UIC Spark Talks
Featuring CUPPA's Amanda Lewis and Norma Ramos
January 15, 2026
1:30 PM - 4:45 PM
Location
Student Center West, Thompson Rooms
Calendar
Download iCal FileUIC Spark Talks feature 36 faculty and staff presenters in 3-minute talks, which ignite the thoughts and solutions and inspire and create a better world.
Among the Jan. 15 presenters are Amanda Lewis, director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy and LAS distinguished professor, and Norma Ramos, senior associate director of the Institute for Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement and adjunct lecturer.
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Amanda E. Lewis is the Director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy and College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor of Black Studies and Sociology. Her award-winning research focuses on how race shapes educational opportunities and on how our ideas about race get negotiated in everyday life. She is the author of “Despite the Best Intentions: Why Racial Inequality Persists in Good Schools” (Oxford University Press, 2nd edition) and “Race in the Schoolyard: Negotiating the Color-line in Classrooms and Communities” (Rutgers University Press 2003). Her research has appeared in a number of academic venues, including Sociological Theory, American Educational Research Journal, Ethnic & Racial Studies, Educational Researcher, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, The Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Urban Education, and The Du Bois Review. She has received grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Spencer Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Field Foundation, and the American Sociological Association. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards including the Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award from the American Sociological Association, the Founders Award for Scholarship & Service from the ASA’s Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities, and a Distinguished Career Award from the ASA Section on Children and Youth. As Director of IRRPP, she has led over ten years of engaged scholarship, including co-authoring over a dozen reports with community partners as part of the State of Racial Justice in Chicago project.
Presentation Title: The State of Racial Justice in Chicago
Abstract: UIC is a premier urban research university. As UIC’s Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, one of our primary objectives is to put research to work to advance understanding of Chicago, or as we put it in our mission, to “increase society’s understanding of the root causes of racial and ethnic inequality and to provide the public, organizers, practitioners, and policymakers with research-based policy solutions.” In 2017, we were faced with two deep frustrations. First, was our frustration with popular narratives about Chicago that were inaccurate at best and harmful to the communities they purported to describe at worst. Second, we were frustrated about the lack of attention given to UIC’s top-notch scholars – scholars whose work was critical to helping us understand the larger community in which we are embedded. We knew that the realities of Chicagoans’ daily lives were far more complex than the picture of supposedly violent communities described in national news stories. And yet, we also knew that even as Chicagoans of all racial and ethnic groups want to live in safe and healthy communities where they don’t just subsist or survive but also thrive, not all have equal access. To address these challenges, we initiated a new project, the State of Racial Justice in Chicago, to document the conditions and experiences of racial and ethnic groups in the City of Chicago and its surrounding metro area. To date, in collaboration with UIC scholars and a number of community partners, we have produced eleven reports. The reports have been taken up by a wide range of local institutions to inform their work, develop public policy, educate local young people and adults, support grant writing for community projects, reshape philanthropic activity, and inform news coverage about the area.
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Norma Ramos was hired as Associate Director of Communications for the Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE) when it was founded in the fall of 2008 and appointed as Senior Associate Director in August 2024. As Senior Associate Director, she is responsible for leading strategic direction, initiatives and management related to the Institute’s core areas of research, education and public discourse.
She is an instructor for the Dialogue 120 Seminar, a course for UIC first-year students, designed to familiarize students with introductory topics in diversity, dialogic communication, and social justice and an on-line Instructor for the School of Continuing Studies for the Certificate Nonprofit Management Program. She is also adjunct lecturer for BA 320 Civic Engagement in the College of Business.
Presentation Title: Empowering Engagement and Democratic Learning
Abstract: Teaching community engagement within civic engagement empowers students to develop the knowledge, skills, and motivation to actively address social issues and improve the well-being of communities through collaborative partnerships.
Date posted
Jan 6, 2026
Date updated
Jan 6, 2026