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Incoming Berkeley Social Welfare Dean Susan Stone invites you to a timely conversation with john a. powell and Stephen Menendian about their book, Belonging without Othering. We’ll discuss the authors’ approach to community-building that “encourages us to turn toward one another in unprecedented and radical ways”—and how we may apply that framework to social work education, practice, and scholarship.
This event takes place Tuesday, April 15th, 2025. Reception is at 5pm and the book talk will begin at 6pm. Join us at the Haviland Commons in Haviland Hall, room 116, or virtually via Zoom. Click here to add a reminder to your calendar.
Register and find more information here. Please contact Dora Turkovich (swevents@berkeley.edu, 510-457-8715) with questions and access needs.
About the speakers:
john a. powell is Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute And Professor of Law, African American, and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He was previously the Executive Director at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Ohio State University, and prior to that, the founder and director of the Institute for Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota. john formerly served as the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Stephen Menendian is the Assistant Director and Director of Research at the Othering & Belonging Institute, where he supervises or leads many important initiatives, including projects advising state, local, and federal housing authorities. Stephen is the author of many scholarly publications and journal articles, including the landmark books Structural Racism: The Dynamics of Opportunity and Race in America and Belonging Without Othering: How We Save Ourselves and the World (with john a. powell) from Stanford University Press. Stephen’s primary areas of expertise are structural racism, civil rights, fair housing, belonging, affirmative action, targeted universalism, and educational equity.
Susan Stone is the Interim Dean for Berkeley Social Welfare as well as the Catherine Mary and Eileen Clare Hutto Professor of Social Services in Public Education at the School of Social Welfare.
Her research agenda focuses on understanding and advancing the conditions and practices of school social work and other related service provision in educational settings to support the school experiences and trajectories of K-12 students, with a particular focus on equitable school policies, routines, and practices. She is interested in partnered research approaches, in which research questions and procedures are co-constructed with community partners, gaining and applying knowledge that is responsive to the community’s interests and needs. She brings considerable experience in school administrative data analysis.
Dr. Stone is widely published in academic journals. She was elected to the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare in 2020 and was elected to its Board in 2023.
