Author Reginald Dwayne Betts to speak at Kegley Institute of Ethics Fall Lecture

Fall semester to include several online KIE events open to the campus, community

By California State University, Bakersfield

August 20^th, 2021

The Kegley Institute of Ethics (KIE) at California State University, Bakersfield is proud to announce public speaker, lawyer and author Reginald Dwayne Betts as the featured speaker for the 17th Annual Fall Lecture.

Betts will discuss his 2009 memoir “A Question of Freedom: Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison” and his experience from being incarcerated at 16 years old to becoming an acclaimed writer and graduate of Yale Law School. The event will be held via Zoom at 6 p.m. on Nov. 10 and is open to the public.

This program is hosted in conjunction with the institute’s Humanities Beyond Bars initiative, which aims to increase public understanding of incarceration in California’s Central Valley and the human condition of formerly incarcerated people.

"Hosting Reginald Dwayne Betts continues a KIE programming focus on ethical issues relating to mass incarceration, a topic of great relevance to our own Central Valley,” said KIE Director Dr. Michael Burroughs. “Betts is an accomplished poet, legal professional, and advocate for understanding current failures in the criminal justice system and, also, ways to reimagine public safety — beyond mass incarceration — in our nation. Given his own experience with incarceration, Betts will also share intimate insights into the human condition of those incarcerated as well as ideas for positive change."

Betts’ latest poetry collection, “Felon: Poems,” was published in 2019. He has also written two other poetry collections: “Bastards of the Reagan Era” and “Shahid Reads His Own Palm.”

His writing has earned him a Soros Justice Fellowship, a Radcliffe Fellowship, a Ruth Lily Fellowship, an NAACP Image Award and a New America Fellowship.

Due to his work, Betts was appointed by President Barack Obama to the Coordinating Council of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in 2012. More recently, he was appointed by Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont to the Criminal Justice Commission, which is responsible for hiring prosecutors in the state.

The Fall Lecture is just one of several online events that KIE is hosting this fall. The events will kick off during Ethics Week, which runs from Sept. 13-19. All events will be held via Zoom.

"Our Fall 2021 events continue the Kegley Institute tradition of bringing our campus and community together for dialogue on pressing issues in our region and beyond,” Dr. Burroughs said. “We look forward to engaging talks and conversation with our community on issues ranging from incarceration and disability justice to better understanding free speech rights and conflicts."

Here is the schedule for the rest of the fall events:

Sept. 14: KIE and Campus Programming will host “Ethics in Film” at 7 p.m. This event is for students only.

Sept. 15: KIE will host “Ethics in Leadership: A Conversation with Traco Matthews,” at 6 p.m. Matthews is the Chief Program Officer for the Community Action Partnership of Kern. This lecture is open to the public.

Sept. 17: As part of the KIE Faculty Colloquia Series, Dr. Adriana Cervantes-González will be providing a presentation titled “To Speak or Not to Speak: On Sharing Your Truth.” Cervantes-González is a lecturer in the Kremen School of Education & Human Development at California State University, Fresno. The event starts at 12 p.m. and is for CSUB faculty and staff only.

Sept. 18: KIE will host its “Ethics Across the Curriculum” workshop at 9 a.m. This event is for CSUB faculty only.

Sept. 29: As part of the Kaiser Permanente Bioethics and Medical Humanities Speaker Series, Dr. Joel Michael Reynolds will provide a presentation titled “Disability Justice and the Future of American Society: Lessons from COVID-19.” Dr. Reynolds is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Disability Studies at Georgetown University and Senior Research Scholar for the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. The event will be held at 6 p.m. and is open to the public.

Oct. 14: As part of the KIE Community Colloquia Series, Dr. Sigal Ben-Porath from the University of Pennsylvania will discuss her new book “Free Speech on Campus” and whether campuses should restrict free speech to prevent harmful speech. Dr. Ben-Porath is a Professor in the Literacy, Culture and International Education Division of the Penn Graduate School of Education. The event starts at 6 p.m. and is open to the public.

Oct. 15: KIE will host another “Ethics Across the Curriculum” workshop at 1 p.m. for CSUB faculty.

Nov. 12: As part of the KIE Faculty Colloquia Series, Dr. Sumita Sarma will provide a lecture called “The Role of Ethics in Online Teaching: A Case Study” at 12 p.m. for CSUB faculty and staff only. Dr. Sarma is an Assistant Professor of Management and the Director of the Business Research and Education Center at CSUB.

Dec. 4: The California Regional Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl Tournament will be held in partnership with Bakersfield College. There is no set time yet for this event.

Links to all public Zoom events will be provided in advance of each event on the Kegley Institute of Ethics website as well as its Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages.