The free event on Sept. 13 will allow UofSC students, faculty and staff to deepen their understanding of the award-winning book.
As part of the University of South Carolina’s First Year Reading Experience program, incoming students will have the chance to read Biased, an award-winning book written by Jennifer Eberhardt. On Sept. 13 at 6 p.m., students will be able to hear from Eberhardt for free at the Koger Center for the Arts, where the Stanford professor will further shed light on the concept of implicit bias.
“We are so lucky to have Dr. Eberhardt visiting our campus to speak with both our students, our faculty and our staff,” says Sandra Kelly, vice provost at South Carolina and chair of the First Year Reading Experience book committee. “Biased is both a scholarly and engaging book that will provide students a sense of what implicit bias is and how these biases are formed. I hope that being able to hear from Dr. Eberhardt will further deepen students’ understanding and push them to develop insight about their own and others’ implicit biases.”
Eberhardt’s visit to campus is co-sponsored by UofSC's University 101 Programs and the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This partnership is allowing for her to speak with South Carolina’s faculty throughout the day — a first for a First Year Reading Experience author.
“Dr. Eberhardt’s book Biased is a scholarly examination of the formation of implicit bias and the role that stereotypes play in our everyday perceptions of each other. It is an entertaining read that explores the reasons for all types of bias including racial, gender and religious,” said Julian R. Williams, vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion at South Carolina. “Because UofSC brings together so many different individuals with various lived experiences to campus, we felt it would be important for students think critically about how they perceive each other.”
A social psychologist at Stanford University, Eberhardt conducts research on race and inequality. Through interdisciplinary collaborations and a wide-ranging array of methods — from laboratory studies to novel field experiments — Eberhardt has revealed the startling, and often dispiriting, extent to which racial imagery and judgments shape actions and outcomes in our criminal justice system and in our neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces.
After receiving her Ph.D. from Harvard University, Eberhardt joined the faculty at Yale University in Psychology and African & African American Studies. She joined the Stanford faculty in 1998, where she is currently a Professor of Psychology, the Morris M. Doyle Centennial Professor of Public Policy, and a Faculty Director of Stanford SPARQ. In 2014, Eberhardt was named a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow and one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers. In 2016, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as the National Academy of Sciences.
The First Year Reading Experience at the University of South Carolina has been building community on campus among freshman students since 1993. This fall, Biased is being discussed in many U101 classes and serves as a pillar of common learning and experience among UofSC’s freshman class.
The event is free for all attendees and is open to UofSC students, faculty, staff and their guests. Seats are first-come, first-serve and the event is expected to last for one hour.