Bias'
Brian Nosek
University of Virginia -
'The 1954 Brown Decision and Contemporary Educational Challenges and Opportunities'
Margaret Beale Spencer
University of Chicago -
'Diversity in America: Challenges and Opportunities for Educating Citizens in Global Times'
James A. Banks
University of Washington, Seattle -
Dr. Jacqueline Jordan Irvine
Emory University
-
Dr. Henry L. Johnson
U.S. Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education