Roadrunners and community members are invited to attend events celebrating the 2023 Richard T. and Virginia M. Castro Distinguished Visiting Professorship. Organized by the Department of Chicana/o Studies, the program has long honored Richard T. Castro, an influential community organizer, social worker and Colorado state representative, and his wife, Virginia M. Castro, one of the first instructors in the department at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Meet Nancy López, Ph.D.
As part of the program’s mission to bring renowned Latino/a/x scholars, artists and leaders of distinction to MSU Denver, the program this year welcomes Visiting Professor Nancy López, Ph.D., author and professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico.
Born and raised in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in Baruch Public Housing, López is the eldest of five U.S.-born children of Dominican immigrants who never had the privilege of pursuing education beyond second grade. Spanish was her first language. In 1987, she graduated from Washington Irving High School, a de facto racially segregated large public vocational high school for girls. She participated in federally funded equity-focused programs such as Upward Bound and Head Start.
Guided by the insights of intersectionality in all her work, López now directs the Institute for the Study of “Race” and Social Justice, which she co-founded. She also is the founding coordinator of the New Mexico Statewide Race, Gender, Class Data Policy Consortium. Her book, Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys: Race and Gender Disparity in Urban Education (2003) focuses on the race-gender experiences of Dominicans, West Indians, and Haitians to explain why girls are succeeding at higher rates than boys. Dr. López’s current research, funded by the WT Grant Foundation and Hewlett Foundation, includes a mixed method study in three research practice partnerships that examine the role of ethnic studies curriculum and culturally relevant pedagogy in reducing complex intersectional inequalities in high school.
Event details
All event are free and located at St. Cajetan’s Event Center.
Oct. 16: Student-led sessions
- 11 a.m. – Center for Multicultural Engagement and Inclusion Equity Peer Leaders – Intersectionality, Critical Race Theory and Application: A Deliberative Dialogue with Nancy López, Ph.D.
- 2 p.m. – Meet and Greet with Nancy López, Ph.D., and dialogue on her book “Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys”
Oct. 17
- 12:30 p.m. – Keynote address featuring López
- 3 p.m. – Seeking Critical Cultural Truth and Affirmation of Our BIPOC Identities in Education: A community dialogue
- 5 p.m. – Closing reception
