2023 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Speaker: Che Anderson

On January 4, we welcomed a special guest speaker, Che Anderson, to our campus, to help us kick off our Kaleidoscope program and celebrate Dr. King’s legacy.

Che is the Assistant Vice Chancellor for City and Community Relations at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he serves as a human bridge between the institution and external stakeholders, and previously served as the Deputy Cultural Development Officer for the City of Worcester where he focused on public art, special events, and cultural equity. An avid lover of street art, Che led efforts to increase Worcester’s public art, most notably serving as co-founding Director of POW! WOW! Worcester, an annual placemaking festival that brought internationally acclaimed muralists, illustrators, and installation artists to Central Massachusetts to activate vacant and underused spaces, and to promote diversity and stimulate dialogue in the City of Worcester. Che’s recent endeavors include serving on the Rose Kennedy Greenway Public Art Advisory Group, and the board of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA).

Che spoke to our community about carrying on the work of Dr. King—not just in our art, but in our community organization and activism, and in our efforts to bring global communities together. He reminded us, in the words of Mary Douglas: “If you want to change the culture, you have to start by changing the organization.”