Dialogue Across Difference: University as a Historical Site of Reifying Democracy In-Person
The Office for Faculty Excellence and the Dialogue Across Difference Working Group invite all faculty and leaders to a conversation on the university’s evolving role in shaping and sustaining democracy, featuring Patricia Virella (Associate Professor, Educational Leadership), Jason Williams (Professor, Justice Studies), and Leslie Wilson (Professor, History; Associate Dean, CHSS).
The university has long been imagined as both a crucible and guarantor of democratic life, positioned as a space where open inquiry, deliberation, and civic participation are cultivated. This panel interrogates the historical role of the university in reifying democracy, both as an intellectual ideal and as an institutional practice. While examining the contradictions that arise in the present moment, we explore how universities have historically fashioned themselves as democratic institutions, sites where access to knowledge was linked to the broader public good, and how these ideals have become embedded in discourses of citizenship and progress. However, against this legacy, contemporary policy landscapes are increasingly subjecting universities to restrictive governance frameworks and partisan attacks that undermine their capacity to serve as democratic arenas. Panelists Dr. Wilson, Dr. Williams, and Dr. Virella will analyze how current shifts in funding models, free speech debates, and accountability measures fracture the democratic promise of higher education, often deepening exclusion rather than fostering inclusion. By situating these dynamics within longer historical trajectories, we aim to offer a critical assessment of the university’s paradoxical role: at once a symbolic bastion of democracy and a site where democracy’s erosion becomes most visible.
MODERATOR: Tanesha Thomas (Assistant Teaching Professor, Sociology)
- Date:
- Wednesday, November 5, 2025
- Time:
- 12:00pm - 1:00pm
- Time Zone:
- Eastern Time - US & Canada (change)
- Location:
- Cole Hall 340
- Audience:
- Community Faculty Faculty Leaders Instructors
Dr. Jason Williams is a Professor of Justice Studies at Montclair State University. He’s a passionate activist criminologist deeply concerned about racial and gender disparity and mistreatment within the criminal legal system. He’s published various articles on returning citizens and incarceration, policing and race, gender, and social control, and the broader implications around racialized social control. He is a qualitative criminologist who engages in community-grounded approaches to research. His perspectives and research has been quoted by media outlets around the nation.
Professor of History, Associate Dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and expert on environmental racism in New York City, community development, American History and African American studies.
Dr. Patricia M. Virella, an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, has joined OFE as a Faculty Leader for AY24. Dr. Virella’s research focuses on implementing equity-oriented leadership through leader responses, programmatic interventions, and preparation. Dr. Virella also studies equity-oriented crisis leadership examining how school leaders can respond to crises without further harming marginalized communities. She seeks to answer research questions to enable transformation and liberation in school leaders, districts and policies.
Dr. Vera Senina is a cross-disciplinary teacher and scholar in the humanities, critical theory, medical narratives, and computational linguistics. Vera has experience teaching in diverse modalities, designing innovative student-centered courses, and organizing conference panels and workshops on inclusive curriculum development, assessment strategies, and project-based learning. She also has top-company industry experience in language AI, team development, and project management.