Campus Currents

Monday, Feb. 2, 2026

Official portrait of the Space Shuttle Challenger Crew

 

Challenger Series: The Challenger Disaster and Its Historical Context

Wednesday, Feb. 4, 5 p.m., Zoom Webinar

Remembering the 40th Anniversary of the Challenger disaster: January 28, 1986-2026.  

The Christa McAuliffe Center invites multi-generational audiences to a series of conversations that will explore key formative moments in the life of Christa McAuliffe; examine the historical context of the 1986 Challenger mission; and reflect on the lessons learned from the tragedy.

The Challenger Disaster and its Historical Context

Speakers:

Jennifer Levasseur, Space History Curator, National Air and Space Museum

Dr. Jon Huibregtse, Professor Emeritus, History, Framingham State University

What links us together? Event 2

Wednesday, Feb. 4, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., McCarthy Dinning Commons Annex

This is a collaborative, year-long art project designed to encourage connections between friends and strangers. Community members across Framingham will write, draw, or stitch words on cloth to represent their identities. Then, using an actual bridge as a canvas, the cloth will be knotted and woven together. A digital artistic catalog will be presented at the final event.

Knox Trail Commemoration: 250 Years

Sunday, Feb. 8, 2 to 4 p.m., Framingham Centre Common

The major victory of 1776 in Massachusetts was the successful siege by the Revolutionary Army of the British occupation of Boston that led to their departure on Evacuation Day (March 17th). The catalyst of that victory was the amazing feat, led by Boston's Henry Knox under the authority of George Washington, to drag artillery by horse across snow and rivers and so on from Fort Ticonderoga to Dorchester Heights. When the British saw the outcome, they decided they had to abandon their occupation and left. The so-called Knox Trail (or Noble Trail of Artillery) passed across Massachusetts through 33 towns and cities. The people organizing the celebration have found teamster horses, cannons, re-enactors and so forth to allow a rolling celebration across the route.

This special event will feature horse and oxen pulled sleds, live music, artillery demonstrations, living history colonial reenactors, Revolutionary War artifacts, and more! Learn more at www.framinghamhistory.org. 

Argos Test Kitchen

Thursday, Feb. 5, 9 a.m., Microsoft Teams

Cooking up your first report in Argos

The quarterly Argos Test Kitchen sessions are guided, hands-on workshops designed especially for our users who don't have coding experience (and don't want it!). IT has done all the grocery shopping for you, so all you have to do is pull it all together for a delicious dish.

Each session will be offered virtually so you can work directly in Argos on your own computer.

Interested? 

Registration is required so we can make sure you have all the necessary permissions in Argos before we get started. Please RSVP here! 

Danforth Drop into Art

Sunday, Feb. 8, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Danforth Art Museum and School

Join us for a delightful afternoon exploring creative collage techniques as seen in layered vellum constructions by artist Rachel Loischild. Play and experiment with patterned fabric, torn paper, ink, magazine image transfers, buttons, and texture rubbings as you arrange them in layers for a collage.

Learn more here.

Business professors discuss relevance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s ideals in their professions

By Francisco Omar Fernandez Rodriguez
Publications Intern

The Center for Inclusive Excellence hosted a panel discussion on the connection between Martin Luther King Jr.’s ideals and topics related to modern business, including labor, trade, artificial intelligence, and federal policies.

The discussion was led by business professor Jorge Riveras, business chair John Palabiyik, and economics professor Luis Daniel Rosero. Riveras said AI can both raise productivity in some aspects and cause disruption in others, so it is important to guide AI in such a way to reduce the disruption.  When used in the hiring process, AI still experiences bias and can lead to inequalities based on names, gender, and race, he said.
He also discussed tariffs, and how they can be used as “a tool to protect domestic industries” but should not be used as retaliation.

MLK’s ideals are connected to these issues because his “work explicitly connects domestic justice to the global system, war and poverty, arguing for a revolution of values, and critiquing structures that concentrate harm on the vulnerable.”

Palabiyik said the era we’re living in now and the one MLK lived in around 50 years are not very different. Society has slowly gone forward and backward, he added. He said in the past people had to fight for minimum wages and opportunities, and in the present day people are fighting for similar goals, as well as new ones such as access to capable AI. He said the hospitality industry is full of discrimination, particularly in the form of prices.

“If the plane has 300 seats and there are 305 customers, guess who is going to be cut from the plane? If you had the best price, you can start to think about if you’re going to be in the plane or not,” Palabiyik said.

Rosero said he always starts his class with an article from the Pew Research Institute where they ask people if they support free trade. He said when they asked economists, around 90% of them answered yes, but when they asked the general public, the results were split somewhat evenly. Economic textbooks tend to make the argument for free trade, but he feels they need to acknowledge everyone who aren’t supportive of it as well, he said.

Rosero said MLK’s idea of the two Americas - the differences between Black and white American lives - relates to the winners and losers of free trade.
 

Additional Events