Dr. Shardé M. Davis in Residence October 2024
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Shardé M. Davis will be in-residence September 2024 with the Speculative Play and Just Futurities program.
While in-residence in Indianapolis, Dr. Shardé M. Davis will work on her latest project, The Sabbath Project (TSP).
Unlike many other American laborers in the US, university faculty earn paid leave for every 6-7 years of university service. Sadly, many faculty do not optimize the benefits of it (at best) or simply do not take a sabbatical (at worst) in part because universities and colleges offer no real guidance, structure, information, or models about sabbatical leave. This is especially true for Black/women faculty who lack access to the “hidden curriculum,” which is unspoken academic, social, and cultural information that undergirds expectations for members of the academic community.
The Sabbath Project (TSP) is envisioned as an all-encompassing tool that re-imagines a future where Black/women faculty have access to the hidden curriculum and use the information to, first, take a sabbatical and, second, design a sabbatical plan that meets university guidelines and the faculty person’s needs and desires. TSP serves as a formative and practical tool that contributes to a more just future for a group of scholars who have been historically relegated to the margins.
About Dr. Shardé M. Davis
Dr. Shardé M. Davis (she/her/hers) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Faculty Affiliate of various research institutes at the University of Connecticut. Her research examines the way Black women leverage communication in the sistah circle to invoke collective identity, erect and fortify the boundaries around their homeplace, and backfill the necessary resources to return to white/male dominant spaces in American society. These ideas have been published in over 50 peer-refereed articles and invited book chapters, and are best represented in her theory, “The Strong Black Woman Collective.”
Her research was formally recognized with the 2018 American Postdoctoral Fellowship from the American Association of University Women and the 2019 Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. In addition to her program of research, Dr. Davis created the viral Twitter Hashtag #BlackintheIvory, which extended a timely opportunity for Blackademic TRUTHtellers to share personal instances (and engage in necessary conversations) about anti-Black racism in academia. She is also the inaugural recipient of the 2021-2022 Faculty of Color Working Group Fellowship funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to edit a new book, Being Black in the Ivory: Truth Telling about Racism in Higher Education (University of North Carolina Press, 2024).