Identity can reduce complex feelings and a lifetime’s worth of experiences to a few simple words. It can also expand people’s understanding of what feelings and experiences mean or could mean. Identities can be fixed or settled, or at least feel fixed or settled. But they can also be emerging—something to be sought out, discovered, or actively worked toward.

During the fall of 2022, the College and campus community will reflect on identity and all that it entails. This includes the process of identification, where we engage in discovery, exploration, and communication around who—or what—someone or something is. The process of identification requires us to ask critical questions and allows us to hone our ability to do so. Some questions might include: How are identities constituted, and how do identities constitute us? How do identities gain social or scientific acceptance? What does it mean to identify someone or something: a solution, a savior, a cure, a criminal? What does it mean to identify with someone or something: a cause, a community, a culture, a nation?