First DEEP meeting to be held Sept. 11

DEEP is the Center for Race, Ethnicity & Diversity Education’s (CREDE) signature program for social justice. We provide spaces for the Elon community to learn about, reflect on, and apply concepts of social justice with a foundation in racial equity. Together, we hope to achieve a greater understanding of identities, power, and their relation to systemic inequities.

The first lecture of the semester for DEEP: Rooted in Social Justice will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 11.

This year DEEP will bridge the curricular and co-curricular by featuring lectures from faculty and community experts. These experts will provide opportunities for the Elon community to critically engage in various topics and concepts of social justice. Topics are assigned monthly and DEEPmeets bi-weekly to give the opportunity to continue conversations not finished in the first meeting.

The second meeting of the month will continue the conversation and further engage participants through peer-led activities. Our first faculty guest is Rebecca Todd Peters, professor of religious studies and director of the Poverty and Social Justice Program, and will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 11, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in Moseley 215.

As a feminist and Christian social ethicist, Rebecca Todd Peters’ scholarship focuses on questions of social ethics as they relate to economics, the environmental crisis, globalization, poverty and women’s access to reproductive health care. Peters addresses issues of conflict and social injustice in the world with the recognition that religion plays a significant role in shaping people’s worldviews and moral ideas. Her most recent work is developing a Christian ethic of reproductive justice as the framework for thinking about women’s whole reproductive lives, including everything from access to contraception to fertility treatments to unplanned pregnancies.