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2021 Berger Lecture to address building inclusion into excellent teaching and learning

October 25, 2021

Dr. Melinda Messineo, Professor of Sociology at Ball State University and nationally recognized diversity/equity teacher, researcher and advocate, will present the 2021 University of Southern Indiana Sydney Berger Lecture. Her lecture, "Building Inclusive Excellence," will be delivered at 6 p.m. Monday, November 1 in Mitchell Auditorium, located in the Health Professions Center on the USI campus. Admission is free and open to the public as capacity allows.

Messineo, in seeking to answer how to make excellence in teaching and learning inclusive, will guide attendees on a sociological exploration of how their personal diversity stories impact their ability to see and eliminate the structural, interpersonal, and intrapersonal barriers to creating the inclusive communities that we aspire to build. 

A member of the Ball State faculty since 1999, Messineo is a recipient of the Ball State Outstanding Diversity Advocate Award, Schnabel Teaching Award from the North Central Sociological Association and the Hans O. Mauksch Award from the American Sociological Association. She has served as President of the North Central Sociological Association and as Chair of the Section for Teaching and Learning for the American Sociological Association. She holds bachelor's (summa cum laude), master's and doctoral degrees in Sociology from the University of California, Riverside.

The Berger Lecture is presented each year by the USI College of Liberal Arts in honor of Sydney Berger, one of Evansville's most respected attorneys who worked with local civil rights organizations and served as an instructor at USI for nearly two decades. Each year, a guest lecturer presents on the theme of civil rights or civil liberties, celebrating the values Berger cherished.

For more information, contact Dr. Ronda Priest, Associate Professor of Sociology, at rpriest@usi.edu.

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