Dickinson to Host Lecture on Love, Joy and Culturally Responsive Education
Morgan lecturer to discuss transformative power of love, joy
Bettina L. Love, an author, activist and Columbia University professor, will visit Dickinson to present her work on the importance of culturally responsive education. Her lecture, Love, Joy, Creativity & the Brain: The Heart of Culturally Responsive Education, will take place Wednesday, Nov. 5, at 7 p.m. in the Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium (ATS), 360 W. Louther St. The event is free and open to the public; it will not be livestreamed.
In this keynote, Love will explore the transformative power of love in education. Rooted in the belief that love and joy are the foundations of meaningful learning and human connection, she blends compelling storytelling, evidence-based research and practical strategies to show how emotionally grounded teaching can radically reshape educational spaces.
Love draws from the groundbreaking neuroscience of Zaretta Hammond and the liberatory teachings of bell hooks to center the concept of love not as sentimentality but as an ethic rooted in care, accountability and justice. She highlights how culturally responsive teaching, when combined with joy and emotional attunement, aligns both with how the brain learns best and how communities heal and thrive. In her view, creativity is a vital tool to honor cultural diversity, affirm identities and spark curiosity—inviting students into deeper engagement and a stronger sense of belonging.
Love holds the William F. Russell Professorship at Teachers College, Columbia University, with expertise in curriculum and teaching. Her research includes abolitionist teaching, hip-hop education, educational reparations and art-based education as a catalyst for civic engagement, among other subjects. She is the author of the bestselling book Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal, for which she was awarded the Stowe Prize for Literary Activism in 2024.
The Nov. 5 event is Dickinson's 2025 Morgan Lecture. Endowed by Dickinson’s Board of Trustees in 1992, the Morgan Lectureship was created in grateful appreciation for the distinguished service of James Henry Morgan, an 1878 graduate of Dickinson who served as a professor of Greek, dean and president of the college. The Morgan Lecture brings to campus a scholar in residence each year to meet informally with individuals and class groups and to deliver the Morgan Lecture on topics in the social sciences and humanities. Recent scholars have included Kwame Anthony Appiah, Allissa Richardson, Roosevelt Montás, Audra Simpson and Deirdre Cooper Owens.
This program is presented by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Morgan Lecture Fund and co-sponsored by the departments of sociology and Africana studies and the First Year Seminar Program. For additional information, please visit clarkeforum.org or email clarkeforum@dickinson.edu.
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Published November 3, 2025