The Tarrytown Meetings

7:15 - Post-Dinner Program: Academia Meets Activism; Advocacy Meets Scholarship

The Tarrytown Meetings are unique in the diverse groups that they bring together, including scholars from a range of disciplines and advocates from a number of constituencies. Many participants have worn different hats at different points in their lives, and many move fluidly between the worlds of academia and advocacy. The Tarrytown mix has been enlivening and productive, with many participants from mainly academic backgrounds expressing gratitude for the opportunity to work with activists, and vice versa.

At this year’s Tarrytown Meeting, we would like to build on what we’ve begun, and explicitly consider the importance of academically engaged advocacy and publicly engaged scholarship. How might our work at Tarrytown learn from successful academic-activist partnerships that already exist – the successes, the difficulties, and the knowledge gained along the way? What structures for communication, idea-sharing and collaboration could be set up to enable dialog between activists and academics after Tarrytown? After this third Tarrytown Meeting, we will need to focus on taking our messages public, a pursuit that makes academia-advocacy partnerships all the more crucial.

The hope is that this plenary will set in motion a collaborative spirit which could run throughout the remainder of the meeting.

If you would like to participate in a pre-Tarrytown discussion about ways to structure this plenary session, please contact Emily Beitiks.