Spring 2025 Event Series Announced
We’re pleased to announce our spring 2025 event series! All events are free and open to the public and registration is open at the links below. Event updates and registration details will also be shared on the Pell Center’s social media and through our mailing list. Please call 401-341-2927 or email [email protected] with questions.
MLK Week Keynote
We Are Home: The Beloved Community and American Migration with Dr. Ray Suarez
January 27, 2025 | 4:00 p.m.
Salve Regina University | O’Hare Academic Building | Bazarsky Lecture Hall
In this keynote lecture celebrating Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy building the beloved community through practices and principles of nonviolence, veteran broadcaster and journalist, Ray Suarez, will reflect on the work of his new book: We Are Home: Becoming American in the 21st Century: an Oral History. Suarez will share the voices, contributions, stories, and struggles of immigrants seeking freedom, dignity and humanity to become American in the 21st century.
This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Student Engagement and the Office of Multicultural Programs and Retention, and the McAuley Institute for Mercy Education.
“The Man Card” Film Screening & Discussion with Dr. Mary Anderson
February 4, 2025 | 7:00 p.m.
Salve Regina University | O’Hare Academic Building | Bazarsky Lecture Hall
Location: Salve Regina University | O’Hare Academic Building | Bazarsky Lecture Hall
Join us for a screening of The Man Card, a compelling film that examines 50 years of gender, power, and the American Presidency. Following the screening, Dr. Jackson Katz—the film’s creator and a leading expert on gender, politics, and culture—will continue the discussion with Dr. Mary Anderson, the Brodsky Professor of American Constitutional Democracy and Culture, including questions from the audience.
This event is co-sponsored by The Brodsky Chair in American Constitutional Democracy and Culture.
Pell Center Prize for Story in the Public Square
The Rediscovery of America with Dr. Ned Blackhawk
February 26, 2025 | 7:00 p.m.
Salve Regina University | O’Hare Academic Building | Bazarsky Lecture Hall
For too long, “American history” has really just been the history of European conquest. National Book Award winning author Dr. Ned Blackhawk’s landmark book, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History, returns the continent’s indigenous inhabitants to the history of the United States.
This event is co-sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Programs as a part of Multicultural Education Week
World War II at 80: Reflecting on its Legacies
Speakers: Dr. William Leeman, Dr. Timothy Neary, Dr. John Quinn & Dr. Erin Redihan,
Date: March 5, 2025 | 7:00 p.m.
Salve Regina University | O’Hare Academic Building | Bazarsky Lecture Hall
The members of the Salve Regina University Department of History will reflect on the 80th Anniversary of the end of World War II focusing on the transformational effect of the war on the societies that fought it, and the legacy of the war at home and around the world.
Women’s History Month – Moving Forward Together! Women Educating & Inspiring Generations
America’s First Ladies: Policy Making from the Velvet Pulpit
Dr. Mary Anderson, David and Carolyn Brodsky Chair in U.S. Constitutional Democracy and Culture, Professor of Political Science, Salve Regina University
March 26, 2025 | 7:00 p.m.
Salve Regina University | O’Hare Academic Building | Bazarsky Lecture Hall
Dr. Mary Anderson, Professor of Political Science and David and Carolyn Brodsky Chair in U.S. Constitutional Democracy and Culture will present her research on the role of the First Ladies. Often seen as ceremonial, emphasizing marital and maternal duties, modern First Ladies frequently shape policy priorities and programs, playing a vital role in presidential administrations. The First Ladies Policy Agenda’s Project examines First Ladies’ policy attention highlighting their significance in the policy making process.
Examining the State of American Democracy Today with Professor Robert Putnam, Harvard University
April 15, 2025 | 5:00 p.m.
Salve Regina University | O’Hare Academic Building | Bazarsky Lecture Hall
Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism—Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times. How did we get here and what can we do about it?
Co-sponsors are in formation and will be announced soon.
John E. McGinty Lecture in History
War on Opposite Sides of the World: Eisenhower, Nimitz, and the Second World War
Craig L. Symonds, Professor Emeritus for the History Department in the U.S. Naval Academy
April 24, 2025 | 6:30 p.m.
Salve Regina University | O’Hare Academic Building | Bazarsky Lecture Hall
Dwight Eisenhower and Chester Nimitz commanded the two most critical theaters of the Second World War. They led not only the forces of their own service—Eisenhower, the army, and Nimitz, the navy—they led all the forces of all the services, of all the Allied nations inside their command area. Ike, as he was universally known, was responsible for the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Normandy (D-Day); Nimitz commanded a theater of 65 million square miles, five times the size of Eisenhower’s. Each also had to deal with difficult subordinates and superiors. And yet they each managed to orchestrate victory over their foes. How they did that is the subject of this lecture.