On February 25, 2022, the Department of Sociology hosted the first of the spring colloquiums. Professor Kamesha Spates delivered her lecture, Built for Pressure?: A Closer Look at Suicide in the Black Community, at 10:30 AM in the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Community Studies Center, Room 115.

Professor Kamesha Spates is an Associate Sociology Professor at Kent State University (KSU) and the founder and director for the Racial Justice and Health Equity Research and Education Collaborative (RJHEREC) which trains KSU undergraduate and graduate students on conducting health-related research from a racial equity and transdisciplinary standpoint. Her specializations include the intersections of race, class, and gender; the African American experience; mental health; and suicidology. In 2016, she published, “What Don’t Kill Us Makes Us Stronger: Black Women on Suicide” which offered a deeper understanding of the positive life strategies that underlie black women’s resilience. Her work can be found in the Journal of Black Psychology, The Ohio Journal of Public Health, Sex Roles, Journal of Pan African Studies, and media outlets including Essence Magazine and HuffPost.