Founder’s Week, a commemoration of Emory College’s founding in 1836, kicked off Sunday and will continue this week by exploring Emory’s racial history and featuring musical performances and film screenings.

Vice President and Deputy to the President Gary Hauk said the week is a midwinter academic festival that will feature a number of arts and sciences events. Hauk said the events of the week were planned with regard to Emory’s Transforming Community Project. The project launched in the fall of 2005 to reconstruct and reexamine Emory’s history as it relates to racial dynamics and will conclude in 2010 with determinations of how the University can move forward from the past.

Other events embracing this thread include “Bones,” a theater production that will use University mascot Lord James W. Dooley and the theme of skeletons as a segue into discussion on the past and present state of race on campus. Hauk will also give a speech titled “The History of History at Emory” on Thursday, followed by Associate Professor of History at Emory’s Oxford College Susan Ashmore’s lecture on how Atticus Haygood helped shape white moderate thought when segregation was rampant in the South.

Hauk said the week also includes a number of events centered around Jane Austen’s works because of faculty proposals, which the University had been soliciting in order to gauge what events would be of interest to the community. He said that Associate Professor of History Judith Miller advocated for a film series.

In addition to academic lectures and panels, Sunday featured an organ performance of Bach compositions by University Organist Timothy Albrecht, and later events in the week will include a tai chi demonstration, a live moon viewing session, film screenings and a string quartet performance.

Hauk said that because of the faltering economy and consequential financial constraints, the University decided to forego Founder’s Ball this year. “We wanted to save the funds and not use them for that. Normally, [Founder’s Ball] would require a great deal of planning,” Hauk said.

The complete Founder's Week schedule is avaiable here.

— Contact Tiffany Han.