Restorative justice activist Fania Davis to visit campus Oct. 7-10

Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow Fania Davis, an internationally renowned activist and civil rights leader, will visit Mount Mary University for an intensive weeklong visit Oct. 7-10. Davis will conduct classes, seminars, workshops and lectures and will meet with students and faculty members informally throughout the week to share her practical knowledge in the area of restorative justice.

The recipient of numerous humanitarian awards for her work, particularly as co-founder of the Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY), Davis will meet with faculty and students, and hold a number of lectures and workshops.

Davis’s coming-of-age in Birmingham, Alabama, during the social ferment of the civil rights era, crystallized her passionate commitment to social transformation. For the next decades, she was active in many civil rights movements. After receiving her law degree from University of California, Berkeley in 1979, Dr. Davis practiced almost 27 years as a civil rights trial lawyer. 

During the late 1990’s, she entered a Ph.D. program in indigenous studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and apprenticed with traditional healers around the globe.

“This opportunity to bring a civil rights leader to campus, who shares our commitment to promoting compassion and healing in the community, is truly inspiring,” said Mount Mary President Christine Pharr, Ph.D. “Fania can bring to life the concepts we discuss in an academic environment and how they relate to our mission within the broader community.”

The Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows program, administered by the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) in Washington, D.C., brings prominent artists, diplomats, journalists, business leaders and other professionals to campuses across the United States for a weeklong residential program of classes, seminars, workshops, lectures and informal discussions. For more than 45 years, Visiting Fellows have been introducing students and faculty members at liberal arts colleges to a wide range of perspectives on life, society, community, and achievement. The Visiting Fellows program is available to all four-year colleges and universities. For more information, visit CIC’s website at www.cic.edu/VisitingFellows.