This month’s newsletter is available for download in PDF format.
Table of Contents
WDCSA COVID-19 Update
Due to the evolving COVID-19 outbreak and an abundance of concern for the well-being of our community, the University’s senior leadership has recommended that all large in-person events be cancelled or postponed. However, we will still be hosting virtual events, as detailed below.
In addition, our monthly board meetings will be held virtually until further notice. See below for the August meeting details.
We are going to take this time as an opportunity to brainstorm fun activities and events for the DC-area Stanford Community. If you have any ideas for events, do not hesitate to reach out to the WDCSA Board!
Thank you,
Patricia, James, Stephanie, and Jim
WDCSA Board
Events Calendar
- August 9 – Washington DC Book Club Discussion
- August 18 – Owning Our Privilege: Creating Change in our Organizations, Communities and Ourselves
- September 14 – Baltimore Book Club Discussion
Upcoming Events
Washington DC Book Club Discussion
Sunday, August 9, 5 pm
Zoom
The book group will discuss Kafka by Mairowitz and Crumb.
Details will be sent prior to Zoom discussion.
To join the e-mail list, contact Don Bieniewicz, MS ’75, at donbien@erols.com.
Owning Our Privilege: Creating Change in our Organizations, Communities and Ourselves
Tuesday, August 18, 7-8 pm
Zoom: Link will be sent the day of the town hall.
Join WDCSA for a town hall co-hosted by Stanford Latino Alumni Association – DC, Stanford Black Alumni Association, and Stanford Pride – DC.
Challenges to cultural and societal institutions meet us in daily headlines, and we may be familiar with aspects of institutional misalignment embedded in our day-to-day actions, language and assumptions. You may be asking yourself, “What can I do?”
We are each involved with institutions and communities with whom we interact as partners, vendors, educators, manufacturers or service providers. As members of the Stanford alumni community, we possess a collective privilege simply by having graduated from the institution: how we involve this privilege in what we say and do varies widely.
During this town hall, we’ll explore 1) how we might leverage the privilege we are fortunate to know and 2) what we can do to make a difference, together.
The evening will be designed to be a safe space for discussion. Please join us.
RSVP here http://alumni.stanford.edu/goto/owningourprivilege by August 17, 2020 at noon, 12 pm EDT.
Questions? Please contact:
- Lucy Absi – lucyabsi@hotmail.com
- Latisha Chisholm – latisha@alumni.stanford.edu
- Kyle Duarte – kyle@kduarte.com
- Risa Shimoda – risa@theshimodagroup.com
Baltimore Book Club Discussion
Monday, September 14, 7:30 pm
Google Meet: Everyone will be emailed a link to join the meeting a few minutes before.
Our September selection is The Lady in the Lake: A Novel by Laura Lippman. The author spins a fictitious story intertwining two unrelated actual 1969 murders that occurred in Baltimore, Maryland. One was of an 11 year-old Jewish girl, Esther Lebowitz, and the other was a 35 year-old black woman, Shirley Parker, which remains unsolved.
The protagonist is a female reporter, like the author herself, who once was a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. The setting is 1966, after John F. Kennedy’s assassination and before Martin Luther King’s. The story exposes the deeper societal issues of gender, race, income inequality, and religion.
The November selection is Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham.
Questions/RSVP: Helene Myers, Ph.D., P’14, at cedarhouse@comcast.net
Stanford in the News
- At a special meeting July 30th, Stanford’s Faculty Senate approved new grading policies for the 2020-21 academic year, including one stating that all university courses offered for a letter grade must also give students the option of taking the course for a credit/no credit grade, except courses offered by the Graduate School of Business, the School of Law and the School of Medicine MD program, unless they opt into the policy.