Union College Announces Minorities Day Speaker
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Aaron Thompson, Ph.D., will be the featured speaker at Union College's Minorities Day event on Oct. 11. |
The Union College annual Minorities Day lecture will feature guest speaker Aaron Thompson, Ph.D., and his presentation, "Turning Obstacles into Opportunities: an Appalachian Upbringing."
The event is on Tuesday, Oct. 11 at 9:30 a.m. in the Conway Boatman Chapel on Union's campus. There is no charge to attend, and the lecture is open to the public.
Thompson is senior vice president for academic affairs for the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education. He holds a doctorate in sociology in areas of organizational behavior/race and gender relations.
In his talk, Thompson will discuss both the richness and difficulties of his mountain upbringing, which began in a two-room cabin in a Clay County hollow--a background that ultimately provided him the tools necessary to earn his Ph.D.
Thompson uses humor to effectively tell his uplifting story, which includes Appalachian history and customs, race relations, family influences and education.
As an academic and scholar, Thompson has authored or co-authored numerous books, book chapters and articles on topics ranging from the African-American family to student success. His research has been cited in such publications as Cosmopolitan, the Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel and others.
He has researched, taught, or consulted in areas of educational attainment, assessment, diversity, leadership, ethics, research methodology and social statistics, multicultural families, race and ethnic relations, first-year students, retention, and organizational design. He is nationally recognized in the areas of educational attainment and academic success, African American fatherhood, divorce in the black family, and black and white differences in marital expectations.
The annual Minorities Day event is sponsored by the sociology program in the college's Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Union College is a four-year liberal arts institution related to the United Methodist Church.
