Cross ’12, Castagno ’12 Participate in Mixed Race Conference

(submitted by Ella Doo P’12)

Rachel Cross ’12 and Alicia Castagno ’12 participated as panel members in a session of the Critical Mixed Race Conference sponsored by dePaul University in Chicago Nov. 5-6.

The conference was attended by academicians and students (primarily graduate students) from across the country. Cross and Castagno co-taught a Wesleyan student forum on mixed race last year and were on a panel discussing the development and teaching of this topic as students. In the question and answer period someone asked how many student-taught classes on mixed race there were in the country. A member of the University of Washington group said that as far as they could find out, only the UW and Wesleyan had student-taught classes.

Members of the audience were impressed that Wesleyan had an established structure for students to teach their peers.

Both Alicia and Rachel are studying in South America (Peru and Ecuador, respectively) this semester and traveled back to the U.S. to attend the conference.