UMass Boston

The United States is in crisis with the future of our unfolding experiment in pluralist democracy unclear. Inspired by the integrity of urbanist and public intellectual Robert C. Wood, this year's Wood Visiting Professorship asks us to consider: What is our civic moral foundation for addressing the many challenges facing us locally, nationally, and globally? How are we fulfilling the covenantal promise of our nation and where are we falling short? How might we, individually and collectively, foster an inclusive vision of “We the People”? Rev. Dr. Ray Hammond, Rev. Dr. Gloria White-Hammond, and Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, each with a lifetime of morally centered integrity and public service, will help us explore how we might realize the values and virtues of the mythic “City on a Hill”—what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called "beloved community"—in Boston and beyond. They will also reflect on how we might reset and reactivate our “civic moral compass.”