Learn more about and purchase Dr. deGruccio’s monograph.

In her dissent to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Affirmative Action in higher education, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted the “let-them-eat-cake obliviousness” of the act. Therefore, this year’s celebration theme was “Let them eat cake!” and focused on the consequences of the end of Affirmative Action. The celebration started at noon with a performance by the Aiden C. McMullen Chorale, a community reading of excerpts from Brown Jackson’s dissent, and free cake for all in attendance. At 1pm, the program continued guest speakers Karen Thompson, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU of New Jersey and Saint Peter’s History Department alumna Gineen Abuali ’20, 3L Seton Hall Law and former ACLU legal intern, who presented “Affirmative Action: The Tyranny of a Soft Landing” and reflected on their own personal reactions to the court’s decision.

This anniversary celebration was sponsored by the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, The Center for Undocumented Students, the Departments of Political Science and Sociology & Urban Studies, and the Africana Studies, Latino Studies, Social Justice, and Gender & Sexuality Studies Programs.

Bill Einreinhofer graduated from Saint Peter’s College with a bachelor’s in History in 1974. Einreinhofer has developed and produced programming for ABC, CBS, Discovery, HBO and Public Television. He was the producer/director of Shanghai 1937: Where World War II Began, which was seen on 200+ American Public Television stations. He is chair emeritus of the Department of Broadcast Journalism at the New York Film Academy.

Pictured are Jamie Troutman ’25, Dr. John Johnson, university archivist Mary Kinahan-Ockay, and Emory Edwards Senior Director of Partnerships and Institutional Relations in the Office of Advancement and External Affairs, on their way to the Council of Independent Colleges Conference in Baltimore, MD.

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In recognition of Black History Month and in celebration of the Saint Peter’s University Sesquicentennial year, on February 28, 2022, Dr. John W. Johnson, Associate Professor of History, presented Ecumenical Loyalties: Reading the Luminaries of the Black Freedom Movement at Saint Peter’s College. This multimedia presentation explored the works of important Civil Rights activists who visited Saint Peter’s, including Bayard Rustin in 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. H ’65, Dick Gregory in 1969, Jesse Jackson in 1972, Amiri Baraka in 1972, Shirley Chisholm in 1973, Mary Lou Williams in 1974 and Coretta Scott King in 1975.

Research for this event was curated from the collections in the Hon. Frank J. Guarini Center for Community Memory by SPU students, under the direction of Dr. Johnson and made possible with sponsorship from Humanities Research for the Public from The Council of Independent Colleges and The Hudson County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs/Tourism Development and in association with the National Council of Teachers of English African American Read-In. It was presented by the History Department, the Theresa and Edward O’Toole Library and the Office of Partnerships and Institutional Research.

(Photo 1) Undeterred by having their original Athenean excursion postponed, the class still found a way to learn about the ancient Greeks at Le Musée Olympique (The Olympic Museum) in Lausanne, Switzerland! This museum is an official partner of the International Olympic Committee and part of the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage, which seeks to exalt not only physical wellness and balancing of “body, will, and mind,” but to promote the education of culture, art, and history, with their participating nations. This philosophy of Olympism sounds pretty Ignatian!

(Photo 2) This photo of the whole group was taken in front of the snowy Swiss Alps; they had just crossed the border into Switzerland!

(Photo 3) Professor Sookram, Dr. Americo, Asthi, Nick, and Matt say cheese!

(Photo 4) And speaking of cheese… check out this cheese factory in Gruyères, Switzerland! The group spent the day in Gruyères sampling their famous cheese and drinking Swiss hot chocolate. Mmm!

(Photo 5) Popularized in America as a feature of 1970s house parties, fondue actually originated in Switzerland centuries ago. Fondue, which comes from the French for “to melt,” is a Swiss national dish of melted cheese (usually Gruyère) and wine, served in a communal pot over a portable stove. It is eaten by dipping pieces of bread into the cheese using long-stemmed forks.

(Photo 6) Although, unlike the cheese, the Alphorn was not created in Gruyères, our students found this circle of Alphorn players there. It is not known exactly how long the Alphorn has been in Switzerland or what it was originally used for, but this large instrument can make surprisingly beautiful music!

(Photo 7) Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) may have been born in a small town near Florence, and he may have traveled nearly everywhere throughout the Italian peninsula and even into France during his lifetime, but it is the city of Milan that claims the Renaissance Man as their son. It is during his 17 years in Milan that Leonardo was commissioned to create some of his most famous works including The Virgin of the Rocks and The Last Supper. Additionally, it was during this time that Leonardo submitted plans for a dome on Duomo di Milano, he drew sketches of a (very) large equestrian monument dedicated to Francesco Sforza which was never completed, and where he draw his famous artistic and scientific study of the human form the Vitruvian Man.

(Photo 8) Geneva, Switzerland is home of one of the four major offices of the United Nations (New York City, Vienna, and Nairobi are the other three). The main administrative offices are located here in the Palais des Nations, which was originally the home of the League of Nations from 1929-1938. Several special agencies, programs, and funds have their headquarters here in the Geneva Office, including the Conference on Disarmament, the Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the World Health Organization.

(Photo 9) In case you thought going abroad over spring break was all fun and games, we have photographic evidence that our students worked hard and continued to learn despite their jet-lag. Here we find our weary travelers stopping for a rest in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Lausanne, Switzerland.

His talk titled, “History, Memory, and the Weequahic Section of Newark,” offered an erudite and empathic meditation on the entangled physical histories of the Jewish and African American populations which call Weequahic home. Dr. Johnson is currently working on a monograph on the history of the Weequahic Section of Newark; his most recent publication, “In the Way of Progress: How a Federal Highway and Political Fragmentation Blighted Neighborhoods in the Weequahic Section of Newark,” was published in New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal this past summer.